Living the TV Revolution: Unite MHP to the Web or Face IDTV Irrelevance!

• Marco Roccetti, University of Bologna, Italy
• Stefano Ferretti, University of Bologna, Italy
• Johannes Andrich, University of Bologna, Italy

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Track: Posters

The union of Interactive Digital TV (IDTV) and Web promotes the development of new interactive multimedia services, enjoyable while watching TV even on the new handheld digital TV receivers. However, several design constraints complicate the deployment of this new pattern of services. Indeed, for a suitable presentation on a TV set, Web contents must be structured in such a way that they can be effectively displayed on TV screens via low-end Set Top Boxes (STBs). Moreover, usable interfaces for IDTV platforms are needed which ensure a smooth access to contents. Our claim is that the distribution of Web contents over the IDTV broadcast channels may bring IDTV to a new life. A failure of this attempt may put IDTV on a progressive track towards irrelevance. We propose a system for the distribution of Web contents towards IDTV under the Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform (DVB-MHP) standard. Our system is able to automatically transcode Web contents and ensure a proper visualization on IDTV. The system is endowed with a client application which permits to easily browse contents on the TV via a remote control. Real assessments have confirmed the effectiveness for such an automatic online service able to reconfigure Web contents for an appropriate distribution and presentation on IDTV.