Set top boxes of tomorrow – platforms and delivery
Consume: What will be the next gadget to invade the homes of traditional TV viewers? At the moment Digital TV provides them with choice, perceived better quality and interactivity. But already the 9 million ‘adopters’ of Digital TV are beginning to ask for more.
Record: One of the most obvious needs is to record what they want, at high quality. So we see the first generation of PVR (Personal Video Recorders) such as TiVo and Sky+ being bought. These often contain 20-80GB hard disks but will in the future have DVD-Recordable drives to allow viewers much the same flexibility as they get with VHS recorders, but in much better quality.
There are enormous rights implications in allowing this to happen and the broadcaster needs to make sure that the right digital protection standards are utilised – otherwise we will find it hard to obtain and transmit high value content.
Personalise: In the future these devices will be able to capture interactive services and of course be highly personalised, even in multi-user families, to provide a time-shifted but highly relevant selection of material. The devices will build profiles of viewers and we need to consider how we could integrate this information into our connected communities databases.
Delivery: There will also be more ways to deliver our services to audiences. At the moment there are two clear methods – broadcast through the air on Digital Satellite and Digital Terrestrial or via direct ‘pipes’ such as cable or phone lines. We could consider other ways of moving content into homes that will give a rich and connected experience. Some content could be delivered via GSM or GPRS and 3G mobile networks to TV set top boxes, some via localised wireless links or synchronised PDA’s online – even perhaps some distributed free on DVD’s that come alive during TV transmission when they are inserted into DVDi machines.
Connections: Viewers also want their experiences connected and the mobile phone and PDA will become an important element of their TV experience by allowing some services to continue into their mobile lives. TV quizzes, for example, could be continued and answers submitted via mobile to be displayed as part of their network Personal area over the TV. The PDA will evolve and become a home device, maybe a large tablet such as Microsoft’s new Mira range. Information personal to you could be delivered to that device alongside a TV programme rather than clutter the TV display.
Some devices not originally designed for interactive TV will become TV receivers. These include games consoles and PC’s. Many companies around the world are developing strategies to use the PC as the brains and distributor of content around the home. From the other direction there are traditional digital TV set top boxes that are receiving transplants in the form of games console boards and mobile sim chips.
Smart content: These developments would require the TV networks to consider a whole range of services that target themselves at particular devices, smart content that knows what it is and when and where it can be viewed! The above platforms will allow the broadcaster to have a one to one connection with the viewer. This will allow them to target and personalise services to the individual users as well as receiving data back on viewing habits.