Is watching telly about to get all touchy feely?

Imagine a world where you can control your TV with a gesture, a wave of your hand, a nod… ok, that is here already with Kinect (“OLD!” I hear you cry). But how about a world where you don’t need a Kinect, a world in which you can turn any camera device on your phone, laptop or TV into a gesture sensor? And where you can literally plug yourself into your TV using a sensor that recognises your emotions and then changes the course of the story as it is playing out? And where you can choose what you watch by what mood you’re in, not just by genre, channel or time.

At the moment there’s a few technologies bubbling up that could really change the way we interact with our screens, in a physical sense, and how we discover content, in an emotional sense.

Last month at Channel 4’s Fuel4 event, I saw a couple of companies pitching some of these technologies and also got into an interesting discussion with my table about the discovery of content. And it got me to thinking, with all these changes, what might they mean for how content can be shaped to embrace these new technologies? And will people even embrace these new technologies? It’s all so new; out there, Tomorrow’s World-ish to me, so I thought I’d share what I saw and some of the ideas that were discussed.

Omnimotion – Motion control technology

Omnimotion by the company Omnimotec is a patented technology that turns any 2D or 3D webcam on your screen or device into a motion-control sensor.  Niall Austin, Managing Director, demonstrated the technology with his Macbook at the session, playing a few sports simulations such as swimming (rather amusingly in his smart suit) from very close and far away.

Here’s a video demonstration of some of the sporting simulations:

It was pretty impressive to see how responsive it was, even when he stepped a good six metres away from it.  Even more impressive was the openness of the possibilities with it, being that it didn’t require you to own any proprietary hardware (like the Kinect) and worked without any calibration via the camera on the Macbook.

Biosuite – emotional response cinema

Gawain Morrison showed us this short clip of his company Filmtrip’s emotion response technology:

Obviously this is quite an out-there concept to grasp, with many questioning if we even want to influence the course of the story we’re being told, as opposed to being taken on a journey by the storyteller. But that said I think this is fascinating technology, which has implications that are still to be discovered. What would it mean if content makers could analyse datasets of emotional reactions from consumers? What other ways might we want to influence the content we’re watching from our emotional reactions? (I would love advertisers to see that I’ve reached saturation point with their advert, or even see when it makes me cringe for example.)

Discovery of content according to the mood you’re in

Another theme that came up on the Fuel4 day was discovery of content according to mood. At one point everyone on the table I was sat at (a mix of digital and TV producers) was able to recount a project they had been involved in or were working on that involved mood-based discovery.

I myself did a project with Channel 4’s 4oD platform last year, which involved personalised recommendations based on mood and age. 4oDSundays was a campaign to bring more people to the on-demand services rich archive, where we invited people on Twitter to tell us their age and mood for a reply of a personalised recommendation from the archive.

The campaign was successful in driving more people to watch archive content over the four consecutive Sundays we ran it on, but what struck me most while running the campaign (the personalised recommendations were being found and tweeted by myself and colleagues in my living room!) were the emotional responses we received. By recommending content based on mood, we managed to hit the mark nearly every time, with people being delighted by the choices and surprisingly thankful, nostalgic and some even seemed, well, touched.

For me there’s something really special in the connection this approach creates – it’s almost as if a recognition and understanding of someone’s mood makes them feel more engaged with the broadcaster. And this in turn makes them feel nice; it feels like we are an inching toward a more human interaction between viewer and broadcaster.

Implications

So what are the possible implications of being more emotionally and/or physically engaged when watching television? I can’t help thinking for all involved this could be a good thing. Rather than the dystopian vision of our future of becoming fat, passive blobs and letting our brains shrivel, could getting a bit active in our consumption save us from that gloomy prognosis? Like the worker who feels more engaged with their company if they have a say in major decisions, will we feel more ownership and love for what we’re watching?

And what about the physicality? I think of myself when I’m not looking after myself much, not really doing exercise or eating well, and a symptom I get of this every time is a tendency to fall asleep in front of the telly every evening. What if I was moving about more, more physically engaged – would I see my brain wake up as a result and therefore be more open to what I’m watching? Of course this would be great news for advertisers. Will TV companies start selling to advertisers based on the fact that their audiences are more physically and emotionally engaged?

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all progresses and all the experiments along the way.

– Anna

Connecting the Dots: Is ‘Smart’ TV really that smart?

You’ve probably heard the news; how we are all about to plug our TVs into the internet, linking the living room screen to every website and social network on earth until the traditional way of watching television has drained from us like a digital enema. Sounds painful, huh? Certainly, the times they are a-changing, but in the fog of jargon, bluster and bullshit it’s tricky to know your Zeebox from your TiVo, and your video on-demand from your cloud-based streamed media. Where’s Tomorrow’s World when you need it?

As the UK hurtles towards the end of the digital TV switchover later this year (October 24 to be precise when Northern Ireland will switch off analogue signals), most of us can now access a digital TV platform of some flavour, introducing services such as catch-up TV and internet apps to the small but not smallest screen in the home. But question marks remain over how much consumers actually know about connected TV and, possibly more importantly, whether they actually want it.

Let’s get connected…

So what is connected TV? Well, it is essentially any TV set that is hooked up to the internet, either via a dedicated ‘Smart’ TV from the likes of Samsung or Sony; games consoles such as the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3; IPTV platforms such as BT Vision; or connected set top boxes, such as Freeview HD, Freesat HD and some Blu-Ray players. Virgin Media also offers a rich library of on-demand and ‘connected’ services, particularly via its new platform powered by US DVR giant TiVo, but the cable TV provider is typically viewed as a ‘pay-TV service’, rather than connected TV.

To understand how connected is changing TV consumption, it is best to first look at the platform that made video on-demand a household name. At Christmas 2011, BBC iPlayer celebrated its fourth birthday by racking up its biggest ever month, with a record-breaking 187m programme requests across all platforms where it is available, up 29% on the same period in 2010. The service, which offers catch-up on the BBC’s networks, attracted a staggering total of 1.94bn TV and radio programme requests over the whole of 2011. That’s a lot of Pat Butcher and Jeremy Clarkson…

The computer remains the most popular platform to access iPlayer, accounting for two-thirds of all requests, but December 2011 saw a significant spike in people accessing it on mobile devices, tablet computers and connected TVs. Last month, 7m iPlayer programmes were requested on connected TVs, an increase of more than 1000% year-on-year. As the boss of BBC iPlayer, Daniel Danker, succinctly but rather obviously puts it (he himself admits so), “the best place for television is on the television”.

The Smart revolution?



According to data from Ofcom, there were 1m Smart TVs sold in the UK in 2010, but that figure is expected to be up significantly in 2011. Samsung – the world leader in flat panel TV sales – has said that 70% of its TVs sold last year were Smart. Meanwhile, all the talk at the glittering Consumer Electronics Show this month was about new technology to connect the TV to the web, and beyond. Recent research from Futuresource Consulting has suggested that the US and Japan lead the world with connected TV, at 29% penetration, closely followed by Europe with 24%. Futuresource reckons that 80% of global TV shipments will be connected by 2015. So, TV manufacturers are going to ensure you get connected whether you like it or not, but is this just another false dawn like interactive TV in the late 1990s?

In the early days of the ‘Smart revolution’, figures suggested that only 15% of those who bought TVs with an internet connection actually bothered to plug in the Ethernet cable. Samsung now claims that the rate has risen to 75%, and certainly online video services such as BBC iPlayer, LoveFilm and Netflix are proving a ‘slam dunk’ with TV users. Recent advances in cloud remote storage technology are also allowing users to stream videos, music and even games in high quality on their TV without needing sophisticated local hardware. Debate, however, still rages over how much people are embracing the ‘less obvious’ services. Do we want to update our Facebook status on the TV? Do our internet banking in front of the family? Bid for crap we don’t need on eBay?

Some of the early confusion came from TV manufacturers frantically slapping as many stickers on the box as they could, trying to replicate the success of the mobile apps market. We’ve got maps!, We’ve got stocks! We’ve got porno! (OK, maybe not that last one.) But as Jeff Goldblum’s mathematician Dr Ian Malcolm noted in the movie Jurassic Park, these technical minds were so “preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”. (Yeah, I just quoted Jurassic Park, wannafightaboutit?) Herein lies the rub – there is still no defined way to go about connected TV, and it may take a truly breakthrough service to change this.

Differing views leads to confused viewers



Electronic programme guides (EPG), which provide an interface to channels on digital TV services, may vary slightly in flavour, but they are run on the same principles. Basically, barring a few tweaks and jazzy features, most people can instantly find BBC One if they want it (even my mum, who is the ultimate, and often frustrating test of even the most straightforward technology). But this is not the case for connected TV, where approaches often differ widely between providers. Fiddly interfaces can create the perfect storm for confused viewers, leading to the classic complaint of there being 
’nothing to watch’, even in libraries featuring thousands of hours of on-demand content.

Some companies favour a ‘walled garden’ platform, such as iPlayer, enabling the provider to totally control the ecosystem. Others go for the apps method, like Samsung, in which users can download just the services they want on the TV. Google has proffered a third way with Google TV, software allowing users to browse whatever web content they want on the TV screen. Google TV has been a flop in the US, but the firm has partnered with leading manufacturers for its European expansion this year, which could change the fortunes of what was once described as ‘Android for the TV’.

Go with the grain, do what the viewers do



The stuff techy geeks conjure up in their labs is important, but the future of TV seems to me, at least, more about the psychology of behaviour. It used to be that technology dictated what people could do, but now people have caught up, and they are calling the shots. They want to be able to access the content they want, wherever and whenever they want to watch it. If they haven’t finished watching Downton Abbey on-demand and need to go out, they want to sync it to their iPad, and vice versa. They also want to use social networks to comment and vote on their favourite shows, and have thousands of hours of content effortlessly navigable, even if they don’t actually know what they want to watch. 

But there is no agreed way to do any of those things.

Take social networking – do people prefer having a dedicated Facebook and Twitter app on the TV screen while they watch The X Factor, and then use a QWERTY remote to post messages? Or would they rather use their own smartphone or tablet in a process often referred to as ‘second screening’? It seems that the second approach is more likely, but the smart companies will be the ones that do as much research on actual human behaviour as new technical standards.

All the pieces are there with connected TV, and now it’s just a matter of putting them all together in a way that maximises usability and style. Apple did it before with the MP3 player and the phone, and if speculation is to be believed, the firm could be preparing to do the same trick with the TV. Fervent rumours of a forthcoming, branded Apple connected TV set persist in the tech press, ever since it emerged that Steve Jobs told his biographer, Walter Issacson, before he passed away last October that he had “finally cracked” how to build an integrated TV device. Features including iCloud links and integrated voice assistant Siri have been mooted, although the expected ‘iTV’ branding would hardly please ITV.



The future’s Apple? Maybe, but its definitely social



While we wait for the potential arrival of Apple in connected TV, lots of other companies are already busy introducing services. Only last week, I saw a new TV guide app featuring a TV EPG integrated with real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds, along with some pretty nifty infographics (I can’t say any more as its under embargo, how mysterious of me).

A word here should go to Sky, which has previously taken a rather tentative approach to connected TV, instead favouring big content deals for Premier league football and movies. But the part Murdoch-owned satellite broadcaster recently jumped into the game with a multi-million pound investment in Zeebox, taking a 10% stake in the social TV service developed by ex iPlayer chief Anthony Rose. Zeebox launched on iPad last year, enabling users to search and discover content, gain recommendations, chat using social media, and also access ‘zeetags’ dynamically linked to content on screen, offering web links to information on programmes, actors and even products.

Sky will become the exclusive digital TV partner to Zeebox, integrating the service into its suite of popular mobile apps. In a sense, Zeebox is a blueprint for connected TV – focusing on social features around the dominant behaviour of watching live TV shows, backed up by advanced discovery and interaction options. The platform is not perfect, but it’s a good indicator of what is to come. Its worth noting that Rose set up Zeebox after quitting as chief technology officer of YouView, the much delayed BBC-backed set top box joint venture that aims to bring VOD and web services to Freeview and Freesat. YouView, previously Project Canvas, was initially considered the mass-market game-changer in connected TV, but after the platform was plagued by delays, it seems that the game has already changed.

Conclusions?

Being in the trenches of digital media, as some of us are, it is easy to forget that most people are reading reports from the technology frontlines, trying to figure out the truth amid confusing buzzwords, technical jargon and good old-fashioned bullshit. As a technology and media journalist, I’m as guilty as the next person; but hopefully this article has shone a bit of light on the debate that is cavernous to say the least (we haven’t even discussed monetisation options, which is a different blog entirely).

TV technology is currently in a state similar to the search engine market in the mid 1990s. At that time, numerous providers offered different engines boasting often dizzyingly complex features. But then Google came along and simplified it to a single page featuring a single search box, a format that remains compelling to this day. Will it be Google that brings the same revolution in connected TV? Or will it be Apple? Zeebox? or even YouView? (*cough*) The truth is that we all have our ideas, but no one really knows for sure how TV consumption will change in the future, and that is what makes it all so exciting.

– Andrew

Andrew Laughlin is a media, technology and video games journalist working for Digital Spy.

Follow Andrew on Twitter – @mediascribbles

An overview of UK connected TV providers

This blog post is an attempt at making sense of all the various connected / social / internet enabled TV providers that are popping up.  As much for my own benefit as anything else, I feel like I keep hearing names, seeing launches and hearing terms bandied around so I thought it would be helpful to get all these down in one place.  This is by no means comprehensive, nor have I drawn too many conclusions, it’s kind of a working list – I want to add to this as I learn more.

I suppose it would be useful to understand what we mean by connected TV in the first place.  Wikipedia calls it ‘Smart TV‘:

“Smart TV, which is also sometimes also referred to as “Connnected TV“, (not to be confused with Internet TV, Web TV or LG Electronics‘s upcoming “SMART TV” branded NetCast Entertainment Access devices), is the phrase used to describe the current trend of integration of the internet into modern television sets and set-top boxes, as well as the technological convergence between computers and these television sets / set-top boxes. These new devices most often also have a much higher focus on online interactive media,Internet TV, over-the-top content, as well as on-demand streaming media, and less focus on traditional broadcast media like previous generations of television sets and set-top boxesalways have had. Similar to how the internet, web widgets, and software applications are integrated in modern smartphones, hence also the name (“Smart TV” versus “Smart Phone”).

The technology that enables Smart TVs is incorporated into devices such as television sets, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and companion devices. These devices allow viewers to search and find videos, movies, photos and other content on the web, on a local cable TV channel, on a satellite TV channel, or stored on a local hard drive.”

The key difference between Internet TV and Connected TV in meaning is that Internet TV is defined as viewing TV via the internet (such as YouTube!) and Connected TV is about internet accessed via your TV through a set top box.

The internet and TV are converging in ‘user journeys’ already, with people sharing their thoughts about TV programmes via social networks and the emergence of 2 or even 3 screen behaviours – watching TV with your laptop or smart phone with you and giving partial attention to each.

So, I’ll take a look at the providers now, and will look at the following:

Features – what does it do?

Open? – how open is it? Will users be able to access anything on the internet freely, or will it be a walled garden, only allowing use of approved apps to reach particular sites’ content online.

Sofa controller – how will you physically be able to control it – keyboard and mouse at your sofa? Pimped up remote control? iPad and iPhone app?

Launched – when will it be / was it launched in the UK?

Price – what’s it gonna cost you if you want one.

Google TV

Google TV is made up of Google’s Android operating system and the Google Chrome web browser.  It was launched in the US in October 2010 and is currently available integrated in a standalone Sony Internet TV or via one of 2 set top boxes from Logitech and Sony.

Features

According to Wikipedia “Google TV leverages many of Google’s existing products. Google’s Android operating system provides the underlying foundation, allowing developers to create applications that extend the system’s functionality. Google’s Chrome browser provides a gateway to the Internet, allowing consumers to browse web sites and watch television, in tandem. Consumers can access HBO, CNBC, and content from other providers through the Chrome browser. Partners have built applications that allow customers to access content in unique ways. Netflix, for example, has built an application that allows customers to access Netflix’s large library of movies and television shows. Android and Apple phones will be used as remote controls for Google TV. Google TV products ship with wireless remote controls with a full QWERTY keypad.”

It has been criticised for trying to do too much, with the potential of being too confusing for the average consumer.

Open?

Yes, in the sense that it has a browser and you can browse anywhere on the internet.  In the US however, some entertainment companies such as Hulu and ABC have blocked access to their content online via Google TV for competitive reasons.

Sofa controller

Mini keyboards made by Sony and Logitech

Launched

Sometime 2011 tbc

Price

$300 in the US, UK tbc

YouView

Originally called Project Canvas, YouView as a brand was launched in November 2010.  A partnership between BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV and Arqiva, BT, TalkTalk.

Features

There is very little information on features as yet on their website – just that you can access catch up TV and there will be some apps and widgets developed, of which there will most certainly be some high quality video applications for viewing online videos.  It won’t have a browser.

Open?

No – will be populated with pre-approved apps – they’ve done a call for developers to submit.  Although they call YouView an ‘open environment’ on their website, saying anyone can develop for their platform, but much like the Apple model this is open in a ‘walled garden’ kind of way.  It’s been criticised for limiting choice to the consumer – but at a session at the Edinburgh TV festival the marketing director insisted that the average consumer doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by choice.

Sofa controller

Again, not much information on this yet.  On their website they do mention a remote control in relation to accessibility; “Remote control design that meets industry best practice for accessibility”

Launched

In Q2 of 2011

Price

around £100

Apple TV

Apple TV has been around since 2006, but since has launched a second generation which has scaled down in price (to a third of what it was), lost the harddrive (now has a 8GB flash storage, with the intention that all content is streamed) and added new access to a couple more services.

Features

You can view photos, play music and watch video that originates from limited Internet services or a local network. The first generation (white) had iTunes, Flickr, Mobileme/.Mac, and Youtube. The second generation added Netflix. Both models supported downloading/streaming podcasts.

Open?

No – it doesn’t allow you to use a browser or access any other content other than what’s supported via apps and iTunes.

Sofa controller

A remote control, via the Apple remote, or Remote application for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Launched

September 2010

Price

£99

Boxee

Boxee has a differentiator in that it is a social network in itself, as well as allowing access to your existing social networks. More detail on this below.

Features

Boxee requires you to register an account, which allows you to access a social network of other Boxee users.  You get a news feed of your friends’ viewing activity and recommendations and can either watch posted media directly from the feed (if it’s freely available) or get access to a link to it or a trailer.  You can control your privacy settings so not everyone sees everything you watch or listen to.  It also allows you to monitor Twitter and Facebook feeds directly from your news feed and add any links to a Boxee watch list.  This social network that is integrated into it is the biggest differentiator of Boxee.

Boxee also has an app store, a BitTorrent client and video and music libraries which are searchable via the metadata of the files, in a similar way to iTunes (Genre, title, year, actors, artist etc)

Open?

Boxee technically allows that practically any web-based application can made into an app for Boxee integration.  They will be using Mozilla as a base architecture, so that Hulu can’t block it as it will only recognise Boxee as an Mozilla browser. More on this at Wikipedia.

“The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want. We think it’s worth it.” – Chief exec Avner Ronan says the company blog [link]

Sofa controller

Keyboard like remote control

Launched

December ’10

Price

£100 – £199

Have I missed any providers or key details off?  Let me know and I will update this post.

Futurescape report mapping out the emerging social TV landscape

The embedded slideshare below is an executive summary of a Futurescape report mapping out the emerging social TV landscape.  According to their website, Futurescape publishes strategy reports on web video and connected TV trends and innovation. I’d love to read the whole report, as it looks like it’s got buckets of insight, but I don’t have a spare £3,250 right at this moment in my livingroom on a Saturday night…

Anyway, the points from the exec summary that stood out to me:

• Facebook and Twitter will hugely benefit from social TV in terms of useage and awareness from being on the TV screen
• Social networks are / will be targeting the TV data market to supply data to the TV industry
• BT Vision have been doing some really interesting research since April 2010, more on this below
• Facebook, Gmail and YouTube are already being offered via cable TV to Indian cable customers. (Makes me want to look into what the initial audience feedback is and emerging behaviours are)
• This report has a couple of screenshots of how a connected TV screen might look in different instances – I found this really interesting as I have been trying to picture how it will work / look

BT Vision’s research

BT research leader Andy Gower has been conducting social TV research with MIT scientist Dr Marie-Jose Montpetit in a research piece looking at:

• How to connect social networks with the traditional TV viewing experiences
• The revenue generating potential of content recommendation
• Differing social experiences with different content genres (something we’re thinking a lot about at NixonMcInnes, may do a blog post on this soon)
• Integrating social networks with telco customer data, such as family and friend calling plans
• A role for social audio communication around TV viewing (how exciting is that?  I think that would work well for formats developed for people paying partial attention like X Factor)
• Capitalising on multi-screen viewing behaviour

Converged formats and the social TV future feels like such an exciting opportunity for TV and social / digital companies to work closely creatively, and I think it will force TV execs to understand digital and social and digital and social execs to understand TV production and formats much more. This can only be a good thing.

Channel 4 are currently recruiting for a head of converged formats who will be looking at all this stuff.