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Building for Connected TV is complicated
The TV Application Layer originated from our ambition to run BBC iPlayer, News and Sport applications for Connected TVs on as many different devices as possible. There are hundreds of different devices in the marketplace and they all use slightly different technology to achieve the same result. Having figured out how to build an application on a specific device we want to use this knowledge to build additional applications for that device. Our answer to this challenge is the TV Application Layer (TAL). By abstracting the differences between devices and creating a number of TV-specific graphical building blocks (like carousels, data grids and lists), we provide a platform upon which we can build our applications.
Radiotagbot is a way to bookmark the current point in a programme that you're listening to (or watching) live, by using twitter. To create a bookmark, you send a message to @radiotagbot with the name of a BBC radio or TV station in in it (e.g. "radio 4" or "r1x" or "BBC1") and it will tweet back to you with the title of the programme and a link to the point in time on iPlayer at which it will (usually) appear. If it's on Radio 1, 1x, 2, 3 or 6 Music, it will also attempt to reply with the music track playing.
This paper describes capture and web delivery of free-viewpoint video (FVV). FVV allows the viewer to freely change the viewpoint. This is particularly attractive to view and analyse sport incidents. Based on previous work on the capture and replay of sport events for TV programme making we present a FVV player based on the WebGL API, which is part of HTML 5. The player implements a streaming mode over IP and an image-based rendering using view-dependent texture mapping. This paper was presented at the NEM Summit, Istanbul, 16-18th October 2012, and was given the Best Paper award. The slides shown during the presentation are included as an appendix.
Today the BBC iPlayer, News and Sport apps are available on an astonishing 650 connected TV devices, from internet-enabled or Smart TVs and set-top-boxes to media players and games consoles, delivering more than 45 million videos to 2 million users every month. Most recently, the BBC Sport app has been used by more than 200,000 users a day to watch the phenomenal London 2012 Olympic Games coverage on connected TVs alone, having only launched a few short weeks before. While this is a remarkable achievement in itself, it certainly wasn't easy or straightforward, and I would like to share with you what challenges we have encountered, what we have learnt in the process of solving them and what we believe is important to consider for anyone looking at building applications for connected TVs.
The London 2012 Olympics is remarkable for its television coverage in many ways, not least the use of an ultra-high-definition system called Super Hi-Vision, developed by the Japanese national broadcaster NHK and demonstrated in conjunction with the BBC. Promoted as the future of television, it has sixteen times the resolution of a high-definition image. Seen by informitv on an 8-metre wide screen at BBC Broadcasting House in London, the picture quality is phenomenal. At 7680 x 4320 pixels, the 8K UHDTV2 image has a resolution of 33 megapixels. The projected result is rather like looking through a window direct to the venue, supported by an immersive 22.2 channel surround sound system. The coverage of the opening ceremony put the audience in the best seats in the stadium and allowed them to survey the scene, taking in every detail. Whereas television traditionally cuts from shot to shot in order to provide continuous visual novelty, the wide static shots enabled the viewer to explore the image as if they were actually present. This was partly because of the limited number of camera positions, but also suited the aesthetic of the big screen presentation.
The FascinatE project is developing a system to allow end-users to interactively view and navigate around an ultra-high resolution video panorama showing a live event, with the accompanying audio automatically changing to match the selected view. The output will be adapted to their particular kind of device, covering anything from a mobile handset to an immersive panoramic display with spatial audio. At the production side, this requires the development of new audio and video capture systems, and scripting systems to control the shot framing options presented to the viewer. Intelligent networks with processing components are being developed to repurpose the content to suit different device types and framing selections, and prototypes of user terminals supporting innovative interaction methods are being built to allow viewers to control and display the content.
The BBC is going to use companion screen apps to enhance the enjoyment of programmes but also introduce audiences to what can often be a wealth of programme related information and interactivity online. The broadcaster will launch its first companion screen app this September in the form of a play-along game for Antiques Roadshow, a gentle Sunday night affair where the public bring family treasures for experts to analyse and value. The BBC is harnessing the fact that most viewers already try to second-guess the experts with their own valuations. You will be able to play the game whether you are watching live or on-demand. Victoria Jaye, Head of IPTV & TV Online Content at the BBC, used Connected TV Summit last week to make the announcement but also outline the general companion app strategy for the broadcaster. She views show-related companion activities on smartphones, tablets and even the PC as a way to explore new creative opportunities. She made it clear that ownership of the app, in terms of the content and viewer experience, will belong to the production teams and that this is considered crucial. The production department will drive the format, while the technology development team will realise their vision.
Video scene segmentation is often regarded as a primary step with regards to analysis of video data. The process of scene segmentation involves partitioning a video stream into scenes in which each scene is comprised of frames of similar content. This work may form a primary stage of larger system for automated quality control and image restoration that may be conducted in the BBC
New BBC White Paper details research into holographic displays, laser based glasses free 3D screens for multiple viewers and 3D video for mobile.
The BBC R&D team have been working closely with R&D teams across the world on all aspects of 3D TV from capture, postproduction, and coding, to transmission and end-user terminals. In the BBC’s 3D-TV R&D Activities in Europe white paper released last night by Oliver Grau, Thierry Borel, Peter Kauff, Aljoscha Smolic and Ralf Tanger, details of previous and on-going research into 3D for the home and mobile devices are summarised providing a fascinating insight into how 3D entertainment could be consumed in the future.
BBC R&D has developed a universal control system API that opens up a wide range of possibilities for interacting with your TV across multiple devices. The technology allows a network-connected device, be it a smartphone, laptop or toy Dalek, to talk via the home network to a set-top box that runs a particular piece of software. By doing this, a connected device can obtain the information it needs to synchronise things to the box, such as images or audio. The API (application programming interface) that the software implements is called Universal Control.
Last week, we looked at the background around Orchestrated media (OM), and bringing you up to date with work that R&D has been doing on these lines. Here we look at how OM may enhance the experiences around various programme genres. As you can imagine, this extends well beyond technology considerations ... The OM team looks at technology and enablers required to create OM experiences, and discusses with colleagues beyond R&D about possible editorial propositions, and considers the future technology landscape and market activities and how it may affect OM.
How does it work? Orchestration employs synchronisation between the TV (radio) and companion devices (typically mobile, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops). Synchronisation ranges from continuous (such as following a broadcast game) to one-shot (here's some Web content about this show). Two different modes of synchronisation are used. Asymmetric synchronisation causes the companion content to sync to the TV (radio) content. Symmetric synchronisation supports this, but also the TV sync'ing its content (catch-up, VoD) to the companion content. Dual-screen orchestration employs asymmetric synchronisation either based on audio watermarking or on IP-delivered events. My colleague Steve Jolly is shortly blogging about technical aspects we contributed to this pilot. In fact, we've been doing so much work around Orchestrated Media, Steve and I are going to need to blog about it in a few separate posts. Today's post will look at some of the background to our thinking, how media is orchestrated and our work to date.
The technology strategy describes the BBC's intent to leverage technologies such as virtualisation, cloud and consumer technologies but the next step was to translate those ambitions into specific areas of technology to start achieving them. We identified 35 different areas of technology and set out to create an individual roadmap or strategy for each. The roadmaps cover all major areas from core infrastructure such as networks and data centres through to content production technology and audience facing such as Red Button and online search. An observation that came from developing the strategies is the importance of enterprise architecture. The BBC is at a tipping point where integration is the focus for both our content production and our enterprise systems. Integration will enable the BBC to deliver efficiencies and better ways of working but it's not trivial to deliver. For the BBC to achieve its goals the role of architectural frameworks, interoperability standards (such as minimal metadata standards) and shared services are vital. Attached to this blog is a summary of all the individual strategy roadmaps. It should provide you with a view of where the BBC would like to focus its efforts across each area of technology. Achieving many of these ambitions is dependant on the relationship the BBC has with technology partners and the innovation and creativity that exists in the market. View presentation here : http://slidesha.re/iChFUk
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The BBC has called for technology standardisation for second screen services in order to help move the the broadcast sector forwards. Speaking at TV Connect yesterday, BBC senior technologist for mobile and dual screen, Jeremy Kramskoy, said that common standards were important in terms of bringing down development and technology licensing costs. He also said that in the future connected home, when synchronisation will increasingly result in different web-powered devices talking to each other, “standardisation has to happen, otherwise it’s going to be a complete nightmare.”
The BBC Olympics sports broadcast service is one of the largest media events of 2012. It has brought the video service industry to a totally new level, earning for the 2012 Olympics the popularity of "truly digital games". In this context, it is critical to acknowledge the importance of expertise gained and leverage it in further growth. In this post, we are going to dwell into the project, its implementation, and valuable experience that you can apply to your own projects.
It's been a long time since the last series of blogs on Orchestrated Media. Time for a catch-up. Firstly, we've stopped using the term orchestrated media, and instead talk about dual-screen and companionscreen. Dual-screen reflects where things stand currently: the companion service can synchronise against the broadcast content using various technologies. See Steve's blog about that. The BBC's launch of dual screen for Antiques Roadshow is imminent. Looking ahead, we see the next generation of services allowing a wider set of companion services, where the TV, the companion, and the Web, are inter-communicating, allowing a web site or a companion app to both monitor and control the TV. This gives TV -awareness on web-sites, and web-awareness of TV services. Each of these three domains could be the launch-point for companion screen services, and enage the other two domains as needed. Companion screen pertains to this wider role for the companion device, compared to today.
As many of you are aware, we chose Adobe Flash as the media format to stream to Android devices. Doing so provided us with a number of cross platform efficiencies as the same infrastructure can be used for delivery on PCs, Android phones, and set-top boxes. Adobe's strategic decision to remove support for the Flash Player plug-in meant that we had to change the way that we play back this content. [...] We looked at a number of different solutions, for example, Http Live Streaming (HLS) which is used to stream BBC media to other platforms. Unfortunately, HLS isn't supported on Android OS versions prior to Honeycomb. In the end, Flash was still the best choice of media format for us to use. And the only practical technology for us to play this format back on Android is Adobe Air.
Since 1999, the BBC's Red Button feature has delivered alternative camera angles, sports scores and the like over broadcast spectrum, but it's now set to become internet enabled. Channel surfers shouldn't expect a full-blown web experience, however, as the Beebs stresses it's not about to include everything and the kitchen sink in terms of functionality. Rather, their Connected Red Button aims for simplicity. Punching the clicker could bring up the iPlayer to catch previous episodes of shows or save recipes from a cooking program for later viewing on a computer or smartphone. Companion screen experiences such as the Antiques Roadshow app, which is slated for a September release, are also part of their web-connected roadmap.
Our editorial approach to companion experiences is three fold: • Build on existing audience needs and behaviour • Go beyond broadcast • Drive creative renewal and innovation We want to immerse our audience in the programme they're watching even more by building on the existing needs and behaviours the show inspires. We've learned a lot about this from years of programme-related experimentation on BBC Red Button and BBC Online.
Remember when Intel turned your life into a museum exhibition using your Facebook data? Or when Google put your place of birth into Arcade Fire’s The Wilderness Downtown video? How about when Take This Lollipop warned you – specifically you – about the dangers of social networking? That’s ‘Perceptive Media’, and it’s coming to a TV near you – eventually.
At last night’s SMC_MCR event in Manchester, UK, Ian Forrester of the BBC’s Research and Development department discussed early-stage experiments that are being conducted into bringing Perceptive Media to our TV sets.
Here’s how it would work – a TV signal would be sent, as normal, to your set-top box or TV. However, the hardware in your living room would be able to modify that signal with information about you, to create a subtly different version of what you were watching, personalised for you.
3D-TV is a topic that has been studied for many years in Europe. Through the research frameworks of the European Commission in particular, a number of long-term issues have been addressed to overcome limitations of the traditional two-view stereoscopy. This article gives a brief overview of the goals and achievements of some completed European projects starting in the 1990s. It then reviews the topics related to 3D-TV in recent European research. Finally an overview with a selection of recent projects is presented.
This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of supplementing television broadcast channels with additional content using IP delivery. It looks at the way in which the additional material could be resynchronised with the broadcast content and what level of accuracy is required by different types of material. It focuses on the use case of an alternative soundtrack to provide improved intelligibility for viewers who have difficulty understanding speech when presented with background sound. It then goes on to describe our demonstration system and discusses the opportunities for further research into hybrid delivery and the way it could enable a richer broadcasting landscape. Blog post : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2010/11/synchronising-broadcast-and-ip.shtml
In that earlier blog post, I mention that technologies exist that are already being used to synchronise media on mobile devices to television programmes, such as audio fingerprinting and watermarking, video fingerprinting and watermarking and delivering synchronisation information via the Internet. The advantage of all these solutions is that they require no modifications to the set-top box or television. A common disadvantage is that content on other devices can only follow what happens on the television, and not vice-versa. In the longer term, we believe that a technology like Universal Control offers very significant advantages in this regard, but we recently took advantage of an opportunity to work with colleagues from across the BBC to investigate some of these existing methods of synchronisation, to see what kinds of "dual screen" experience might be possible today. Our most significant contribution to the work has been an API to permit the developers of dual-screen applications to ignore the details of specific synchronisation technologies. It provides a standard interface, behind which any number of information sources may be working (individually or together) to provide the application with information about what programme the user is watching (if any), and what events are occurring in it that might trigger synchronised behaviour. This approach helps the BBC avoid getting locked into using the technology of a specific supplier, and helps "future-proof" applications: as new synchronisation technologies become available, little or no extra effort is likely to be required for existing applications to be able to make use of them. (Of course, one of the sources of information could be a Universal Control server on the set-top box...)
While many people already play around with their mobile phones or tablets while watching TV, perhaps following discussion about the show on Twitter, the BBC is doing some fascinating R&D work which could help mobile devices become more useful ‘second screens’ for television. The Orchestrated Media project is working to display relevant, supporting content for the show you’re watching, in sync with the show. So, a documentary on dinosaurs may display information about the beasts currently depicted on screen, or a news broadcast could display detailed information about the current story without you having to look for it. The BBC’s Jerry Kramskoy has told us a little more about the technology behind Orchestrated Media: “Audio watermarking works by striping the audio in the content, which is broadcast. The companion device listens out for this to sync up. So this is a one-way flow of sync … the TV is the master, the companion the slave … always. This means the companion cannot control the TV. “To make the TV content follow the companion device content, as in the Autumnwatch video on my blog, requires s/w in the TV that the companion talks to, to allow the companion to be the master when it wants. This latter scenario is whate we refer to as symmetric sync, and the TV and companion are in a peer-to-peer relationship, whereas the previous one-way sync we refer to as asymmetric sync, where the TV and companion are in a mster-slave relationship. Standardisation is necessary around what and how features are exposed by the TV to support symmetric sync”
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Wonderful news!!!
As each new application faced a similar set of device specific challenges, such as media playback, animation or networking, we set about making the TV Application Layer a standalone product that could support our entire Connected TV product needs both now and in the future.