INTERACTIVE TELEVISION

Interactive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they watch it. It is sometime called interactive TV, iTV, idTV or ITV (not to be confused with the British Independent Television network).

The most obvious example of this would be any kind of real–time voting on the screen, in which audience votes create decisions that are reflected in how the show continues. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience. Once a movie is downloaded for example, controls may all be local. The link was needed to download the program, but texts and software which can be executed locally at the set–top box or IRD (intra–room decoder) may occur automatically, once the viewer enters the channel.

For example, Reuters provides an interactive, full–screen news video experience for Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition users. The Reuters interactive TV news channel provides continuously updated footage with easy–to–use DVD–style interaction.

As a free–of–charge service, users can browse and watch 1–5 minute long, fully produced Reuters reports and raw video segments on their TV at their convenience. News stories are updated dynamically and are available as they break.

To be truly interactive, the viewer must be able to alter the viewing experience (for example: choose which angle to watch a football match), or return information to the broadcaster.

This "return path" or "back channel" can be by telephone, mobile SMS (text messages), radio, digital subscriber lines (ADSL) or cable.

Cable TV viewers receive their programs via an actual cable, and in the integrated cable return path enabled platforms, they use the same cable as a return path.

Satellite viewers (mostly) return information to the broadcaster via their regular telephone lines. They are charged for this service on their regular telephone bill. An Internet connection via ADSL, or other, data communications technology, is also growing more popular.

Interactive TV can also be delivered via a terrestrial aerial (digital terrestrial TV such as 'Freeview' in the UK). In this case, there is often no 'return path' as such – so data cannot be sent back to the broadcaster (so you could not, for instance, vote on a TV show, or order a product sample).

However, interactivity is still possible as there is still the opportunity to interact with an application broadcast and downloaded to the set–top box (so you could still choose camera angles, play games, etc.).

More and more, the return path is a broadband IP connection. Hybrid receivers can now display video from the IP connection and/or traditional tuners. Some devices are even dedicated to displaying video–online from the IP channel, which has given rise to IPTV – Internet Protocol Television.

The rise of the "broadband return path" has given new relevance to Interactive TV, as it opens up the need to interact with Video on Demand servers, advertisers, and Web site operators.

 

 

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