The Open IPTV Forum, a group of many of the largest names in IPTV, has published its first architecture specification. The publication is an attempt to simplify and bring together the alphabet soup of technologies involved in IPTV.

The group said its objective was to make IPTV system design independent from the technology behind it. It hopes to establish an end-to-end global specification for IPTV services accessible from any consumer device — from headend to home.

“It is essential to find a way to bridge the different islands of standardization in order to accelerate market deployments,” the group in a statement. “The Open IPTV Forum has developed an end-to-end solution to allow any consumer end-device, compliant to the Open IPTV Forum specifications, to access enriched and personalized IPTV services either in a managed or a non-managed network. To that end, the Open IPTV Forum focuses on standardizing the user-to-network interface (UNI) both for a managed and a non-managed network”

The group has also announced a collection of new members, bringing the total membership to 26. The new companies are: Accenture, ANT Software, Funai Electric, Quative-Kudelski Group, SES-Astra, Sharp, Sun Microsystems and Toshiba. Original members of the group are Ericsson, France Telecom Group, Nokia-Siemens, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia.

A notable no-show from the group is Microsoft, a major creator of IPTV software. It has given no public reason for its lack of participation.

To download the specification, visit http://www.openiptvforum.org/.

With 26 members from across the industry, the Open IPTV Forum hopes to find a way to bridge the different islands of standardization to accelerate market deployments.