We hope linear programme producers will find this site useful as they dip their toes into interactive film or TV over broadcast, IP or cable. This is quite a dated site with irregular updates – but still contains much relevant insight.

“Gary Hayes is undoubtedly one of the outstanding pioneers of interactive TV, having devised the first 24/7 service for Digital Terrestrial, and the first truly interactive programming for Broadband TV, both for the BBC…” Scott Gronmark (ex Head of BBC Interactive TV)

“…he has an invaluable knowledge of the industry. As well as practical experience, he has a real appreciation of the bigger picture.” William Cooper. informitv.com

This site contains:

Overview of Interactive Services in Articles
Informative glances at the technology & formats in Guide
and a little and a lot about Gary Hayes in resumé

TV is in major transition. Where are the opportunities across on-demand platforms? Is the old advertising model broken? Will broadband to set top box comfortably co-exist with video on the web?

The simple diagrams below hopefully help the linear producer understand in visual terms the extra elements that can exist alongside their linear program. The common formats below are of course non-exhaustive but serve as introduction to a viewer perspective on a service – tthe white arrows indicate suggested routes a viewer may make throughout their interactive journey. (originally from a presentation given in 2000).

© Gary Hayes 2004

* Pay-per-play gaming and gambling
* Movies-on-demand
* Interactive advertising and shopping
* Email, internet and voting

Resonant interactivity via your television screen will rely on the return path, built in to set tops or mobiles and the ability to communicate via the TV or any of a range of other devices will be commonplace and the challenge will be to provide a consistent journey for the viewer. There are many technical and business hurdles to overcome before we really switch on the big ‘return channel’. One is simply that the current networks available on Digital Satellite and Digital Cable are swamped on occasion with large numbers of viewers interacting with popular iTV programmes.

The TV’s role will change and viewers will use a range of display devices for different activities and services delivered to them. There will be mobile, personal screens (mobiles/PDA’s) alongside the lean-forward work screens (PC’s) and sit-back sofa displays (TV’s).

We are also seeing the dawn of Personal TV, where what you want is captured for you for anytime viewing, Sky+ and TiVo for example. In the very near future there will be a multitude of ways that a viewer can store and carry content around with them, from small video clips for phone and PDA to high quality archiving of BBC programmes, sitting alongside their own home movies on large disks centrally located in the home.

After all is said and done – most of the viewers – some of the time – will need simply to be passive – to sit back and be told a ‘story’. The real challenge is being able to make interactive TV and other services as natural and engaging an experience as our greatest linear programming.

The Interactive TV broadcasters role in the iTV future will be as a facilitator of the US conversation enabled by a range of return path services.

Coming soon: Currently we are beginning to engage audiences with simple voting or donating alongside major network programmes or as a ubiquitous part of the 24/7 offering. This will evolve quickly and the audience will be able to send messages to the TV provider and each other directly via their set top boxes. These messages could be simply comments or could guide the editorial direction of a programme (steer the storyline, choose the final video, feed into the great debate and so on).

Around the corner: The return path enables a whole range of other ways viewers could interact with our services. Some, for example, could play live ‘computer’ studio games from their living rooms – against other viewers – that everyone else can see. They could take part in studio quizzes remotely, join in live celebrity chat and be submitted in ‘competitive’ leader boards for prizes. Many of the initial return path services will be combined with data received from the online, telephony and mobile parts of the service to provide a much wider ‘conversation’.

On the horizon: In a more distant future the ability to communicate via the TV or any of a range of other devices will be commonplace and the challenge for interactive TV providers will be to provide a consistent journey for the viewer. For example, being able to send a message into a morning news programme – then to pick up a reply from the show’s producer on your mobile – who invites you to chat live to a key politician online later that day – you are also told online that there will be a vote on a key issue – in the evening you watch a debate programme on TV and place your vote – the following morning you see the complete result on your mobile.

Many TV providers are currently engaged with return path suppliers to enable this. There are off the shelf systems coming along and being used now that will allow the connection of set top box viewers to be fed directly to the galleries of live shows.

Hurdles: There are many technical hurdles to overcome and quite a few business ones before we really switch on the big ‘return channel’. One immediate issue is simply that the current networks available on Digital Satellite and Digital Cable would be overcome with large numbers of viewers interacting with popular network and localised programmes. Another very major hurdle is that many of the new lower end set top boxes will not have the ability to take advantage of built in return path services as they do not have a modem or other form of communication mechanism.

Screening process: The PC (whether as a central server or online conduit) will begin to play a more central role in how content is managed for the viewer. Key to this is the fact that the TV’s role will change and viewers will use a range of display devices for different activities and services delivered to them. There will be mobile, personal screens alongside the lean-forward work screens and sit-back sofa displays.

Storage solutions: There will also be a multitude of ways that a viewer can store and carry content around with them, from small video clips for phone and PDA to high quality archiving of BBC programmes, sitting alongside their own home movies on large disks centrally located in the home.
Remote control: The viewer will also have different ways to control their iTV experience. Broadcasters are involved with companies developing services which range from – in the near term – extensions to PDA devices that become remote controllers, or mobile phones that become the iTV return path to – ‘real’ blue sky systems – that allow viewers to interact with their ‘screens’ simply by pointing or using verbal cues.

Tomorrow’s world: After all is said and done – most of the viewers – some of the time – will need simply to be passive – to sit back and be told a ‘story’. The TV networks are guaranteed longevity in this space. The real challenge is being able to make interactive TV and other services as natural and engaging an experience as our greatest linear programming.

Engage: The most compelling part of traditional TV is the fact that most of the time it tells you a story – it is linear and carries you along with it. In the best TV – you feel part of the narrative.
Connect: One of the great benefits of interactive TV applications is the fact that they get the audience more involved by ‘connecting’ them to the action.

Synchronisation: This connection can take many forms but some of the most obvious are the play along quiz such as BBC’s very popular IQ quiz Test the Nation or the sing-a-long Karaoke in Top of the Pops. In all cases the interactive application is in perfect synchronisation with the TV programme (live or pre-recorded) and viewers are compelled to watch even more.

The reason many broadcasters are currently evaluating and building real services with these tools is based on a growing need to begin to devolve many of the production of iTV services so that content can be entered efficiently into existing formats, services more dynamically controlled by Production and eventually applications built in traditional Production areas. Of course the broadcasters would need a centralised iTV operation would still need to act as a gatekeeper and manage global navigation, bandwidth and commissioning.

Interactive TV development using production tools will continue to grow and flourish much the same way that they did in the internet. There are four phases of production tools evolution which broadly match those in narrowband web development which was:

1. 1993-6 Small dedicated teams producing all web content, often in note pad – ad hoc liaison with TV Production for occasional content
2. 1996-8 Templates and rudimentary tools allowed Production to turn fact-sheets and other content into sites relatively quickly
3. 1998-00 Broad adoption in TV Production areas of tools such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage etc: to build sites to strict templates set by central control.
4. 2000- Gradual autonomy given to TV Production departments at lower levels of the internet sites to have editorial and presentational choice and to use non-standard proprietary plug-ins. Central control needs to remain to have control over site size, global navigation and testing.

FInally what about the tools one ‘needs’ to build interactive TV. There are quite a few players in this market (the writer having spent eight years at the BBC living with most of them!) all offering the nirvana of one-stop desktop creation, multi-platform/network output and iTV programmes as unique as a hand-coded original. It is true that some of the tools can achieve elements of some of these but we have quite a way to go yet (mostly at the broadcaster, api, network distribution, set top end) before the tools become ‘really’ usuable. Also many of the larger interactive broadcasters and operators have a range of in-house tools and internal standards that they are happy to re-purpose for other infrastructures for a fee.

The most bullish of the small group of independent tools companies at the moment (and active at NAB) are Ensequence. It is worth checking out their latest version of OnQ (pdf brochure) that naturally contains something for the non-techys amongst us, allowing a ‘director, flash, finalcut’ approach to iTV builds. Most of the tools offer builds for broadcast API combinations of OpenTV, Mediahighway, MHEG, MHP, Liberate etc:. and other players in the field (some who I noticed walking the floor of the exhibition at NAB04) include:

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the excellent, very user friendly and fast track builder ModelStream from Emuse
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Plasma Magenta for turning old teletext services into digital text services and more
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NPTV’s wizard, template based iTV factory, for simple builds and network configuration
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DI3 creation and publishing solution called xBrowser used by the innovative and live based iTV broadcaster DITG
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One of the most used tools on the market now is Storyteller, now embedded into Goldpocket’s enormous iTV operations in the US
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For good old Mediahighway (now part of NDS core) there is the Development Kit from NDS integrated with the most stable range of products from NDS
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Very intriguing and innovative interface that is Lanchalot’s interactive TV tool Lois (demo download) which comes packaged with a range of iTV formats
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and many more including a plethora of MPEG4 tools such as 4Mation from Envivio and DG2L’s iVAst Studio Author