(De)convergence in TV: a comparative analysis of the development of Smart TV

Against the backdrop of media convergence, Smart TVs are developing rapidly in large parts of the world. Smart TV refers to the integration of broadband Internet and social media features into TV sets. From a media business perspective, the proliferation of Smart TV services may put pressure on the market structure of the TV landscape, and urge for new business models in order to capture the dynamics of media convergence. By means of a comparative analysis in four European markets (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), the development of Smart TV is sketched in terms of viewing patterns, business models and standardization. The conclusion is that national TV markets are evolving quite differently, so that service providers must adapt their marketing strategies to reflect local market conditions. Hence, the success of Smart TV ultimately depends on the local package of value-added services and the amount of strategic partnerships with content owners, TV broadcasters and pay-TV operators

HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios

[EN] The combination of broadcast and broadband (hybrid) technologies for delivering TV related media contents can bring fascinating opportunities. It is motivated by the large amount and diversity of media contents, together with the ubiquity and multiple connectivity capabilities of modern consumption devices. This paper presents an end-to-end platform for the preparation, delivery, and synchronized consumption of related hybrid (broadcast/broadband) media contents on a single device and/or on multiple close-by devices (i.e., a multi-device scenario). It is compatible with the latest version of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard (version 2.0.1). Additionally, it provides adaptive and efficient solutions for key issues not specified in that standard, but that are necessary to successfully deploy hybrid and multidevice media services. Moreover, apart from MPEG-DASH and HTML5, which are the broadband technologies adopted by HbbTV, the platform also provides support for using HTTP Live Streaming and Real-time Transport Protocol and its companion RTP Control Protocol broadband technologies. The presented platform can provide support for many hybrid media services. In this paper, in order to evaluate it, the use case of multi-device and multi-view TV service has been selected. The results of both objective and subjective assessments have been very satisfactory, in terms of performance (stability, smooth playout, delays, and sync accuracy), usability of the platform, usefulness of its functionalities, and the awaken interest in these kinds of platforms.This work was supported in part by the "Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional" and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through R&D&I Support Program under Grant TEC2013-45492-R.Boronat, F.; Marfil-Reguero, D.; Montagud, M.; Pastor Castillo, FJ. (2017). HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2781124S12

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences

Exploring Consumers’ Attitudes of Smart TV Related Privacy Risks

A number of privacy risks are inherent in the Smart TV ecosystem. It is likely that many consumers are unaware of these privacy risks. Alternatively, they might be aware but consider the privacy risks acceptable. In order to explore this, we carried out an online survey with 200 participants to determine whether consumers were aware of Smart TV related privacy risks. The responses revealed a meagre level of awareness. We also explored consumers’ attitudes towards specific Smart TV related privacy risks. We isolated a number of factors that influenced rankings and used these to develop awareness-raising messages. We tested these messages in an online survey with 155 participants. The main finding was that participants were generally unwilling to disconnect their Smart TVs from the Internet because they valued the Smart TV’s Internet functionality more than their privacy. We subsequently evaluated the awareness-raising messages in a second survey with 169 participants, framing the question differently. We asked participants to choose between five different Smart TV Internet connection options, two of which retained functionality but entailed expending time and/or effort to preserve privacy

Integration of Multisensorial Stimuli and Multimodal Interaction in a Hybrid 3DTV System

This article proposes the integration of multisensorial stimuli and multimodal interaction components into a sports multimedia asset under two dimensions: immersion and interaction. The first dimension comprises a binaural audio system and a set of sensory effects synchronized with the audiovisual content, whereas the second explores interaction through the insertion of interactive 3D objects into the main screen and on-demand presentation of additional information in a second touchscreen. We present an end-to-end solution integrating these components into a hybrid (internet-broadcast) television system using current 3DTV standards. Results from an experimental study analyzing the perceived quality of these stimuli and their influence on the Quality of Experience are presented

FamTV : an architecture for presence-aware personalized television

Since the advent of the digital era, the traditional TV scenario has rapidly evolved towards an ecosystem comprised of a myriad of services, applications, channels, and contents. As a direct consequence, the amount of available information and configuration options targeted at today's end consumers have become unmanageable. Thus, personalization and usability emerge as indispensable elements to improve our content-overloaded digital homes. With these requirements in mind, we present a way to combine content adaptation paradigms together with presence detection in order to allow a seamless and personalized entertainment experience when watching TV.This work has been partially supported by the Community of Madrid (CAM), Spain under the contract number S2009/TIC-1650.Publicad

Deliverable D5.1 LinkedTV Platform and Architecture

The objective of Linked TV is the integration of hyperlinks in videos to open up new possibilities for an interactive, seamless usage of video on the Web. LinkedTV provides a platform for the automatic identification of media fragments, their metadata annotations and connection with the Linked Open Data Cloud, which enables to develop applications for the search for objects, persons or events in videos and retrieval of more detailed related information. The objective of D5.1 is the design of the platform architecture for the server and client side based on the requirements derived from the scenarios defined in WP6 and technical needs from WPs 1-4. The document defines workflows, components, data structures and tools. Flexible interfaces and an efficient communications infrastructure allow for a seamless deployment of the system in heterogeneous, distributed environments. The resulting design builds the basis for the distributed development of all components in WP1-4 and their integration into a platform enabling for the efficient development of Hypervideo applications

Feasibility study: Electronic media laboratory according to Industry standard

The goal of this Master's thesis was to find out the Metropolia media technology laboratory’s correlation to industrial electronic media production standards and environments. The laboratory environment for education and training should be following not only media technology curriculum, but also the requirements set for learning audio-visual technology, including the processes, technologies and practices involved in professional electronic production and publishing in Finland. Since the role of the laboratory is to perform as an effective learning environment, there are some understandable restrictions in technology and development, in financial and in management section that prevent it from reaching the industrial level. These limitations and differences between this environment and more sophisticated industrial model were studied in this thesis. Feasibility study, which is suitable for analyzing the technology, financial and administrative development all together, was selected as the research method. The study was intended to determine the achievable laboratory model of functional validation and also to demonstrate the proof of concept. Audiovisual production in the laboratory and the subsequent electronic digital publishing was created as an embedded model. The model takes into account the ongoing changes in the television environment and the traditional radio frequency transmission, which is now competing with other alternatives such as IP network distribution. Video editing as post production was analyzed in its current state and compared to a complete network-based-editing NAS and SAN model, which can also be implemented in cloud technologies for decentralized co-operation. This way the model was following the industry trends and future prospects. Research material was collected and acquired from written sources, industry fairs and conferences, resellers and agents as well as production companies and broadcasters. Practical implementation of electronic media publishing was simulated in the laboratory environment so that all the possible reception technologies were covered. Publishing was customized for compatibility with various devices. Noteworthy aspects in this publishing process were the post-processing, packetizing and distribution related quality management aspects their definition and management issues were also discussed in this thesis. The end result was a feasibility analysis and model, which defines the electronic publishing technology teaching bottlenecks regarding the equivalence of the technologies in laboratory environment.YAMK-insinöörityön tavoitteena oli selvittää Metropolian mediatekniikan laboratorion vastaavuus teollisessa elektronisen median tuotannossa noudatettaviin standardeihin. Laboratorion koulutusympäristönä tulee noudattaa paitsi mediatekniikan opetussuunnitelmassa audio-visuaaliselle tekniikalle oppimiselle asetettuja vaatimuksia, myös niitä prosesseja, käytäntöjä ja teknologioita joita ammattimainen elektroninen tuotanto ja julkaiseminen Suomessa toteuttaa. Oppimisympäristönä toimivan laboratorion kehittämiselle ja varustamiselle on ymmärrettävästi teknisiä, taloudellisia ja hallinnallisia rajoituksia, jotka estävät sen saavuttamasta teollista tasoa. Näiden rajojen ja kehittyneemmän teollisen mallin eroja tutkittiin. Tutkimusmenetelmäksi valittiin saavutettavuustutkimus (eng. feasebility study), joka menetelmänä soveltuu teknologian, taloudellisen tai hallinnollisen kehittämiseen analysointiin. Tutkimuksella pyrittiin määrittelemään saavutettavissa olevan laboratoriomallin toiminnallinen validointi ja toteutettavuuden osoitus (engl.proof of concept). Laboratorion audiovisuaalista tuotantoa ja sitä seuraavaa elektronista sekä digitaalista julkaisemista varten luotiin sulautettu malli. Mallissa huomioitiin televisioympäristössä meneillään oleva muutos, jossa perinteinen radiotaajuuslähettäminen on saanut vaihtoehdoksi IP- verkoilla suoritettavan jakelun. Videon editointi jälkituotantona analysointiin nykytilassa ja vertailtiin sitä täydellisen verkkoeditoinnin malleihin, jotka voivat myös toteuttaa pilviteknologioita hajautetussa tuotannollisessa yhteistyössä. Näin medialaboratorion mallinnuksessa huomioitiin toimialan ajan trendit ja tulevaisuuden näkymät. Tämä tutkimusaineisto hankittiin kirjallisten lähteiden lisäksi, alan messuilta ja konferensseista, maahantuojilta ja edustajilta sekä tuotanto- ja yleisradioyhtiöiltä. Elektronisen median julkaisemista simuloitiin laboratorioympäristössä niin, että kaikki mahdolliset vastaanottotekniikat oli otettu huomioon. Julkaiseminen räätälöitiin myös soveltuvaksi eri päätelaitteille. Julkaisemisessa huomionarvoisiksi asioiksi nousivat audiovisuaalisen sisällön jälkiprosessointiin, paketointiin ja lähettämiseen liittyvät tekniset laadunhallinnan aspektit, esimerkiksi eri videonpakkausalgoritmien soveltuvuus videosisällön jakelussa, julkaisemisen automatisoinnin mahdollistaminen ja eri julkaisualustojen tutkiminen ja määrittely Lopputuloksena saatiin aikaan soveltuvuusanalyysi ja mallinnus, jossa määriteltiin elektronisen julkaisemisen teknisen opetuksen pullonkaulat teolliseen vastaavuuteen nähden. Suurimmaksi kompastuskiveksi voidaan mainita jakelujärjestelmän operoinnin hankaluus sekä verkotetun editointijärjestelmän määrittelyn haasteellisuus

Deliverable D8.2 First market analysis

This deliverable provides an overview of a first market analysis of the IPTV market. It points out possible customers, competitors and the differences between LinkedTV and their competitive firms

Technology Roadmap of TV channel Gol Television for next two years

The principle objective of the project is to create the plan of new technology in terms of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) for pay Spanish sport TV channel, Gol Television. This plan shall provide to obtain new equipment design, modern and efficient, that allows the company to reduce the costs, that are generates by current DTT equipment. Identification of the gaps within the organization sectors supports the plan development. Moreover the company, by implementation of the new technology plan, shall be able to offer its service in more affordable prices, and in effect increase the sales. The technology roadmap methodology is used in the study, in order to create the future channel technology strategy plan. The roadmapping process of technology planning in terms of CPE is supported by different analysis presented in the chapter 6 and chapter 7. Design process of technology roadmap consists of the company vision for the future and description of the CPE problems, based on the presented in chapter 5 current situation of Gol Television. Analysis of the technology roadmap scope, which is CPE, includes identification of the problems, gaps, and definition of the additional costs that are generated by actual DTT equipment. CPE technology roadmap consists of equipment requirements analysis that is used in order to create the technology plan with established CPE pre-solution. This analysis has beginning in the customers’ and company’s needs identification. Based on these needs general functional requirements in terms of future CPE are defined. These requirements underline the necessities and expectedness in terms of the new equipment characteristics. The functional requirements provide to identify different technology specifications that give the CPE pre-solution proposals. As a project conclusion is establishment of the CPE plan that includes all identified technology solutions, ordered and arranged within the time. The final choice of the CPE features depends on the company decision. The investment of assumed proposal of new CPE design, realized for this study, has an impact on the Mediapro company economy and, as it is presented in the chapter 8, can bring important advantage.Incomin