iTV Standard v1.1 Released

mbstone writes "The iTV Standards Initiative this week announced the release of version 1.1 of its proposed iTV Production Standards, an open XML-schema-based scheme for interactive TV. In other words your set-top box or PC TV card would use the proposed standard to let you click on something displayed on your TV screen, for example, to answer a poll or buy the product featured in a commercial."

Comments

Re:How about....

[MeanMF]

I have a $200 sony all in one remote that tries to provide a single interface to all my stuff. Problem is that it does not quite cut it, the Onkyo receiver does not quite do what it should.

Try this. I have everything programmed into one $30 Radio Shack remote, including an Onkyo receiver. It takes a little work, but it's definitely worth the effort.

Re:It will fail.

[stratjakt]

Something was built into MS's WebTV... I cant remember what it was called, but I had it back when I was using my all-in-wonder card under 95 or 98. It would basically embed URL's into broadcasts, when one appeared, a little icon would pop up next to the channel number. It'd take you to, say, the Jeapordy home page (thats the only show I remember clicking it on).

Mostly the URLs would accompany commercials. But it wasnt really intrusive or anything. Just a handy way to get more info on a product or whatever. I remember following one to the local Ford mega-dealership to get some info on one of their sales.

Not a bad idea. Didnt add much, didnt take away anything either. I could see how it could be enhanced to allow voting for stuff like American Idol or the other rash of 'reality' shows.

It will fail? I hope not ...

[JMZorko]

This is seriously cool stuff -- the IEC-13818-x spec (MPEG2) is fascinating stuff, and set-top boxes are very cool platforms to code to. There are lots of ways to enable interactivity in television -- the XML-based trigger info can be snarfed from an ethernet network (I used to code to the PowerTV API, and it had a version of BSD sockets on it to receive data from the set-top's ethernet port). It could be another elementary stream encoded in the MPEG PS itself. it doesn't even need to be a digital signal -- it could live in the VBI with closed-captioning and other stuff (this is how WebTV, Wink and others work). It could even be on a sideband-type thing, i.e. transmitted on a different frequency than the picture. This isn't even touching on the services that could be enabled with the DSM-CC portion of the MPEG spec.

... and yes, it will be used for advertising, but it also enables much cooler things. Imagine interactive children's programs -- that big black box so often used as an electronic babysitter has some truly awesome education potential, and interactivity only makes that better. Technology doesn't always have to be seen as some sort of Orwellian or Matrix-type enabler for the pot-planting of humankind ... it can be a window to a great and vast world.

Regards,

John

Re:How about....

[Null_Packet]

Look into the TheaterMaster remotes. I have the MX500 and it's a superb remote, and has numerous macro/learning features. I personally like it because it has learnable lcd/soft buttons as well has hard ones.

MHEG

[albino eatpod]

The UK digital systems have been using MHEG for the past 5 years for our interactive service, and although slow at first (mainly due to STB problems) it's getting pretty fast now. BBC's BBCi is superb, and offers everything our our teletext system used to.

Some of the interactive services are a bit naff, but some are pretty interesting.

Oh my, another DTV standard!

[derekb]

Well we got excited about ATVEF, then MHEG, then MHP, somewhere in there OpenTV developed their own proprietary system, as did Liberate. And that's not even including the TV over ADSL guys...

iMagicTV, one of those TV over ADSL middleware providers uses HTML with 'tv in the browser' as does others like Minerva and Orca...

Don't forget about hardware vendors who are already shipping and this includes the big boys like Thomson/RCA

So why yet another dtv standard.. I'm getting dizzy...

Re:Oh my, another DTV standard!

[freek254]

I had the same feeling. I've been developing digital TV apps and boxes for five years and every month there's a new "standard". However, these guys seem to try to address a need. From their FAQ:

Q: Do the standards work with ATVEF or MHP?

A: The standards are agnostic to the distribution platform. Thus, they can be used with both ATVEF and MHP.

Q: Why is there a need for production standards when there are so many standards on the distribution side?

A: The content community made up of studios, networks, producers and others has struggled over the past few years with a multitude of changing distribution methodologies. There is tremendous work taking place throughout the industry to create distribution standards. In order to facilitate economically viable production of interactive content today, the content community has proactively created this committee to provide a standard method for creating interactive content. This standard will benefit all involved, including the work in progress for various other standards forums in the industry.

However, for it to make a difference, it needs to be "compiled" on the distribution side to MHP/ATVEF/*Fad_Of_The_Month*/OpenTV... or packaged and interpreted on the terminal. Hence, someone needs to develop and deploy that software.

If you ask me, this is way premature. If someone comes up with ORIGINAL programming utilizing interactive TV (not commercials...) that is so fun and/or useful that every ITV network and user wants it, then the cost of implementing that on different distribution networks will exceed the cost of implementing and deploying the needed general software. Maybe then it will happen. Otherwise... Naaah! Get's my vote for fad of the month.

Fredrik

Re:Accurate, Active Schedules would be nice

[jjon]

In the UK, we already have this feature - even for analog VCRs. It's called PDC (Programme Delivery Control).

A google turned up this explanation of how it works.

The actual standard is also available (free registration required).

Of course, this is only for analog TV. Digital TV already has some information which could be used for this (Event Information Tables - EIT) but I don't know if any integrated digital reciever/PVR combos use it.

Re:What about Microsoft?

[chilledchaos]

as far as I know they are not involved. though you never know who lurks behind some of the members...

Check out the members here.

Interactive TV is happening *outside* America

[fiddlesticks]

> [Interactive TV] just is never going to happen.

Maybe iTV is never going to happen in the States, but just as with cellphones, DAB and many technologies that gain momentum through standards and cross-border co-operation , the US is being left behind, as Interactive TV is thriving in Europe, especially in the UK, and I'm amazed that many tech-savvy Americans don't seem to realise this

~45-50% of UK households *with a TV* have digital TV, and of them 65 percent of have access to ITV

In simple numbers ,that's about 8 million households have Interactive TV in the UK. As a comparison, there are about 10 million Uk households with access to the Net.

There are about 6.25 million households with digital satelite alone. All of them have access to very, very advanced interactive services. There are about 2 million households with digital cable, using Liberate middleware

The new Free to air DTT boxes are selling like hot cakes, and there are many Interactive services available through the BBC and others

Here's a wide range of iTV screenshots

In europe as a whole 'interactive TV was estimated to be available in 31 million European households at the end of 2002, creating a potential audience of 72 million viewers'