Information TV – Leading Digital Media Convergence

Information TV’s announcement that its broadcasts are now simultaneously available via broadband is important, and not just another “me-too” technology demonstration.

First, the question of reach. Information TV’s programmes on Sky Digital Channel 588 currently reach around 8 Million (40%) of British households (and many more throughout Europe). The new broadband facility extends this to the near 5 Million UK broadband users – and again, to many more overseas.

The audiences for many of information TV’s programmes are public sector. Broadband connectivity in the public sector, on the back of the Broadband Aggregation Project, is rapidly heading towards very high levels – not counted in Broadband user statistics. Public sector networks frequently, for very good reasons, block video streaming. The multicasting approach utilised by Information TV allows network operators to enable just the Information TV stream throughout their network. So audiences can also view the programmes at their workplace.

The quality of the 200kbps feed is excellent, and at half-screen size offers something much closer to the television experience than the postage-stamp offerings which are the norm (and which rapidly degrade when too many viewers choose to watch at once).

Information TV is firmly committed to the television model. The television “experience” with its appointment to view, carries more authority than a PC-based facility. In not many years, the devices and networks which deliver “television” will converge, but we’re not there yet.

An even more important aspect of media convergence however, surrounds interactivity. Information TV’s approach to media convergence opens some exciting new doors.

The early experiments with Digital Interactive TV (DiTV) have been expensive, the software clunky, and the user experience very disappointing. One of the main reasons for lack of success thus far has been that the DiTV projects have almost all been about isolated interactivity, with no compelling rationale for a viewer to press the red button in the first place – as can only be delivered via a “normal” television programme. It won’t always be like this – but it’ll take time.

Hence, Information TV hopes very soon to announce red-button interactive capabilities (it’s purely a question of cost), which will allow a programme on Information TV to be the compelling and explanatory front-end to a DiTV application. Information TV’s programmes are themselves already very appropriate candidates for good interactivity extensions, for example, in the case of local government communications.

But meanwhile, Internet interactivity still offers a better user experience than DiTV, exacerbating the current flaws of DiTV.

Information TV’s multicast broadcasting allows the best of both worlds. The broadband-delivered TV programme – which looks like a TV programme, rather than just a bit of internet-delivered video – can be supported by Interactive applications delivered via internet protocols – at present, much more effectively than via DiTV.  The Information TV team feels that this will allow the development of much better “DiTV” applications, modelled first on the Internet, and then migrated to broadcast DiTV as the technology develops.

As broadband bandwidth increases, convergence between broadcast and internet-delivered audiovisual will provide a seamless transition across the delivery media and the receiving devices – and at the same time, DiTV itself will radically improve.

Information TV’s strategy means it will be there when this media convergence arrives – and meantime, it is at the forefront of the convergence process itself.

Fred J Perkins Oct 2004