Nice to see you Anthony,
By: Sun_Zoom_Spark $$$$
Reply To: None Friday, 7 Jul 2000 at 3:59 PM EDT
Post # of 49981
NO LINK: Article mentioning ACTV
This is from the print edition of TV Technology Magazine, the June 28, 2000 edition.
OVER-THE-AIR ITV
But How Do Terrestrial Broadcasters Fit Into Interactive Television?
By Claudia Kienzle
NEW YORK
When it comes to digital Interactive Television (lTV), TV broadcasters have had to compete with one hand tied behind their backs. Unlike their cable and satellite competitors, broadcasters do not employ set-top box hardware and software - the platform that allows consumers to receive. decode, and interact with ITV signals.
But new hardware and software solutions now lend hope that traditional broadcasters can circumvent their infrastructure limitations, and gen- erate revenue through interactive advertising and t-commerce shopping via television.
HOLIDAY ROLLOUT
With its patented TC-702 chip, Telecruz is shifting I'I'V processing from the external digital set-top box (DSTB) to a processor embedded within new model 'I'V sets. The feature-rich CPU chips architecture includes frame buffer, memory phone modem and standards-compliant signal decoding functions (for HTML. Java and other standard formats), plus interfaces to cable modems and DSL.
Unlike Motorola DCT series DSTBS, which retail for up to $500 not including cable service, the Teletlzlilz chip will only add about $50 to the price of new TV sets, which will be in the stores in time for the Christmas shopping season. Zenith, Samsung, and Asian TV manufacturer Videocon have announced they are putting the chip into their 'I'V sets. Telecruz is in its first quarter year of production but it projects that l million units will be shipped this year. ''When we founded Telecruz three years ago, we determined that the company that makes interactivity the simplest for the home viewer will emerge the winner,'' said Kris Narayan, chairman of the Board of Telecruz. ''Our putting all the functionality within the 'I'V fit well with the reality that the viewer wants 'lazy interactivity;' with one TV appliance and one remote control.
''Viewers do not want to concern themselves with issues like interactive platforms, middleware or bandwidth. It has to be simple and inexpensive. Outside the home, there is a mad rush of confusion over who will provide ITV service - producers, advertisers, cable operators, broadcasters - but inside the home, the viewer is king, and he decides what will be on his screen.''
COOPERATION VS.CHAOS
On May 24 three major players in the ITV market place - ACTV, Motorola and OpenTV - announced they had joined forces to advance the deployment of ''SpotOn,'' a software-based, end-to-end solution for the delivery and accounting of highly targeted ITV advertising services via cable, satellite and broadcast.
The new entity, Digital ADCO Int., leverages ACTV'S Individualized TV software, Motorola's digital interactive hardware platform, and OpenTV's expertise and success providing ITV software to 7.8 million homes worldwide. In a press conference held in late May, representatives from the three entities said that SpotOn would benefit cable, satellite and eventually broadcasters. But, the most immediately viable market for SpotOn is cable companies employing the Motorola DCT-5000 and DCT-2000 Series DSTBs.
While no timetable was offered for when or how this proprietary technology would become viable for broadcast stations, by the fourth quarter of 2000, any interested party - broadcasters. advertisers, producers, media buyers - will be able to turn to Digital ADCO to assist them in encoding and data striping their commercials as SpotOn ads, as well as distributing them through the cable-dominated marketplace, tracking the viewer ''clicks,'' and managing the leads back to the advertisers.
''SpotOn can offer advertisers pinpoint accuracy and maximum effectiveness when delivering commercials based on the general demographic profile of a region enabled by the headend integration, or based on the specific profile of an individual household generated by our software within the digital set-top located in the home'' said Kevin Liga, chief technology officer of ACTV and acting CEO of Digital ADCO.
Prior to a commercial, viewers might see an on-screen prompt like, ''Your Toyota dealer wants to know which Toyota interests you most. Select one for Camry, two for Corolla, or three for a 4x4.'' Depending upon the selection they make using their remote control, viewers will instantly see the Toyota commercial that's preferable for their needs or lifestyle. If they choose not to choose, the choice will be made for them based upon their personal profiles, geographic locations, and other data maintained inside DSTBs and head-end servers.
As long as the signals reach a DSTB, this interactive infrastructure can be utilized by anyone - DTV broadcasters of HD'IV or multicast SDTV, digital cable systems, direct-to-home satellite broadcasters, even the newly proposed Geocast DTV to PC service - because they all stream MPEG-2 encoded video,'' Liga said. It can also be integrated into DSTBs by Scientific-Atlanta, Pace or others, and is compatible with existing set-top technologies by Wink, WorldGate and others.
OPENTV INTO U.S. MARKET
As the worlds leading provider of software enabling ITV, OpenTV's software now resides on 7.8 million DSTBs abroad. Now OpenTV reports that it has finally broken into the challenging U.S. ITV market. Its software has been flashed to 50,000 DSTBs on satellite broadcaster Echostar's Dish Network, with more to come.
''Now broadcasters that want to enhance their programming with interactivity can transmit that data using OpenTV, through Dish Network to those DSTBS, and viewers can pull up those enhancements using OpenTV,'' said Mitchell Berman, senior vice president of OpenTV. Of all the players in the I'I'V business, including Microsoft and Liberate, we're the only ones that focus on the broadcast television community."
Berman said that two of the biggest OpenTV customers in Europe are terrestrial broadcasters - Tree TV in Germany and Onda in Sweden - both of whom deploy their own DSTBs in homes.
"The challenge today for the broadcast community in the United States is how can they deliver interactive programs on their own without having to go through 'gatekeepers' like digital satellite or digital cable systems," Berman said. "To do that effectively today, they really only have two choices. Either put their own DSTB in the home, or get manufacturers to embed some sort of digital receiver/device right into the digital TV set itself."
A third option - to have viewers leave the TV to move to their PCs where they can interact with related programming data - is not particularly attractive because many homes do not have a PC, let alone one near the TV, Berman said.
DTV LEADS TO ITV
The move to DTV is the key for broadcasters to take advantage of interactive television, said Dov Rubin, senior vice president of NDS Americas.
"DTV broadcasters are beginning to realize that, with the new 6MHz digital channel, they now have precious commodity - bandwidth," Rubin said. "They're no longer limited to squeezing a few characters or lines of text in the vertical blanking interval. They can now send large data files in addition to shows. We're giving broadcasters the tools to realize greater revenue or bigger audiences using that bandwidth."
One of these tools is the NDS MediaStorm, an end-to-end solution for data broadcasting services, including fast file delivery, muticast streaming, high speed Internet, Web caching, and the transmission of MPEG-2 video to PCs.
With respect to delivering ITV advertising to TVs, Rubin said the solutions can be very simple, with no need for DSTBs or even a return path to work. Assuming that DTV receiver/decoders will include some type of security device, like a smart card, broadcasters can use the smart card in lieu of a return path.
For example, Rubin said, during a commercial, viewers can be told that they can get a free Domino's pizza by clicking with their remote controls.
"That click would prompt data, such as a code, to be entered onto their smart card," he said, "and when the viewer takes that card to the local Domino's and puts it in the store's smart card reader, it would read that value. After the offer has been redeemed, the code would then be deleted from the card.
"I believe that DTV broadcasters will eventually have a direct relationship with their viewers," said Rubin. "Whether the means is simple or sophisticated, the revenue resulting from ITV programming and advertising can make the difference between profit and loss for a major network." |
