Interactive television
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Interactive television describes any number of efforts to allow viewers to interact with television content as they view. It is sometime called interactive TV, iTV, idTV or ITV (not to be confused with the British Independent Television network).
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[edit] Definitions of Interactive Television
There is much discussion on how to precisely define interactive television, but there is one aspect of iTV that we can agree on: it represents a continuum from low interactivity (TV on/off, volume, changing channels) to moderate interactivity (simple movies on demand without player controls) and high interactivity in which, for example, an audience member affects the program being watched. The most obvious example of this would be any kind of real-time voting on the screen in which the audience's votes create decisions that are reflected in how the show continues. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience. Once a movie is downloaded for example, the controls will probably all be local. The only link needed was to download the program.
[edit] Return path
To be truly Interactive, the viewer must be able to alter the viewing experience (eg choose which angle to watch a football match), or return information to the broadcaster. This "return path" or "back channel" can be by telephone, mobile SMS (text messages), or cable. Cable viewers receive their programs via a cable, and in the integrated cable return path enabled platforms, they use the same cable as a return path. Satellite viewers (mostly) return information to the broadcaster via their regular telephone lines. They are charged for this service on their regular telephone bill. Interactive TV can also be delivered via a terrestrial aerial (digital terrestrial TV such as 'Freeview' in the UK). In this case, there is often no 'return path' as such - so data cannot be sent back to the broadcaster (so you could not, for instance, vote on a TV show, or order a product sample) . However, interactivity is still possible as there is still the opportunity to interact with an application which is broadcast and downloaded to the set-top box (so you could still choose camera angles, play games etc).
[edit] Interactive television
The term "interactive television" is used to refer to a variety of rather different kinds of interactivity (both as to usage and as to technology), and this can lead to considerable misunderstanding. At least three very different levels are important (see also the instructional video literature which has described levles of interactivity in computer-based instruction which will look very much like tomorrow's interactive television):
[edit] Interactivity with a TV set
The simplest, Interactivity with a TV set is the one that is already very successful. This got its first big jump with the use of the remote control to enable channel surfing behaviors, and has evolved to include video-on-demand, VCR-like pause, rewind, and fast forward, and DVRs, commercial skipping and the like. It does not change any content or its inherent linearity, only how we control the viewing of that content. DVRs allow users to time shift content in a way that most VCR owners never learned to do. This is a kind of interactive TV, and not insignificant, but it is not what is meant in any full sense of the term. It is already taking place in many homes. Calling the simple use of a remote control to turn TV sets on and off as an example of interactivity is like saying turning the pages of a book makes the book interactiv.
[edit] Who will pay for interactive television?
The United States differs from most of the rest of the world in that its broadcasting system's historyis that of commercial sponsorship. American viewers are used to making the trade-off of exposure to commercial messages in return for "free" programs. Wise interactive television program providers will abide by this tradition. Many video providers on the web are already finding out that viewers will sit through a 15-30 second spot (or more depending on the circumstances) in return for getting content "free" (see cbsnews.com for one example as of 10 December 2006). Research into the length of the program commercials and how the correlate with viewers tuning out will be important. (What is often lost in these conversations is the interest in the commerical itself; entertaining commercials may have a higher threshold of viewer tolerance than "dull" commercials.) How many people bail out if they see a 60-second spot coming, versus a 30-second spot, versus a 15 second or less spot? Rest assured these data are being collected but, unfortunately, are likely to be considered proprietary to the compan(ies) involved. [User: Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein]
[edit] Interactivity with TV program content
In its deepest sense, Interactivity with TV program content is the one that is "interactive TV", but it is also the most challenging to produce. This is the idea that the program, itself, might change based on viewer input. Advanced forms, which still have uncertain prospect for becoming mainstream, include dramas where viewers get to choose plot details and endings. Simpler forms, which are enjoying some success, include programs that directly incorporate polls, questions, comments, and other forms of (virtual) audience response back into the show. There is much debate as to how effective and popular this kind of truly interactive TV can be. It seems likely that some forms of it will be popular, but that viewing of pre-defined content, with a scripted narrative arc, will remain a major part of the TV experience indefinitely. The United States lags far behind the rest of the developed world in its deployment of interactive television. This is a direct response to the fact that commercial television in the U.S. is not controlled by the government, whereas the vast majority of other countries' television systems are controlled by the government. These "centrally planned" television systems are made interactive by fiat, whereas in the U.S., only the Public Broadcasting Service has this capability. Commercial broadcasters are slow to adopt new technologies because they already are satisfied with the existing system and its forms of revenues. Satellite and cable will force broadcasters to adopt interactivity or the broadcasters will become less competitive than they already are.
[edit] Interactivity with content that is related to what is on TV
The least understood, Interactivity with TV related content may have most promise to radically alter how we watch TV over the next decade. Examples include getting more information about what is on the TV, whether sports, movies, news, or the like. Similar (and most likely to pay the bills), is getting more information about what is being advertised, along with the ability to buy it -- this is called "tcommerce" (short for "television commerce"). Partial steps in this direction are already becoming a mass phenomenon, as Web sites and mobile phone services coordinate with TV programs (note: this type of interactive TV is currently being called "participation TV" and GSN and TBS are proponents of it). This kind of multitasking is already happening on large scale -- but there is currently little or no automated support for relating that secondary interaction to what is on the TV compared to other forms of interactive TV. Others argue that this is more a matter of "web-enhanced" television viewing rather than calling it interactive TV. In the coming months and years, there will be no need to have both a computer and a TV set for interactive television as the interactive content will be built into the system via the next generation of set-top boxes.
Many think of interactive TV primarily in terms of "one-screen" forms that involve interaction on the TV screen, using the remote control, but there is another significant form of interactive TV that makes use of "two-screens." In this case, the second screen may be a PC that is connected to a Web site application that is synchronized with the TV broadcast, but other two-screen forms can involve interaction with mobile phone applications that run "in synch" with the show or applications on PDAs. Such services are sometimes called "Enhanced TV by certain companies," but this term is not being used widely anymore as it is seen as anachronistic and is often still misused occasionally. (Note: Enhanced TV originated in the mid-late 1990's as a term that some hoped would replace the umbrella term of "interactive TV" due to the negative associations "interactive TV" carried because of the way companies and the news media over-hyped its potential in the early 90's.) Notable two-screen services have been offered for specific popular programs by many US broadcast TV networks. Today, two-screen interactive TV is called either 2-screen (for short) or "Synchronized TV" and is widely deployed around the US by national broadcasters with the help of technology offerings from certain companies. One-screen interactive TV generally requires special support in the set-top box, but two-screen synchronized ITV applications generally do not, relying instead on Internet or mobile phone servers to coordinate with the TV.
[edit] User Interaction
Interactive TV is often described by clever marketing gurus as "lean back" interaction, as users are typically relaxing in the living room environment with a remote control in one hand. This is a very simplistic definition of interactive television that is less and less descriptive of interactive television services that are in various stages of market introduction. This is in contrast to the similarly slick marketing devised descriptor of personal computer-oriented "lean forward" experience of a keyboard, mouse and monitor. This description is becoming more distracting than useful as video game users, for example, don't lean forward while they are playing video games on their television sets, a precursor to interactive TV. In the case of "two-screen" Interactive TV, therefore, is making the distinctions of "lean-back" and "lean-forward" interaction more and more indistinuishable. There has been a growing proclivity to media multitasking, in which multiple media devices are used simultaneously (especially among younger viewers). This has increased interest in two-screen services, and is creating a new level of multitasking in interactive TV. In addition, video is now ubiquitous on the web, so research can now be done to see if there is anything left to the notion of "lean back" "versus" "lean forward" uses of interactive television.
For one-screen services, interactivity is supplied by the manipulation of the API of the particular software installed on a set-top box, referred to as 'middleware' due to its intermediary position in the operating environment. Software programs are broadcast to the set-top box in a 'carousel'.
On UK DTT (Freeview), in DVB-MHP systems and for OCAP, this is a DSM-CC Object Carousel.
The set-top box can then load and execute the application. In the UK this is typically done by a viewer pressing a "trigger" button on their remote control (e.g. the red button, as in "press red").
Typically the distribution system is based on the MPEG-2 specification.
- Examples of commonly-found middlewares include:
- Alcatel/Microsoft TV - Used by major DSL operators such as AT&T, DTAG, Club Internet, Swisscom, TDC, BT, ...
- DVB-MHP (Java) - Global standard widely deployed in Europe and Asia
- OCAP (Java) - US cable industry standard based on DVB-MHP
- ETV-BIF - ETV Binary Interchange Format developed by MetaTV (now called TV Works) in association with CableLabs
- BD-J (Java) - Interactivity layer for Blu-ray Disc based on DVB-MHP
- OpenTV (ANSI C, HTML/JavaScript, Flash and Java) - BSkyB, Echostar, Zee Network, Digiturk, Etisalat, Liberty Global Europe UPC, Viasat, Showtime, TPS, Foxtel, Sky Italia, Starhub, Cablecom, Time Warner
- MediaHighway (Java, MHEG-5, Pantalk) - UK terrestrial, Canal+
- Liberate (HTML/JavaScript) - NTL, Telewest
- ICTV (HTML/JavaScript) - NTL, VNL
- MHEG-5 (used in UK DTT)
- Alcatel Open Media Suite - Sasktel, BBTV, Kingston
- Microsoft TV (XHTML)
- BML - Standard used on ISDB platforms in Japan
- Ginga - In development for the Brazilian digital television standard (SBTVD)
Development of applications using these technologies is traditionally drawn out due to the limitations of the set-top box, the large amount of testing required and the lack of standardisation of deployed units. Almost all are proprietary and subject to heavy licensing restrictions.
[edit] Interactive television projects
Some interactive television projects are consumer electronics boxes which provide set-top interactivity, while other projects are supplied by the cable television companies (or multiple system operator, or MSO) as a system-wide solution. Some examples of interactive television include:
- MSO systems
- Time Warner (US)
- Comcast (US)
- Cablevision (US)
- Previous MSO trials or demos
- Full Service Network from Time Warner (US) - this is no longer in operation
- Consumer electronics solutions
- TiVo
- ReplayTV
- UltimateTV
- Microsoft Windows XP Media Center
- "Two-screen" or "enhanced TV" solutions
- Information Broadcast Language
- TV 2.0
- See Enhanced TV for examples
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- IP over DVB
- Digital television
- Set-top box (STB)
- Enhanced TV
- Internet television
- Datacasting
- DVB-H
- Multimedia home platform
[edit] External links
- InteractiveTV Today - the most widely read and trusted news source on the topic of interactive multiplatform television
- The Enhanced Television Cookbook: PBS's (US Public Television) Interactive Television How to
- Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein's Interactive Television Blog maintained by the University of Georgia's director of its New Media Centers Consortium interactive television project
