Innovative TV: From an Old Standard to a New Concept of Interactive TV - An Italian Job

The current market of television services adopts several broadcast technologies (e.g. IPTV, DVBH, DTT), delivering different ranges of contents. These services may be extremely heterogeneous, but they’re all affected by the continuous increase in quantity of contents and this trend is becoming more and more complicated to manage. Hence, future television services must respond to an emerging question: in what way could the navigation among this increasing volume of multimedia contents be facilitated? To answer this question, a research study was conducted, resulting in a set of guidelines for Interactive TV development. At first, the current scenario was portrayed through a functional analysis of existing TV systems and a survey of actual and potential users. Subsequently, interaction models which could possibly be applied to Interactive TV (e.g.: peer-to-peer programs) were assessed. Guidelines were eventually defined as a synthesis of current best practices and new interactive features.