2. Account of the IBC activities

A joint paper entitled "TV Anytime" (PDF: 31Kb, DOC: 52Kb)  was presented on the opening day of IBC. It was written by authors from BBC R&D and NDS in the UK, and Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands. The paper discusses the need for simplifying access to content, the creation of "on-demand" services and interlinking broadcast and web services. The authors explore the application of storage technologies and the need for a set of integrated navigational technologies to support the vision of TV Anytime. Different user interfaces were shown that demonstrate that the same underlying information can be used in different ways.
The details of a uniform content referencing scheme are explained. For a horizontal market, such a scheme needs to be an open standard. Current TV viewing behaviour and the possible effects of these new technologies on future habits are discussed. Some of the human factors that need to be considered in the design of navigational tools are explained, such as the importance of value, trust and personalisation.
The opening session was very well attended and produced some interesting questions. Discussions followed, with many people following the paper by visiting the STORit/TV Anytime stand in the New Technology Campus.

2.2 Workshop session

A workshop entitled "TV-Anytime and TV-Anywhere - The future of broadcasting, or solutions looking for a problem?" was held on the morning of the last day of IBC. This was very well attended and the speakers consisted of Henry Chadwick (IBM), Simon Parnall (BBC R&D), Guy Hirson (NDS) and Edwin Montie (Philips Research Labs). The Chairman of the session was Gordon Drury (NDS).
Henry gave the view that his company, IBM, had to be interested in these ideas as it meant increasing use of one of their core products, hard disks. Guy related some of the opportunities and complexities in developing such a universal system. Edwin spoke about the consumer benefits and the business opportunities for putting boxes into people's homes and Simon described how essential the ideas were for broadcasters. There were many questions from the audience, and even some answers too! One subject that came up was the need to support advertising and other methods of generating income in any new systems.
The votes that were taken before and after the session showed the importance that those present attached to the ideas of TV Anytime. The last copies of the TV Anytime "Business Opportunities" (PPT: 87Kb, PDF: 150Kb) were handed out at this session, with requests taken for more. Many people went straight over to the stand to see the demonstrations and continue the discussions.

2.3 Demonstration

The demonstration of the concepts of TV Anytime took place on the STORit/TV Anytime stand in the New Technology Campus (6.311). Here, people were able to see examples of some of the possibilities that rich metadata about programmes provide. They were able to talk about the concepts with those involved in developing the prototypes and able to walk off with the TV Anytime "Business Opportunities" document.
The applications using the rich programme metadata were varied:

• Easy selection of the programme to record by clicking one button whilst browsing an extensive programme guide.
• Filtering of the programmes shown on the guide by genre.
• Personalisation by watching the reaction of on-screen animated L-icons (Lifestyle icons) who reacted to a complex set of preferences.
• Watching only the parts of programmes that are of interest.
• Recording a programme or series by simply clicking on a link on a remote web-site.
• Recording a programme or series by simply pressing record during a trailer for that programme.
• Recording groups of related programmes, e.g. series or types of programmes, by selecting that group then pressing record.
• Showing that different programmes can be linked together in interesting ways.

Visitors to the stand were impressed by the concrete demonstration of the ideas that have only been talked about before. As one described the possibilities to people, one could see them thinking of other ideas and opportunities. People tended to spend a long time on the stand, usually about 1/2 hour, in order to see all of the demonstrations and discuss the implications of these ideas.
We estimate that there were about 500 visitors to the stands over the 5 days of the exhibition. We soon ran out of the 200 copies of the TV Anytime "Business Opportunities" document! Many people said they would join up to the TV Anytime Forum. TV Anytime ideas were also represented in several other papers and sessions at IBC, for example in the session on Multimedia Home Platforms.

2.4 Summary of overall impact

At the subsequent Forum meeting in Newport Beach, California, USA there were over 60 participants present, compared to 20 at the previous meeting. The paper, workshop session and working demonstration combined to have a great impact on the visibility of the TV Anytime ideas. It was obviously a good time to share these ideas with such a wide audience. The approximately 30 companies that have joined the TV Anytime Forum since IBC are very much involved in the field and will help in the process of defining new standards.

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