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Datacasting (data broadcasting) is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. It most often refers to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital television, but may also be applied to digital signals on analog TV or radio. It generally does not apply to data which is inherent to the medium, such as PSIP data which defines virtual channels for DTV or direct broadcast satellite systems; or to things like cable modem or satellite modem, which use a completely separate channel for data.

Datacasting often provides news, weather, traffic, stock market, and other information which may or may not relate to the program[s] it is carried with. It may also be interactive, such as gaming, shopping, or education. An electronic program guide is usually included, although this stretches the definition somewhat, as this is often considered inherent to the digital broadcast standard.

The ATSC, DVB and ISDB standards allow for broadband datacasting via DTV, though they do not necessarily define how. The overscan and VBI are used for analog TV, for moderate and low bandwidths (including closed captioning in the VBI) respectively. DirectBand and RDS/RBDS are medium and narrow subcarriers used for analog FM radio. The EUREKA 147 and HD Radio standards both allow for datacasting on digital radio, defining a few basics but also allowing for later expansion.

The term IP Datacasting (IPDC) is used in DVB-H for the technical elements required to send IP packets over DVB-H broadband downstream channel combined with a return channel over a mobile communications network such as GPRS or UMTS. The set of specifications for IP Datacast (phase1) was approved by DVB in October 2005.

See also: Digital television in Australia

Australian broadcast infrastructure company Broadcast Australia are undertaking a three year trial in Sydney of a datacasting service using the DVB-T system for use in Australia.

The trial consists of a number of services on one standard 7MHz multiplex, collectively known as Digital Forty Four.

The collection includes:

• A combined program guide for the free-to-air broadcasters (Channel 4)
• ABC news, sport, and weather items (Channel 41)
• Channel NSW (link) Government and Public Information, including real time traffic information and life surf webcam images (Channel 45)
• Australian Christian Channel (Channel 46)
• Expo Home Shopping (Channel 49) and
• Federal parliamentary audio broadcasts.

More recently a near-Australia wide broadcast of a datacasting channel called MyTalk has begun. Broadcasting as part of the multiplex on Southern Cross and Southern Cross Ten stations, it provides news, weather and other information, available free to anyone able to tune in. The stream consists of text applicable to the viewer's location and a 4:3 video window of broadcast TV from the relevant Southern Cross/Southern Cross Ten station.

Malaysian multi-channel pay-TV operator, MiTV Corporation Sdn Bhd has launched its IP over UHF service in September 2005. The full digital broadcast capacity is being used to deliver IP services which such as multicast streaming and datacasting.

Mindset Network has developed an IP satellite datacast platform for the distribution of educatinal and health content to sites around South Africa and increasingly throughout the rest of Africa as well. The model is a forward and store model allowing users of the platform to view content in an on-demand fashion. Content distributed in this way includes video content, print-based content (in the form of PDF files), as well as interactive computer-based multimedia content.

Significantly, the model also includes access to a GPRS network that allows the receiving sites to communicate back to the Mindset central server. Communications include statistics about the physical health of the machine (e.g. power status, disk drive usage) as well as usage statistics indicating what content has been viewed.

The model also includes a distributed deployment of the Moodle LMS, allowing users to take assessments and then have the results transmitted via GPRS to the Mindset server for accreditation.

• Interactive television
• DVB-H
• Multimedia home platform
• UDcast
• MPEG Multiprotocol encapsulation
• MPEG Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation

• Digital Forty Four (Official Site)
• PBS National Datacast (NDI)