Interactive TV Applications Research Articles

Providing adjustable and dynamic spatial layouts for multimedia applications with STyLe

Interactive multimedia applications may be presented on multiple devices with different screen sizes. Therefore, application layouts should be adapted during runtime. Besides adapting layouts to different devices, the number of visual multimedia objects may vary, thus it is desirable to provide an automatic application layout adjustment to ease the authoring effort and provide good user quality of experience. In this article, the term adjustable layout is used to refer to an application spatial layout that adjusts itself to the number of media objects to be presented. The term dynamic layout is used to refer to an application spatial layout that can change at runtime in reaction to presentation events. Multimedia declarative authoring languages, such as NCL and SMIL, provide simple layout construction using nested rectangular regions to design the application layout. However, these languages do not provide native facilities for authors to develop adjustable and dynamic layouts. This article proposes STyLe, a constraint-based template language for providing adjustable and dynamic spatial layouts for multimedia documents. It also presents an architecture that is capable of interpreting STyLe when used together with NCL to provide dynamic layouts for interactive digital TV applications. The results show that STyLe has more expressiveness and abstraction when compared to NCL and that the language is simple and effective for building adjustable and dynamic layouts.

IoT and iTV for Interconnection, Monitoring, and Automation of Common Areas of Residents

Internet and, in particular, computer networks have become a key issue in our daily lives, due to the birth of wireless technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) aims to integrate sensors and actuators in daily objects, maximizing miniaturization and minimizing the economic cost of these hardware components. The purpose is to connect these components to the Internet through wireless and fixed networks, and thereby produce information in real time which is then stored for later processing. On the other hand, Interactive TV (iTV) combines traditional TV with interactivity similar to that of the Internet and the personal computer. The evolution of TV technology has brought computing power to this device, offering services apart from the traditional ones, making it a device capable of running applications and maximizing its networking potential. This work presents a framework that includes and integrates a wireless sensor network, an IoT platform, and a real interactive TV application. It covers the deployment and communication of the wireless sensor network through the interoperability of data, to final consumption, through a real interactive television application. It has been tested within a residential community to provide real-time information, in order to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants. In addition, it incorporates the possibility of analyzing this information to establish processes with the objective of reducing energy consumption, thus improving sustainability and contributing to the efficient use of existing resources. The proposed framework serves as the basis for any deployment of similar characteristics.

QoS, Energy and Cost Efficient Resource Allocation for Cloud-Based Interactive TV Applications

Internet-based social and interactive video applications have become major constituents of the envisaged applications for next-generation multimedia networks. However, inherently dynamic network conditions, together with varying user expectations, pose many challenges for resource allocation mechanisms for such applications. Yet, in addition to addressing these challenges, service providers must also consider how to mitigate their operational costs (e.g., energy costs, equipment costs) while satisfying the end-user quality of service (QoS) expectations. This paper proposes a heuristic solution to the problem, where the energy incurred by the applications, and the monetary costs associated with the service infrastructure, are minimized while simultaneously maximizing the average end-user QoS. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution in terms of serving probability, i.e., the likelihood of being able to allocate resources to groups of users, the computation time of the resource allocation process, and the adaptability and sensitivity to dynamic network conditions. The proposed method demonstrates improvements in serving probability of up to 27%, in comparison with greedy resource allocation schemes, and a several-orders-of-magnitude reduction in computation time, compared to the linear programming approach, which significantly reduces the service-interrupted user percentage when operating under variable network conditions.

A Tool to Simulate the Transmission, Reception, and Execution of Interactive TV Applications.

The emergence of Interactive Digital Television (iDTV) opened a set of technological possibilities that go beyond those offered by conventional TV. Among these opportunities we can highlight interactive contents that run together with linear TV program (television service where the viewer has to watch a scheduled TV program at the particular time it is offered and on the particular channel it is presented on). However, developing interactive contents for this new platform is not as straightforward as, for example, developing Internet applications. One of the options to make this development process easier and safer is to use an iDTV simulator. However, after having investigated some of the existing iDTV simulation environments, we have found a limitation: these simulators mainly present solutions focused on the TV receiver, whose interactive content must be loaded in advance by the programmer to a local repository (e.g., Hard Drive, USB). Therefore, in this paper, we propose a tool, named BiS (Broadcast iDTV content Simulator), which makes possible a broader solution for the simulation of interactive contents. It allows simulating the transmission of interactive content along with the linear TV program (simulating the transmission of content over the air and in broadcast to the receivers). To enable this, we defined a generic and easy-to-customize communication protocol that was implemented in the tool. The proposed environment differs from others because it allows simulating reception of both linear content and interactive content while running Java applications to allow such a content presentation.

Optimized resource distribution for interactive TV applications

Though ubiquitous, the full potential of consumer electronic devices in the home, as content creators, remains underutilized due to the limited interaction between the consumers and the existing on-demand application and media services. Although services such as interactive television could change this, the geographic distribution of groups of consumers and the need for on-the-fly media processing that this entails, makes the efficient utilization of resources a complex optimization task requiring mechanisms to simultaneously allocate processing and network resources to groups of users. However, these technologies have not yet been developed, and brute force methods remain prohibitively complex. In order to overcome this problem, this paper proposes heuristic algorithms to both generate end-to-end delay bound multicast trees for individual groups of users and to co-locate multiple multicast trees, such that a minimum group quality metric can be satisfied. The performance of the proposed heuristic solution is evaluated in terms of the serving probability, i.e., the resource utilization efficiency, and computation time of the resource allocation decision making process. Simulation results show that improvements in the serving probability of up to 50%, in comparison with existing generic resource allocation schemes, and several orders of magnitude reduction of the computation time, in comparison to an optimal linear programming solution approach, can be achieved.

An Empirical Investigation Into Typing Errors in Interactive Digital Television Applications

Remote controls are especially problematic for writing text, something necessary in many interactive digital TV applications (IDTV). In the context of research aimed at finding effective entry methods for IDTV applications, an empirical investigation was carried out and is presented in this article. The study analyzed the errors committed by 82 users in an experiment in which they wrote 7,395 sentences. Several typing methods suitable for IDTV contexts were used for experimentation. There were 3,562 of the sentences that registered at least one error. These errors were classified and their main causes analyzed, the particular characteristics of the users taken into account. The results show that the most frequent errors are proximity mistakes in all the evaluated methods. They appear in between 13.75% and 32.31% of the sentences, depending on the input method. Also, age and background are major aspects affecting the number and type of mistakes. The results could be the basis of changes in the design of conventional remote controls or in the design of advanced techniques for error recognition and correction.

Erratum to: Exploiting smart spaces for interactive TV applications development

The integration of semantic technologies and TV services is a substantial innovation to improve the services to users in an environment that is extended beyond the fixed home environment. But currently, this integration is mainly limited to provide personalized recommendation services and systems by matching user static preferences. Designing and development of interactive TV (iTV) applications using semantic technologies are not realized yet. In this work, we explore the potential of introduction semantic technologies and smart spaces in design and development of iTV applications. We use an example scenario to show how future iTV applications include the mesh-up of information from different sources. We proposed a methodology and show how ontology-driven approach can help to design and develop these iTV applications. We demonstrate the suitability of our ontology-driven application development tools and rule-based approach for the development of highly dynamic context-aware iTV applications.

Exploiting smart spaces for interactive TV applications development

The integration of semantic technologies and TV services is a substantial innovation to improve the services to users in an environment that is extended beyond the fixed home environment. But currently, this integration is mainly limited to provide personalized recommendation services and systems by matching user static preferences. Designing and development of interactive TV (iTV) applications using semantic technologies are not realized yet. In this work, we explore the potential of introduction semantic technologies and smart spaces in design and development of iTV applications. We use an example scenario to show how future iTV applications include the mesh-up of information from different sources. We proposed a methodology and show how ontology-driven approach can help to design and develop these iTV applications. We demonstrate the suitability of our ontology-driven application development tools and rule-based approach for the development of highly dynamic context-aware iTV applications.

Information Extraction in Semantic, Highly-Structured, and Semi-Structured Web Sources

The evolution of the Web from the original proposal made in 1989 can be considered one of the most revolutionary technological changes in centuries. During the past 25 years the Web has evolved from a static version to a fully dynamic and interoperable intelligent ecosystem. The amount of data produced during these few decades is enormous. New applications, developed by individual developers or small companies, can take advantage of both services and data already present on the Web. Data, produced by humans and machines, may be available in different formats and through different access interfaces. This paper analyses three different types of data available on the Web and presents mechanisms for accessing and extracting this information. The authors show several applications that leverage extracted information in two areas of research: recommendations of educational resources beyond content and interactive digital TV applications.

Designing an extension API for bridging Ginga iDTV applications and home services

This paper presents the implementation process for an API that integrates interactive digital TV (iDTV) applications and home network (HN) services, mainly concerning issues of the Brazilian iDTV model. The research in this field is important because it represents current trends on the use of iDTV opening many business opportunities. With the convergence of service providers, modern communication technologies and consumer electronics devices at home, new iDTV applications have emerged, particularly those that use the set-top-boxes (or digital TV sets) processing power to provide additional services, which extends the possibilities of interaction between the user and the connected home. To implement this platform, a known model, which considers aspects of the Ginga middleware and the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) framework, was used. The idea behind the API model is to export service objects from one side to another, allowing the development of two types of applications: the first one on the Ginga-J machine and the last one on the Ginga-NCL machine. The main goals of this paper are (i) presenting the use of free tolls to perform such integration and (ii) showing the most relevant aspects in the core of the two models. Finally, a basic step-by-step process is shown in order to build integrated iDTVHN real applications using this platform.

TripFromTV+: targeting personalized tourism to interactive digital TV viewers by social networking and semantic reasoning

Interactive Digital Television applications bring new value-added functionalities to viewers. In order to fight the current information overload, many of these applications offer personalization capabilities, by matching each viewer's preferences against the available resources. This paper describes TripFromTV+, an interactive application that provides cut-price tailor-made tourist packages by helping the viewer to decide what to do and what to visit during a trip. Different from the existing approaches, this application automatically infers the viewer's preferences from the kind of TV programs he/she enjoyed and from his/her activity in social networking sites, whose diffusion mechanisms are exploited to make the existing tourism offers known among the viewer's contacts. The paper shows how interactive TV applications can incorporate content from the Internet, by creating seamlessly integrated presentations that allow the viewer to have the advantages of the network capabilities in the TV environment through domestic and mobile consumer devices.

StoryToCode: a new model for specification of convergent interactive digital TV applications

Abstract This paper presents a model, called the StoryToCode, which allows designing iTV programs focusing on using software components. First, StoryToCode allows transforming a storyboard into an abstract description of an element set. After this, this model transforms these elements into a specific programming language source code. In StoryToCode a software component is treated as a special element that can be reused in other contexts (web, mobile, and so on). StoryToCode is based on Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and allows designing and implementing applications, with context free, considering iTV program specific characteristics.

User Interface Design Principles for Interactive Television Applications

Interactive Television (ITV) applications gratify entertainment needs and leisure activities in a relaxed domestic context. Then, the mentality of efficiency and task completion implied by many user interface heuristics may not be suitable for design and expert evaluation of ITV. In line with the contemporary movement towards the design of the user experience of computing systems, a set of design principles for ITV applications has been developed. Instead of information technology, the field of communication science was explored, which has accumulated an extensive theory of TV usage and viewer behavior. For the empirical validation, the principles were employed in the design of an interactive music TV application. The results suggest that a small set of generic principles could support the systematic design of ITV applications and produce a design rationale that is traceable and comparable to alternative solutions, during the process of early product development. In addition, the principles could be refined into specific guidelines and further employed to support expert evaluation techniques.

Learn and play with interactive TV

Despite the criticism concerning the value of TV content, research reveals several worthwhile aspects -- one of them is the opportunity to learn. In this article we explore the characteristics of interactive TV applications that facilitate education and interactive entertainment. In doing so we analyze research methods and empirical results from experimental and field studies. The findings suggest that interactive TV applications provide support for education and entertainment for children and young people, as well as continuous education for all. In particular, interactive TV is especially suitable for (1) informal learning and (2) for engaging and motivating its audience. We conclude with an agenda for future interactive TV research in entertainment and education.

Personalized and mobile digital TV applications

The introduction of mobile and broadband networks in complement to the existing satellite, cable, and terrestrial platforms, opens new opportunities for interactive TV (ITV) applications. In addition, the widespread adoption of multimedia computing has enabled the processing of TV content on personal devices such as mobile phones and PCs. The above developments raise novel issues and require the adoption of new multimedia standards and application frameworks. In particular, the explosion in the amount of available TV channels over digital television platforms (broadcast or internet protocol) makes searching and locating interesting content a cumbersome task. In this context, personalization research is concerned with the adaptation of content (e.g. movies, news, advertisements). Personalization is achieved with the employment of algorithms and data collection schemes that predict and recommend to television viewers content that match their interests. In addition, the distribution of TV content to mobile devices over broadband wireless raises the issue of video quality. Video quality depends on many aspects of the video encoding systems, such as bit rate and algorithms that model human perception of video on small screens. In this article, we examine contemporary research in personalized and mobile digital TV applications. Moreover, we present a critical survey of the most prominent research and provide directions for further research in personalized and mobile digital TV (DTV) applications.

User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective

A diverse user population employs interactive TV (ITV) applications in a leisure context for entertainment purposes. The traditional user interface (UI) evaluation paradigm involving efficiency and task completion may not be adequate for the assessment of such applications. In this paper, we argue that unless ITV applications are evaluated with consideration for the ordinary TV viewer, they are going to be appropriate only for the computer literate user, thus excluding the TV audience from easy access to information society services. The field of media studies has accumulated an extensive theory of TV and associated methods. We applied the corresponding findings in the domain of ITV to examine how universal access to ITV applications can be obtained. By combining these results with emerging affective quality theories for interactive products, we propose a UI evaluation framework for ITV applications.

Controlling the Smart Home from TV

In this paper we introduce a cooperative environment between the interactive digital TV (IDTV) and the networked home with the aim of allowing the interaction between interactive TV applications and the controllers of the in-home appliances in a natural way. Concretely, we have selected the MHP (multimedia home platform) standard, well-known in the IDTV field, and OSGi (open service gateway initiative), the most widely used open platform to set up residential gateways. To overcome the radically different conceptions below these two specifications we define a new kind of application, coined as XbundLET, which acts as a bridge between both worlds allowing MHP applications to use the OSGi services and vice versa, i.e., allowing OSGi applications to take advantage of the MHP functionality. As a further step towards integrated residential gateways, we also propose a semantic description for OSGi services at the smart home that facilitates services discovery and invocation from broadcast MHP applications.

Interview with Rick Mandler

Interview with Rick Mandler (April 18, 2005) Rick Mandler is vice president and general manager of Walt Disney Internet Group and ABCs Enhanced TV (http://corporate.disney.go.com/wdig/bios/rick_mandler.html). He and his teams have won two Emmys for their interactive TV programs. In the video interview, you will hear Ricks answers to the following questions: What are the two Emmy award winning Interactive TV applications? Video 1 Are there more interactive TV programs planned to run on the Windows XP Media Center Edition PC platform? Video 2 How do you see the future of 2-screen applications vs. single-screen applications? Video 3 I would imagine that it is easier to add interactivity to a sporting event than to a sitcom. How do you determine which television programs lend themselves to interactivity? Video 4 How important is interactive television to ABC? Video 5