Sky Broadcast 3D Sport Live

Sky ran the world’s first live 3D sports broadcast in a handful of pubs on Sunday. I wasn’t one of the lucky few to experience Arsenal play Manchester United in 3D, but the response so far seems pretty positive.

DigitalTV.net were pretty impressed. Although, they felt it was a novelty rather than the future of TV. Mainly because of the glasses – posing the question of whether you would really wear them at home?

Digital Spy was also watching the event and noted that some elements of the broadcast worked better than others. For example, the teams walking onto the pitch looked impressive, as did the 3D graphics of the team. However, at times the players looked to be “plucked up from the surface”. So, not all positive.

I’m looking forward to experiencing a 3D live broadcast soon, which could be sooner rather than later with LG’s new LD920 3D TV, but I will still need some convincing to wear those glasses…

IPTV services set to reach 70 million homes by 2014

The latest subscriber forecast for the IPTV market has been released by Informa Telecoms & Media group. It predicts that 70 million homes globally will be receiving IPTV services by the end of 2014. Whilst, this is only five per cent of homes with TV sets, this is a massive increase on the 26 million subscribers recorded at the close of 2009.

28 million of the 70 million is expected to occur in Asia-Pacific which is forecasted to become the largest region in terms of IPTV subscribers by 2011.

For more information click here.

HbbTV, a true hybrid solution

If you have a spare few minutes and are interested in learning a little more about the HbbTV initiative there’s an article in the latest edition of Cable & Satellite International that’s certainly worth a read. The article is written by Steve Morris, Systems Architect here at ANT who has contributed extensively to MHP, Open IPTV Forum and HbbTV. Steve is also the author of “Interactive TV Standards: A Guide to MHP, OCAP and JavaTV.

Sky announces TV Widget

Sky has announced that its popular Sky News app will now be available on connected TV’s from Samsung. The widget enables viewers to access news headlines whilst watching other TV programmes.

A similar application has already proved popular on the iPhone and iPod Touch but Sky’s refocus on the TV highlights the move towards TV based widgets in addition to mobile.

This is a promising development for TV Widgets, demonstrating the potential for device manufacturers to aim for the same scope of TV widgets as we have iPhone applications.

Happy New Year

I hope everyone enjoyed their respective Christmas holidays. Whilst the snow continues to fall around us, we’re busy planning for 2010.

In the next few days, our eyes will be firmly fixed on the world's biggest technology conference, The Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off in Las Vegas tomorrow. It is well known for revealing landmark innovations, which previous announcements including the compact disc player, the VCR, high-definition TV and Blu-ray.

So, what announcements are expected for the TV this year? Well, it was impossible to miss the 3D hype at IBC so I expect to see more at CES. But, I guess we should wait and see.

Screen your calls

Verizon has launched a Caller ID application for the TV. The application which will be available on the FiOS TV platform enables TV viewers to see who is calling them in an information box in the corner of their screen. The information appears for several seconds allowing viewers to decide whether or not they want to pause the TV program and answer the call.

Caller ID is being implemented by an increasing number of operators and represents an opportunity to add value to an existing service in a competitive marketplace. It’s also another example of next generation widgets and applications being aimed at a TV audience.

Hybrid TV services on the rise in US

According to a piece of research by IMS nearly 55 per cent of all TV households in the US will have access to internet video by the end of 2010 and 25 per cent of these households will be capable of hosting internet video on the TV set.

As IMS Research consumer electronics analyst, Rebecca Kurlak points out, the games consoles are already addressing the internet video market with gamer demographics well suited to experimenting with new services such as Sky Player for the xbox.

Away from the games consoles, Connected TV’s have the opportunity to aggregate digital media from around the home into one device accessed via a portal. As the amount of content available increases, only a poor user experience can limit mainstream adoption by consumers.

Shop by Remote

Christmas is around the corner and what is the one thing we all do at Christmas? Shop! So, instead of travelling to your favorite department store, would you shop through the television?

In the US, HSN has teamed up with Comcast to roll out an interactive television shopping application to 8 million of Comcast’s users. TV viewers can browse for products that range from clothing to home products and electronics. Shoppers can then select the quantity, colour and size of objects using their remote.

With the average transaction time estimated to be less than 60 seconds, it looks like the TV is shaping up quite nicely for online shopping.

HbbTV Marches On

IRT has just announced that it hosted the first HbbTV interoperability workshop last week and that version 1.1.1 of the specification has been submitted to ETSI.

Representatives from ANT attended the event and have commented that it was extremely successful. Live satellite feeds containing HbbTV signals, plus test feeds generated by IRT provided the framework for interoperability testing against 17 different applications.

The speed at which HbbTV has grown is great to see, especially as we have seen strong interest in our own ANT Galio HbbTV Platform. The submission of the specification into ETSI is another important milestone and demonstrates how well the group is working together.

Wikipedia on the TV

Vudu has announced that it has integrated Wikipedia into its service, meaning movie buffs can select the Wikipedia item from a menu to find out what the website has to say about the movie. They can then navigate through the website as they would on a computer.

It’s another example of how digital TV is being used to aggregate content from a variety of sources. OTT widgets and applications are paving the way for fully integrated TV services delivered over broadcast and broadband.

As more digital media content becomes available to consumers the user interface and user experience become increasingly important, understanding the different ways in which a consumer interacts with a PC and a TV for example is essential.

Come Dine with Me

Just spotted Channel 4’s live online play-along, for fans of Come Dine With Me. By logging onto channel4.com/dine, when the programme is scheduled for live viewing, fans can score the Come Dine With Me contestants while they're watching the show on TV at home.

Viewers can try and predict the outcome of the show and rate each night's contestants on food, personality and atmosphere. This level of interactivity when viewing TV programmes is a signal of what’s to come in the future. But, not on the web, but with content shared through the television.

The question is, which TV programmes, do we want to get interactive with? Top Gear, Who wants to be a millionaire, Ten Years Younger... Anymore?

Five things I like about the new Wii iPlayer

First thing yesterday morning, before I'd even had breakfast, I downloaded the new iPlayer from the Wii shop, eager to try it out. I haven't given it a lot of testing yet, but so far there are many things I like about it:

1. It now appears in the top-level Wii menu, which makes it obvious how to access it. Previously it was four clicks away.
2. The interface is similar in style and function to the one I'm familiar with on my PC, but adapted to the context of use.
3. It's fine if I start it up knowing specifically which programme I want to watch and also has the beginnings of some recommendation elements in the "Most Popular" and "More Like This" functions, which is good if I'm just looking for something to watch.
4. The frame-rate is better than the old version, which was uncomfortable to watch for more than a few minutes. The resolution isn't quite up to standard definition, but that's less important.
5. Navigation is by pointing the Wiimote, which rumbles as the pointer moves over clickable things. It's a subtle but important bit of tactile feedback that I suspect helps to subconsciously tune your movements to steer the pointer efficiently.

A few things I would like to see in a future version (tut! Never satisfied eh...?):

• I'd like to see still-frames as I drag the play-position slider. Buffering for video playback takes several seconds each time the slider is moved. If I want to skip to the part of "Later..." where Norah Jones sang for example, it's a tediously slow process.
• The ability to watch live channels. I know there are technical reasons why that would be a bad idea, but let me talk about wishes for a moment, and forget technical feasibility. I'd like live channels to be included so that everything is in one place, and I only have to learn one style of interface. I'd like to see the broadcast schedule displayed in the same UI, and for the programmes in it to contain links to previous and related episodes.
• A recommended viewing schedule. Programmes aren't available forever in iPlayer, so to help me organise my TV-viewing time I'd like to indicate which programmes and series I'm interested in, and have the system recommend to me what to watch next and by when, so that I don't run out of time to watch anything.
• Finally, I'd like more to help me find new things to watch - for example, user-provided ratings, and editorial content about programmes and series.

Dr Rob.

Twitter on TV

Orange announced earlier this week that it has struck a deal with Twitter to enable users to send messages direct from their TV’s. As a consumer it’s great to see new applications being added to a TV service to enrich the offering.

On screen chat is a use-case that we’ve supported at ANT for some time, in March 2008 we demonstrated a new concept called ‘Footie Friends’ at the IPTV World Forum, which also used a Twitter style application. This enabled viewers to chat to each other both on screen and via mobile while watching football on their TV’s.

I expect to see further social networking applications appearing on our TV screens as the industry experiments further. I’m keen to see how this can be tied to the content that’s being viewed such as the X-Factor. This has proved a popular topic in social media forums providing a great opportunity for broadcasters.

Details of the new Wii iPlayer

Last week, Rahul Chakkara posted some details about the new iPlayer for the Wii on the BBC Internet Blog.

We tried the old Wii iPlayer (before it broke) in our household a few times, but we haven't used it much because we found the lower-than-normal framerate was uncomfortable to watch - I'm hoping the new version will do better.

Rahul mentions some technical challenges including, "limited processing power and memory available on these types of devices," which is interesting given that the Wii is far more powerful than most STBs...

I'm looking forward to trying the new version tomorrow.

Dr Rob.

Sky moves into the mobile market

Following the recent launch of Sky Player for the Xbox, BSKYB has also been busy targeting the mobile market with the launch of the Sky Mobile TV service. The app is available on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch and will allow users to stream live TV through a wifi connection.

Sky says there has been 2 million downloads to date, so the service is proving to be popular. So far they have targeted live events with a selection of news and sports channels available. Will this open the way for further mobile TV apps?

It will be interesting to see what the long term impact of this service will be on SKY’s traditional subscription model and if the new service will drive new subscribers to Sky or will current customers opt for the cheaper Mobile TV subscription instead?

Two screen viewing

The NBA Digital (National Basketball Association) has launched a new two screen approach for viewing live games. Viewers watching live NBA games on their TV will also be able to access live data on their PC’s in the style of a press room where they’ll have real time access to player and team statistics. There are some nice touches including being able to personalise the homepage so you’re favorite teams stats appear every time you log on; and access to an instant messaging chat room.

You can see a demo of the application here: http://www.nba.com/tvc/info.html .

NBA refers to some Nielson Media Research that found that 57 per cent of Americans, with access to the internet at home, use the TV and internet simultaneously. 27.9 per cent of the time online is spent simultaneously watching TV so this move is a good response to consumer behavior.

I can’t help thinking they’re missing a trick though, shouldn’t this all be done via the TV? This is exactly the type of application that can enhance a viewing experience, delivered via a widget on the TV screen.

Giving IPTV the X factor

This series of the X Factor has generated a huge buzz online. Facebook launched an app for each finalist, whilst Twitter enables users to add a ribbon to their profile to show their support for their favourite finalist.

ITV has been busy too, launching a dedicated website to aggregate the show’s content, such as photos, videos and comments about each performer. However, much of the progress to combine the online buzz with the TV programme has been focused on tapping into people that tune into their favourite programmes via the web.

The question is, when will broadcasters bring social media to the TV screen? The technology is already in place. IPTV can facilitate Twitter conversations into live programmes via OTT widgets, which would allow viewers to have conversations and interact with each other.

One concern about hosting online content through the TV is the effect public conversations could have on the brand. If this move is to happen, broadcasters will need to be careful how they publish viewer comments and what filters if any, they put in place.

Whilst the industry debates how to make this a reality, can we now put rest to the claim that watching TV isn’t sociable?

Risky business

The same characteristics of the web that allow new services to be launched at the flick of a switch can also lead to services breaking at any moment. Witness the update that has broken access to iPlayer on the Wii:

“Why am I unable to view BBC iPlayer on my Nintendo Wii?

The latest Nintendo Wii software upgrade has caused BBC iPlayer to stop working. Users that have not upgraded can continue to use the BBC iPlayer website.”

The lesson here is that although technically it may be possible to launch a new service that builds on something provided by another company, if you have no commercial agreement in place with the other company to maintain compatibility with your service, an update could break it at any time and without notice. If it breaks, an awful lot of users could be pounding your help-lines or returning products as “faulty”...

I wonder how many of the vast array of mobile and TV devices with access to YouTube, Facebook, etc, have been built with commercial agreements with the service they access, and therefore can continue to work faultlessly for the lifetime of the product?

Dr Rob

Chatting With Sky Player

After a rocky start, Sky Player is now live on the Xbox 360. Sky Player will enable consumers to use their Xbox live service to access movies, sport and entertainment on demand and stream a selection of channels live.

In addition to live streaming and VoD services, some interesting social features have been added, which allow consumers to interact with their friends using avatars in a virtual living room. When in the room you can text and chat using the Xbox headset in a similar way to what we’ve seen when playing games online using Xbox live.

Such social applications and widgets are set to be popular for both TV viewers and gamers alike. But, with most consumers opting to view VoD services through iDTV’s and set-top boxes, will chat applications struggle to reach the masses through a games console?

Netflix build on VoD Strategy

Netflix and Sony’s announcement that US owners of PS3’s will soon be able to access the Netflix “Watch Instantly” service via their games consoles, builds on an existing strategy by games console providers to move TV content onto the console.

While the initial implementation isn’t necessarily the smoothest - the consumer must put a special disk into the console whenever they wish to access the service. It is another example of a Video on Demand service targeted at the TV.

Netflix already run the “Watch Instantly” service through Blue-ray players, TiVo and the Roku box.

The question is, how much of the VoD market can the game console providers grab?

Magic of iPlayer

Generations of British children have grown up with some of the most creative and best loved children's programmes in the world. But what is in store for the children of tomorrow? The creator of Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks, Phil Redmond, gave his view on the future of children's television on the BBC.

This very introduction, lead me to iPlayer and Phil Redmond’s 50 minute talk by the Royal Television Society. I was engaged from start to finish, apart from feeling that I was listening to Ringo Star (Beatles!) with a very dry sense of humour. I was impressed not only with his fantastic story telling, but by the absolute drive and passion of Phil for articulating the need for an environment that continues to prioritise the creation and delivery of content that children would engage, relate to and be enthused by in years to come.

I can’t do justice to the whole lecture, but wanted to highlight a few key snippets:

Phil talked about today’s children being submersed in their Xbox Live and online experiences, such as Facebook and how a broadcaster needs to build content to compete with these new mediums. For example, why will tomorrows 14-year-old tune into a broadcast channel, instead of logging onto the web. We are all working towards bring these world’s together!

This question though, is a good lead into a core debate for UK broadcasters; the role of a public service broadcaster verses a commercial broadcaster. Phil drew the comparison very well, centred around children’s programming, he captured beautifully that the BBC Trust see’s “Children’s Programming at the heart of the Public Service remit”, whilst in contrast drew reference a recent statement from Sky’s Chief Executive, James Murdock, that “the only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit”

The world of television is moving very quickly, policy, standards and technology have a significant role in creating the environment to allow creative and compelling services to be brought to the broadcast and emerging online screens. However, Phil reminded me that a balance always has to be in place between content that engages and informs our society as much as it entertains.

At a personal level, the many early mornings of sitting on the sofa with my children over the last 11 years, has been made much easier by the rich, engaging and educational programming available from the BBC’s Children’s channels... Cbeebies and CBBC...

Anyway, if you have a spare 50 minutes, this is a must watch.

TV 1 Web 0

The results are in. England not only lost to the Ukraine, but the match didn’t attract its expected viewing figures. Although, Kentaro and Perform (the two businesses involved in the project) have not given detailed viewing figures, they have stated that the match attracted less than half a million. Less than half the capacity it had reserved. Not surprising really given that England fans were not captured by the move away from the TV to the web.

On the plus side, the infrastructure stood up to the test relatively well. Virgin reported a 10% increase in traffic on the same time for the previous week, which caused no problems apparently. But, it is the idea of watching the big match on the PC that fans struggled with.

England V Ukraine: TV V Web

If you want to watch Fabio Capello’s team take on Ukraine, you’ll have to stay away from the pub and go online. After the collapse of Setanta, the UK rights have been purchased by digital media company Perform. It’s not necessarily a surprising move in an age where the UK audience is familiar with catching up on programmes using iPlayer. However, it hasn’t been well received by the majority of football fans.

The subscription will be limited to one million streams, which in viewing numbers will equate to around 2.5 Million. However, I’ll be surprised if they reach that limit. There are of course some interesting partnerships being explored here, Odeon will be showing the match in some of its Cinema’s for example.

As for the match itself, well it’s not that important given that England have already qualified for next year’s World Cup. No surprise then that BBC, ITV, SKY or Five didn’t break the bank to get the rights for this one.

For me the TV is still holds the crown as the most powerful medium when it comes to mass viewing but as we move towards web and TV harmonization will the TV remain the platform of choice for consumers?

Augmented Reality

Not so long ago, the notion of mixed reality was something that only materialised in science fiction films. However, as time passes, the virtual world and the technology surrounding it are fast evolving.

It’s clear that there’s a lot of hype around Augmented Reality (AR) and it has captured the imagination of next generation developers and manufacturers.

This is a sort of stuff that could potentially bring the interaction between technology and the human even closer.

It seems the innovation behind AR is developing fast and becoming applicable to nearly everything to do with consumer electronics and gaming. Just last week, a company called SPRXmobile revealed Layar, an augmented reality browser with 3D capabilities, as demonstrated below.

Taking in IBC

IBC has definitely not lost its buzz this year. From the conversations I have been having, the show seems to have attracted a good size crowd this year. What has really paid off for ANT this year, is our position. Our location in the EBU Village has placed us in the middle of conversations with broadcasters.

The turmoil with existing broadcast standards has been at the centre of a lot of these discussions. The restrictions of the red button service in the UK to extend to other web based services and similarly the restrictions of the MHP service in the Nordics, has driven excitement towards the HbbTV standard and our involvement.

What has been really interesting is the use of teletext across Europe. If you consider 1.2 million pages are accessed each week in Switzerland and 16 million in Germany, the importance of getting, news, sport and the weather through your TV is still very much an integral part of the viewing experience.

I’ve not had much chance to get around the show, so hopefully I will get chance to visit other stands today.

Video help

One effective way to teach a new user about a UI is to make a video tutorial, with a real live person to introduce the purpose of the UI and take the user through the steps involved in using it. Playback of the video could be played during an installation “wizard”, or triggered from a “help” button embedded in the UI itself, or offered as an option at the edge of the screen if the user seems to be hesitating with the next step of an interaction.

The new HbbTV standard for hybrid TV devices makes the task of including video help in applications about as easy as it’s possible to be – by virtue of its support for streaming video over a standard HTTP connection. Perhaps the hardest part will be producing the video in the first place – in a way that looks professional anyway.

What do you think – will video help become a common feature of HbbTV applications?

It’s IBC time again

An increasing amount of multimedia content has been targeted at the TV for some time now. Whilst, it is an exciting time for the industry, consumers have been surrounded by multiple remote controls and a service presented in a non-TV centric manner.

We believe that the TV is a great way to receive a variety of information and for the next few days we will be demonstrating our new managed service concept at IBC at the EBU Village (stand number 10.D21).

We’ll be showing how the consumer will be able to see a variety of content such as VoD (Video on Demand), internet radio stations, playlists and programme information, and daily news sites that feature video clips of the latest news stories; all direct from the TV.

I’ve answered a few questions on this latest announcement here:

See HbbTV in action at IFA

As IFA 2009 sets off with a bundle of new technologies for the consumer, I wanted to tell you about some exciting technology at the show that we’ve been involved in. Our news on HbbTV over the last week has attracted a great deal of interest but of course showcasing real life stuff is what it’s all about. If you’re at the show please go along to the ARD stand (Hall 2.2/101) and visit the Digital World section where we have, in partnership with Humax and KaonMedia, live demonstrations of HbbTV in action. It is truly rewarding to have something that we have been involved in for a while come to market and in my opinion really hit the mark. By this, I always run the "would I spend my money on this " test, and for the interactive web services converged with HD experiences we are delivering here I absolutely would. This is a great example of industry collaboration resulting in ....well take a look and let me know what you think.

ANT Galio HbbTV Platform

ANT today announced the launch of the ANT Galio HbbTV Platform. This follows our involvement in the “Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV” or “HbbTV” project, a pan-European initiative that merges the delivery of broadcast and broadband services.

As a consumer I’m excited by the services that are already being developed for HbbTV, visitors to IBC will get to see some examples of these next week. I’ll be updating the blog from the show next week and will of course keep you updated.

HbbTV is based on elements of existing standards including OIPF (Open IPTV Forum), CEA, DVB and W3C, further information can be found here: www.hbbtv.org

I’ve also answered a few questions on this latest announcement here:

European initiative merges television with the power of the internet

Here at ANT we’re delighted to have been involved in the launch of “Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV” or “HbbTV”, a major new pan-European initiative aimed at harmonising the broadcast and broadband delivery of news, information and entertainment to the end consumer through TVs and set-top boxes.

It’s an exciting time for the market and we’ll be making further announcements soon so watch this space!

You can find out more information on the HbbTV website and

I’ve also answered a few questions here:

The future of EPG

Every month or so Justin Lebbon interviews TV industry representatives on their views on emerging trends and technology for his new site V-net.tv, an online information sharing and networking hub for all things Convergence TV, as I blogged here before.

This time he has kindly asked my opinion on the future of EPG to which I happily answered in a form of video.

Making TV widgets talk

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is working with industry to develop a talking TV UI. A little more detail is available on the Ocean Blue Software site, but I'm looking forward to seeing (or rather, hearing) it at IBC to find out how the EPG part of it works.

I imagine that it's not just a case of speaking out the contents of a whole screenful of guide information. What the blind or partially-sighted user needs is to be able to navigate around a screenful of information to control the order that things are spoken, much like a sighted person would look around by moving their eyes.

For this to work effectively, the navigation paths would need to be logical and structured so that the minimum navigation is required to get to the info you want. I doubt you'd get that simply by mapping left/right/up/down positions on the screen display to left/right/up/down navigation, so each "talking" application must be structured with spoken interaction in mind.

Which raises an interesting question - with the trend towards 3rd party extension applications and widgets for interactive environments, would every application author have to design their app with a "talking" mode of operation (including navigation paths optimised for a talking UI), or is it possible to design the UI building-blocks such that a useful talking mode is achieved without the app-author considering it?

A widgets environment already forces some navigation structure onto applications (so that the user can navigate between widgets without all widget authors cooperating with one another) - could this be extended to make widgets talk more easily?

Sighted-users can also benefit from this area of work. For example, imagine if you could phone your STB from the office and interact with the talking interface to set a recording. Or if the TV remote control had a phone-like handset built into the back, you could check your stocks and shares widget without disturbing the video that others are watching.

Blinkbox gets content approval from BBC World service

Viewers of VOD service Blinkbox could soon catch up with popular programmes commissioned by BBC, according to numerous reports this week. BBC Worldwide has licensed the rights to offer shows, including Planet Earth, Top Gear and Spooks, in what seems like a revenue sharing deal.

The VOD service boasts 1.5m video streams to 750,000 unique visitors last month, and already has 5,000 hours of programming available, but much of the content is from US networks.

Blinkbox has an interesting proposition for the UK VOD market. Although the service has a competitive edge over BBC’s own iPlayer with its mixed catalogue of content, it remains to be seen whether its pay-tv model will work in the UK. The VOD market is fast evolving and companies such as Blinkbox are working to find a business model that works.

VOD viewers can be fickle so content could be the differentiator, but not without a good price structure, accessibility and usability features.