Interactive Television Production is essential reading for all broadcasting and new media professionals - whether in production, marketing, technology, business or management. It will also be of interest to media students and anyone looking to get an insight into the future of television production. It provides a practical, step-by-step guide to the processes and issues involved in taking an interactive television idea through to being an operational service - based on the knowledge and experience of leading interactive television producers. This book can be used as a quick-and-easy reference guide, with each chapter containing a 'Chapter in 30 seconds' summary for easy reference, or read from cover to cover. Using accessible language, the author provides detailed descriptions of iTV software technologies (OpenTV, MHEG-5, TV Navigator), delivery technologies (cable, satellite and terrestrial) and production tools. There are also entire chapters devoted to key issues like the commercial side of iTV and the latest work on usability and design. The accompanying web site www.InteractiveTelevisionProduction.com contains useful links designed to help with common iTV questions and issues. There are also entertaining quizzes for each chapter that let you test your knowledge of the concepts introduced in the book.

Aimed at broadcasting and new media producers and anyone interested in implementing interactive TV, this is a practical guide to the technology and production processes, offering technical descriptions of how interactive TV works.

The book shows how digital-interactive television (digiTV) will affect the relation between the broadcaster and the consumer. Standardization processes, technological paradigms, and application development issues will be discussed. The emerging applications, innovations, and future concepts are described in detail. The triangle: content - end-user - technology will be conceptualized to create a vision and to overview provision of services that will be major innovative elments in the world of digital television. From the technical side, eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based metadata standards are a major element in realizing new innovative concepts in the world of digital, interactive television. This book clearly shows by the introduction of applications and use-scenarios, which conceptual requirements and metadata models are applicable, which metadata subsets are applicable due to resource limitations, which metadata aspects are needed for nonlinear content viewing, etc. The book gives a broad and detailed both visionary and technical overview useful for graduates, engineers, and scientists; and last but not least decision-makers in the broadcasting industry.

Television is changing almost beyond recognition. In the battle for consumers, social media sites, smart phones and tablets have become rivals to traditional linear TV. However, audiences and producers are also embracing mobile platforms to enhance TV viewing itself. This book examines the emerging phenomenon of the second screen: where users are increasingly engaging with content on two screens concurrently. The practice is transforming television into an interactive, participatory and social experience. James Blake examines interactive television from three crucial angles: audience motivation and agency, advances in TV production and the monetisation of second screen content. He also tracks its evolution by bringing together interviews with more than 25 television industry professionals - across the major UK channels - including commissioning editors, digital directors, producers and advertising executives. These reveal the successes and failures of recent experiments and the innovations in second screen projects. As the second screen becomes second nature for viewers and producers, the risks and opportunities for the future of television are slowly beginning to emerge. Television and the Second Screen will offer students and scholars of television theory, industry professionals and anyone with an abiding interest in television and technology, an accessible and illuminating guide to this important cultural shift.

This book provides professionals with information on technical, strategic, and creative aspects of developing interactive television (ITV) systems and shows how to assess the future business potential of ITV. It explains technical areas associated with the switch to digital bandwidth, and describes design practices, such as embedding of extended codes and syntax in programs for content creation. The book then explores how ITV programming enhances the value of programs and encourages viewers to order online goods and services, and describes the profit potential of ITV. Case histories are provided of major players in the industry around the world. The author is chief engineer and head of AIR Resources of All India Radio. c. Book News Inc.

Technology is meant to make life easier and to raise its quality. Our interaction with technology should be designed according to human needs instead of us being required to adapt to technology. Even so, technology may change quickly and people and their habits change slowly. With the aim of supporting user acceptance of iTV, the focus of this book is on the usability of iTV applications. A method for developing interaction design patterns especially for new technologies is presented for the first time. The main characteristics covered in this new approach are: systematic identification of recurrent design problems; usability as a quality criterion for design solutions; integration of designers into the pattern development process including identification of designers' needs, and iterative evaluation and optimisation of patterns to encourage designers to accept and use them; usability testing to identify proven design solutions and their trade-offs; presentation of specific design guidelines.