Leuven.


The morning keynote on this second and last day of EuroITV 2009 is by Jan van Bogaert from Alcatel-Lucent. He notes the gradual shift from a triple-play model for connecting households using broadband (comprising of IPTV, voice, and Internet communication) towards a more converged model which he calls application-enabled broadband.

The older model still involves a walled garden approach, too,where IPTV, for example, is streamed into the home using the broadband network, but delivered only to the TV, not to the PC. A different model is to stream content 'over the top' on the Net, allowing access via broadbandp-connected TVs. This has also led to IPTV providers thinking about expanding their market by offering their TV channels not only as IPTV to their own subscribers, but also streamed over the top to users subscribed with their competitors.

Leuven.


We move on to Janez Zaletelj, whose paper at EuroITV 2009 focusses on real-time viewer feedback in TV production, here in the context of the 2008 Olympic Games. Traditionally, in sports broadcasting, broadcast directors have no feedback from viewers whatsoever; adding such feedback channels, however, enables them to check the viewer acceptance of content, make changes accordingly, and otherwise communicate with the audience.

The project used IPTV for this purpose; four interlinked sub-channels carryng different content and allowing user votes as well as information flashes from the producers, were made available within the overall Olympic Games channel. The system was able to gather viewer statistics on each of the channels and on what content ws being watched, and this was able to be correlated with viewer profiles (gathered in some detail for the specific purpose of this prototype study).

Leuven.


My own presentation at EuroITV 2009 was next. As always, I'll try to add the audio as soon as possible, but for now, here's the Powerpoint with audio track, and a link to the full paper:

Technorati : Bittorrent, EuroITV 2009, Justin.tv, broadcasting, distribution, euroitv09, filesharing, television

Del.icio.us : Bittorrent, EuroITV 2009, Justin.tv, broadcasting, distribution, euroitv09, filesharing, television

Leuven.


The third speaker in this session at EuroITV 2009 is Stephen Lynn, who shifts our focus to using multimedia annotations to provide a different sports viewing experience, initially for American Football. Currently, such TV content is accessed mainly still through the digital video recorder (DVR), and its most commonly used functionality remains fast forward and rewind, which is often frustrating to use.

Using annotations, there may be an opportunity to move towards other, more salient forms of random access to specific points in a game - accessing and rewatching specific plays or game phases, for example (also from multiple camera angles), and accessing the game statistics for a specific play, for example. At the same time, such controls must still be able to be used in a 'lean-back' mode that is typical for the conventional television experience.

Leuven.


If this is Thursday, I must be in Belgium... I've made the (surprisingly lengthy) trip from Hamburg to Leuven near Brussels for the EuroITV (as in, interactive television) conference. On the face of it, this may seem only peripherally connected to my own research interests, but in my paper I'll be continuing to explore the theme of user-led disruptions to the conventional television model which I addressed in my MIA article and the presentation at the Australasian Media & Broadcasting Congress last year.

We start with a keynote by Rich Ezekiel, Director of Yahoo! Connected TV. He begins by …

I've spent some time last year (and I hope to do more of it in 2009) talking and writing about the increasing challenge to traditional television which the growing online video sector poses - both in terms of the original content available from the likes of YouTube and Current.tv and in terms of the shared and re-broadcast television content available from Justin.tv and various bittorrent networks.

My argument in that context was that such online services are gradually becoming more convenient than television itself, even where it's enhanced through VCRs, DVRs, TiVos, iPod Videos and other time- and space-shifting devices. Well, as it turns out, younger television audiences at least in the US agree with me. The Wall Street Journal reports that a new study by Solutions Research Group found that