Interactive TV Interoperability and Coexistence: The GLOBAL ITV Project

Abstract

One of the main challenges in the future of broadcast television is to encompass new technological platforms, standards and trends in the multimedia content consumption landscape along with new user’s behaviors and habits. Second screen and multiplatform experiences, social media and broadband contents arose as a permanent change and must to be considered in the future business model. Nevertheless, interoperability and coexistence issues are critical and fundamental aspects that must to be further implemented in a worldwide perspective, as many of the television standards were developed to cover regional markets mainly, creating restrictions to the content and applications sharing and barriers to the technological compatible layers. The aim of this paper is to discuss the ongoing work of “GLOBAL ITV: Interoperability of Interactive and Hybrid TV systems - A new advanced scheme for future services and applications in a global environment”, an international research project from Brazil and European Union countries that seeks to establish a new ground in the interactive television model and platforms aiming a global impact. The description is mainly focused on the work being carried out in the interactive TV landscape definition, playout and set-top-box development, and shows how solutions developed differ from other established models.