Bryan Dreiling

1
Interactive TV

• Bryan Dreiling
• Tito Gaysam

2
Agenda

• Introduction
• Brief History
• Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI)
• Electronic Programming Guide (EPG)
• Testing
• References

3
What is Interactive TV?

• Is TV with interactive content and enhancements.
  It combines Traditional TV viewing with the
  interactivity enjoyed by those communicating
  through a network.
• Programming can include richer graphics,
  hyperlinks, and electronic communication through
  a back channel (t-commerce).

4
Brief History

• The Television as Toy
• Winky Dink
• The First 2-Way Set-top Box
• Qube
• Failed
• American Express, the investor partner, dropped
  out.
• Subscribers figured out how to rid the set-tops
  for free movies.
• Warner's Atari division lost 1 billion in 1983.

5
Brief History

• Remote Control
• Digital TV Signal
• After 1993, over 21 trials kicked off when Source
  Media launched the Interactive Channel in Denton,
  Texas.
• Between 1994-1996, 17 more major
  telecommunications or cable trials took place
  outside the U.S.

6
VBI
Part of the TV signal that is not used for video
information and left available to transmit other
data such as captions, Web data, current stock
market prices. Visually the VBI is the black
stripe at the top and bottom of a TV picture and
physically it constitutes 21 lines worth of the
total 525 lines transmitted per second in the
NTSC TV signal.
7
VBI

• Bloomberg TV terminals, for example, have sent
  out news headlines and stock prices through the
  VBI for some time.
• Cable networks broadcast TV schedule information
  for EPGs (for example TV Guide).
• Early developers of ITV platforms such as Intel,
  WebTV, Wink Communications, and WorldGate,
  explored new types of broadcasting over the VBI
  in the mid and late-90's and continue today.
• ATVEF, mentioned earlier, was set up to exploit
  the uses of this technology.

8
VBI

• Sky, a British iTV provider, uses "Open TV" and
  most cable providers use Liberate or MHEG5.
• MHEG5 is part of the ISO/IEC 13522-5 Multimedia
  and Hypermedia Experts Group (MHEG) international
  standard used for "Digital Teletext" in UK
  digital terrestrial television.

9
iTV Components

• Content and Producer
• Content Provider
• Contents Hardware/Middleware/Software
• Delivery method
• End users Hardware/Middleware/Software

10
EPG

• Electronic Programming Guide
• Becoming mainstream in Digital Cable and
  Satellite TV
• Basically a user controlled TV Guide Channel

11
Standard Features

• Program Grid
• Program / Genre Search
• Show Information
• Music

12
Other Features

• Weather
• On Demand / PPV services
• Calendar
• Other applications

13
Some Examples

• UKTV EGP on Sky Digital

14
Some Examples II

• Sky TV Music Guild

15
Some Examples III
Spanish Program Grid Genre Search Calenda
r

16
Subjective Testing of EPG

• EPG developed by Telefonica ID
• The pictures from the last slide are from that
  system.
• They used subjective testing to see if they
  needed to change any of design and interface of
  the system

17
Testing Methodology

• Sampled an equal number of males and females and
  equal numbers of different age groups.
• Technology deployment on a large scale is not
  just directed at early adopters and the youth

18
Methodology Continued

• Users were tested on the ability to use
• Standard Features
• Channel selection
• Advanced Features
• Searching
• Extra Features
• Weather
• Tele-Banking
• Ranked in a 0-10 scale

19
Test Results

• Gender did not matter
• The younger the testers the better they performed
  on average
• Equal on the program grid
• But unequal on the search functions
• The Program Grid was the most troublesome
• But it was also ranked the most useful
• Tele-banking was the easiest to use
• But it was ranked the least useful

20
Test Results II
21
Test Results III
22
Additional Thoughts

• Resolution Matters
• Viewing Ratio
• More Interaction
• More Applications
• The Role of PVRs
• Digital TVs Critical App / Tipping Point

23
Questions
24
References

• http//www.hft.org/HFT99/paper99/Design/3_99.pdf
• http//www.broadbandbananas.com/vvepg.html
• http//www.itvt.com/etvwhitepaper.html
• http//www.itvdictionary.com/itv.html
• http//www.lordpercy.com/interactive_tv_explained.
  htm
• http//www.thescratchpost.com/resources/itv/itv_di
  ct_v.shtml
• http//www.digvid.info/mheg5/index.php