An audience perspective on the second screen phenomenon

Second screen applications are among the latest of the TV industry’s innovations to retain the TV viewer’s attention in a challenging multi-screen environment. These applications can be regarded as an extension of TV content consumed on a TV set towards lightweight portable devices such as tablets. While numerous commercial instances are available internationally and the existing literature on the topic from a technical perspective is extensive, the audience side of this phenomenon has been paid far less attention to. Moreover, in the case of Flanders, the successful commercial implementation of second screen applications remains limited. In this research, we aim to elicit what TV viewers’ expectations and preferences are regarding second screen functionalities. By applying means-end theory and a laddering approach we were able to discern how these preferences subsequently relate to the TV show itself, the consequences for the viewing experience, as well as how second screen applications and usages are expected to fit in the viewer’s everyday life

Why broadband? The meaning of broadband for residential users

In the society we live in today, access to information is crucial. But because of the increased amount of data as well as the nature of the content, a simple Internet connection is no longer sufficient. The EU government, which has followed an Internet access policy for many years (see eEurope programme), has shifted the focus to broadband Internet. Yet, despite these efforts, the uptake of broadband Internet is still quite low. And the situation in developing countries is even more critical. But is access to information the only enabler for users to switch to a broadband connection? With the wide range of Internet services and applications in the domains of entertainment, communication, commerce etc, now more than ever the Internet is a part of people’s everyday life. In this article we will not only look at the benefits and motivations for people to subscribe to a broadband Internet connection, but also at the different barriers to the uptake and usage of such a connection

Lowering the barriers for online cross-media usage: Scenarios for a Belgian single sign-on solution

The digitization has led to an ecosystem in which an online media portal has become an essential extension of traditional media and users are enabled to consume news and entertainment via different platforms. These evolutions pose some challenges for the media companies in terms of shifting business models, but they also bring them new possibilities in managing their relations with users. An important first step here is to identify the online users and turn anonymous users into registered ones. Today, however, there is a myriad of logins and passwords one needs when surfing the web, which can make the management of these logins a challenge for users. The Belgian media industry seeks to deal with this challenge by introducing a collaborative nation-wide single sign-on (SSO) system across their digital platforms, called Media ID. This paper provides four scenarios describing the potential outcomes in terms of user adoption and hence market potential of the integration of a SSO service into a regional media system. The scenarios are built upon focus group interviews with media users and in-depth interviews with the stakeholders from the involved media companies. They describe to what extent the innovative service can influence user’s online media consumption behaviour but also to what extent the media companies can implement it, two factors that mutually shape each other. In the discussion of the scenarios, requirements to ensure the broad applicability of a SSO service by both media users and media organizations are identified

Channel Choice Determinants of (Digital) Government Communication: A Case Study of Spatial Planning in Flanders

Governments at all levels believe the digitisation of their services and increased interaction with citizens will bring significant advantages in terms of transparency, creation of public value, and improvement of government performance (Al-Hujran, Al-Debei, Chatfield, & Migdadi, 2015). Nonetheless, this evolution towards more digital services and communication by governments raises questions in terms of inclusivity and accessibility. We conducted focus groups with a heterogeneous panel of over 80 citizens, ranging from non-users of digital technologies to high-level users, to study their choice of channel and their perception towards the evolving digitisation of communication and services, applied to the case of spatial planning in Flanders (Belgium). The results reveal that the most decisive channel choice determinants in spatial planning relate to the channel characteristics themselves, the information, the contextual aspect of the communication flow, and digital inequality mechanisms; meaning that (a) citizens opt for local communication channels when interacting with local, regional, and national governments, (b) citizens prefer to be personally informed when the communicated message has a direct impact on them, and (c) more vulnerable digital profiles consider the transition to digital communication by default as problematic

Perceptual quality of 4K-resolution video content compared to HD

With the introduction of 4K UHD video and display resolution, questions arise on the perceptual differences between 4K UHD and upsampled HD video content. In this paper, a striped pair comparison has been performed on a diverse set of 4K UHD video sources. The goal was to subjectively assess the perceived sharpness of 4K UHD and downscaled/upscaled HD video. A striped pair comparison has been applied in order to make the test as straightforward as possible for a non-expert participant population. Under these conditions and over this set of sequences, on average, on 54.8% of the sequences (17 out of 31), 4K UHD resolution content could be identified as being sharper compared to its HD down and upsampled alternative. The probabilities in which 4K UHD could be differentiated from downscaled/upscaled HD range from 83.3% for the easiest to assess sequence down to 39.7% for the most difficult sequence. Although significance tests demonstrate there is a positive sharpness difference from camera quality 4K UHD content compared to the HD downscaled/upscaled variations, it is very content dependent and all circumstances have been chosen in favor of the 4K UHD representation. The results of this test can contribute to the research process of developing metrics indicating visibility of high resolution features within specific content

ALTMM 2018 - 3rd international workshop on multimedia alternate realities

AltMM 2018 is the 3rd edition of the International Workshop on Multimedia Alternate Realities at ACM Multimedia. Our ambition remains to engage researchers and practitioners in discussions on how we can successfully create meaningful multimedia 'alternate realities' experiences. One of the main strengths of this workshop is that we combine different perspectives to explore how the synergy between multimedia technologies can foster and shape the creation of alternate realities and make their access an enriching and valuable experience