MU brings Linked TV project to a successful conclusion

After nearly four years of work on the EU-funded research and development project LinkedTV, which held the goal of “seamless interlinking of TV and the Web”, came to a successful conclusion. The final wrap up was held at MU bringing together twelve European research and industry experts from eight countries. 

Convergence of TV and the Web was the clear vision, and the expert team, led scientifically by Dr Lyndon Nixon, now Assistant Professor at the New Media Technology Group at MU, foresaw a near future where watching TV or browsing Web content would become essentially the same experience, with consumers moving between TV and Web content as easily as Web users were following hyperlinks to browse different Web pages. TV viewing as a passive experience would be perfectly complemented by the active browsing of additional information and content on the Web that it could trigger.

The group could not have anticipated how quickly and significantly technology in the market would shift in this direction, with increasing Internet bandwidth and device capabilities making TV/video streaming over Internet available to all, broadcasters launching TVoD and Catch-up TV services to their viewers and SmartTV sales meaning TV viewing in the living room now also had an Internet backchannel available.

However TV programme viewers weren’t getting their information needs answered through Web-connected apps on their TVs. They were looking for information on things in the TV shows, background to the news story, more examples of the art visible in the background of the scene – and are there paintings by that artist in the nearby museum?

Existing applications can’t support this - their “knowledge” of what’s on is limited to identifying the programme and linking to social Web conversation around it or a list of cast members. What they don’t know, and today can’t know, is what is INSIDE the TV programme at the time the user is viewing it and could be interested in.

So viewer’s real needs for Web and TV convergence are still not answered today – how to find out more about something you see in a TV programme if you don’t know what it’s called, for example?

LinkedTV has been working on the solution. By bringing together R&D experts across Europe who could provide the right tools to enable the envisioned interlinking of TV and the Web, the group produced a number of demonstrators where the experience of watching news – from the German broadcaster RBB – or a cultural heritage programme – the Dutch version of Antiques Roadshow from AVROTROS – is enhanced by additional information and content at the viewers fingertips – whether through remote control actions on a HbbTV-supporting SmartTV or through a Web application on their tablet or laptop.

This information goes far beyond programme description or cast details like today’s offers – LinkedTV enables linking to information about concepts like persons, places and organisations inside the news story, links to background or related stories, or even browsing similar art objects in European collections while watching the discussion about another art object on screen.

“Years of collaboration, knowledge and technology transfer, implementation, prototyping and evaluation have brought us to this point, where we can offer an integrated set of services and software to content owners who would like to enrich their video with links to related information”, summarized Dr Nixon, who initiated the LinkedTV idea following his PhD on multimedia enrichment in 2007 and acted as scientific coordinator of the LinkedTV project work, which finished in March 2015.

“Trials with RBB and AVROTROS viewers have shown they appreciate the ability to easily access further information about what they see in the TV programme when they want. Viewers result in being more satisfied and engaged by the content. The broadcasters also stand to gain by offering LinkedTV enrichments as an added value service alongside selected content, as it can attract both new viewers and retain existing viewers, and promote their archived and long tail content with a new viewer experience.”

LinkedTV results – software, services, demos and reports – are published publicly at http://www.linkedtv.eu

LinkedTV products and demonstrators for media organisations are presented at http://showcase.linkedtv.eu

LinkedCulture demonstrator: https://vimeo.com/108891238

LinkedNews demonstrator: https://vimeo.com/119107849

Modul Technology GmbH offers consultancy and proof of concept creation for LinkedTV enrichment of media, for further information contact Lyndon Nixon.

Photo: Dr Nixon presenting LinkedTV in a Media Round Table at MODUL University