The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) has disclosed the details of its ISMA conformance program, a formal certification process designed to provide objective measurements for creating, compressing and delivering streamed content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks based on open industry standards.
The conformance program was announced during a panel discussion at IBC2004 on the challenges of interoperability, conducted within the framework of an all-day conference entitled MPEG Technologies — Setting New Standards.
The ISMA Conformance Program is structured as a self-test process that provides participants with discrete conformance test suites for each profile, or encoding layer. Test procedures are categorized by product type, such as encoders, hinters, servers, live encoders and players, and reflect compliance requirements set forth in existing ISMA specifications.
The alliance published its first specification, ISMA 1.0, in 2001, and released earlier this year the first DRM specification in the industry, ISMA Authentication and Encryption 1.0.
Candidates register for the conformance program and download the necessary tools and documentation to conduct testing. Candidates also are given access to reference products that comply fully with ISMA specifications and against which candidate products will be tested. Candidates submit test results for verification of product conformance and subsequent authorization to use the ISMA-approved designation in products, on packaging, and in marketing materials once the results have been confirmed.
For more information, visit www.isma.tv.
