Interactive Digital Television Past, Present, Future Essays

Interactive Digital Television Past, Present, Future Essays Interactive Digital Television Past, Present, Future Essay Interactive Digital Television Past, Present, Future Essay Name: Course: Lecturer: Date: Interactive Digital Television Past, Present, Future Television has been an influence to all people that have used it since its invention. It remains one of the main medium of passing public information to people. It has been part of people’s lives since its invention and has continued to develop to where it is. In the past, people would only watch what was aired without influencing the content. However, traditional broadcasting has been replaced by interactive television that is continuing to develop to make it more and more interactive allowing viewers to influence the content. This gave rise to the interactive digital television, which does not mean a return path but the ability of viewers to influence content. In the past, interactive television involved allowing the viewer to influence content through sending messages through their phone lines acting as the back response. This happened with analog television, and some of the technology used included analog phone lines, RF transmission and video recording. The only way for television interaction was through phone calls to the station. This was soon to change with the changing technology to the present interactive television. Presently, interactive digital television is utilizing set top boxes as well as smart television that are equipped with web-like interaction ability. This allows the viewers more options for influencing the content of what they watch such as selecting the angle from which to watch a football match. The present technology of interactive digital television includes technology such as digital video, networking, image processing and software engineering. This allows for television applications, which increases to the interactive experience. Such applications enable to the viewers to engage in activities such as repeated usage since content is downloadable, interaction through quizzes, polls, videos and games as well as downloading materials. Some examples of application for television include wireframes, assets, and frameworks that utilize the HTM. These frameworks put the assets into the wireframes and render it on the set top box. Additionally, the present interactive digital technology has the capability of information organization, second screen and integration of social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. It also allows targeting of a certain population during advertisement. This uses mobile devices, recommender systems and augmented reality. However, the future is inclined to become more social oriented and flexible, as well. The future of interactive digital television is set to be more social to allow people to interact easily. Moreover, television is set to be mobile in ways that one can have television anywhere, local and commercial. From the lecture, I have learnt that interactive television does not refer to a back path that allows viewers to send back information to the service provider. Rather, interactive television refers to the ability of influencing television content that one is watching as opposed to the traditional broadcasting where one would only watch what is aired the way it is aired. With the advent of digital television that allows sending many signals via a small bandwidth, more channels to choose from can be broadcasted. Additionally, I learnt that interactive television is set to allow viewers to access television from their mobile devices as well as stream their videos and upload them. Additionally, it allows one to influence the content in many ways such as the angle to watch from as well as sending information to the service provider. This allows people to select what they want to view from television. Thus, several people could be watching different content from the same broadcaster.