Prologue
For a long time, watching television was a straightforward event. The couch in the living room was facing the TV and a certain number of channels played certain shows at a designated time. When someone said, “I’m going to watch TV,” it was clear what that meant.
Today, it’s not that simple. Watching TV can mean a lot of things: TV via Internet, web content via TV, video on demand, IPTV, cable, satellite, DVB-T, mobile television, etc. Let’s not forget that with broadband internet connections and the integration of Wi-Fi chips into television sets, the technical framework has changed fundamentally.
Current Trends - State of the Art
Among all the trends that appeared in the last few month, some have the potential to offer the viewer additional contents in a discreet way to enrich his TV experience:
Oscars 2011
During the live coverage of the Acadamy Awards, ABC Network offered viewers behind-the-scenes material on an iPad App and over the web. The broadcast offered a unique view that TV couldn’t offer.
ABC-MyGeneration
An iPad App that offers even more live content to the viewer while they watch the program. The synchronization is produced via audio watermarks.
Other trends are using current technologies more or less innovative, but in our opinion they can´t keep up with the promises they make.
GoogleTV
GoogleTV is offering the ability to watch TV and surf the Net at the same time. Unfortunately there´s no fusion of web and TV information. Some of the offered remote controls show the fact, that the viewer was not taken too much into consideration when this system was invented.
Galileo
The German program “Galileo” sends a quiz, in which the viewer can take part on his Smart phone via Augmented Reality. The technical restrictions of this approach lead to a quite cramped TV experience.
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