13.7 iTV Production Standards

The iTV Production standards organization [PROD] establishes XML-based formats for interactive content production. The standards specify a nomenclature and method for describing the timing and content of interactive assets such as trivia games , polls , interactive advertising and leaderboards. The production standard supports the leading one- and two-screen platforms, including middleware from Liberate, OpenTV, Microsoft, and PowerTV; net-top boxes from AOLTV, UltimateTV, and MSNTV/WebTV; and PCs and Macs.

The iTV production standards initiative marks the first time in the industry that the content community has come together to develop a standard way of producing iTV. Whereas other standards bodies are focused on areas such as communication protocols, style sheets, and distribution, the iTV Production standards effort aims to address the current critical needs of the content community today by creating a common nomenclature for interactivity that can be implemented immediately.

13.7.1 Organization

The iTV Production Standards Committee includes three levels of participation to leverage the varied skills and perspectives instrumental in creating universally adopted standards:

• Participants : Participants have access to the reviewed specifications and can provide feedback on them. Initial participants account for 90% of the iTV programming produced in the U.S.

• Advisory Board : The advisory board consists of iTV visionaries in the iTV space and provides strategic direction for the committee.

• Working Group : The working group members provide feedback on the existing XML specifications and participate in a collaborative effort to revise and expand the existing specifications. These specifications are based on the XML schema currently used by GoldPocket in 75% of enhanced TV programming deployed in the U.S.

13.7.2 Objectives

The specific objectives of the production standards effort in relation to content production are to:

1. Streamline the production of interactive content assets today

2. Enable iTV production at all points in the production food chain, including script writing, post-production, live production.

3. Provide a mechanism to make iTV production tools compatible across the value chain

4. Establish a method to import and export data between different content management systems to enable the re(use) of interactive content across multiple interactive applications (e.g., enhanced television, virtual channels, VOD)

5. Achieve compatibility with the other major iTV standards, such as SMPTE DDE-1 (ATVEF), SMPTE DDE-2, DVB-MHP, and ATSC-DASE.

13.7.3 Value across the Production Food Chain

The iTV production standards create value for all companies with a stake in the iTV industry, from producers and television networks to middleware players and cable and satellite operators.

• Producers and studios get design freedom, a standard way of developing interactive programming that can be deployed to all platforms, and the ability to create an interactive story line while editing their on-air programming for shows in production today.

• Networks can distribute their interactive programming to a larger base of potential interactive viewers and give their viewers complete choice and flexibility about how they interact with a show.

• Sponsors get broader reach for their two-way interactive advertisements, which provide valuable consumer feedback and data.

• Middleware providers increase the value of their platforms by supporting more interactive programming.

• Cable and satellite operators are able to provide greater value for their digital subscribers with access to more interactive and compelling programming.

13.7.4 Components of iTV Programming

Conceptually, an iTV application can be broken into three main components, each varying across iTV programs:

• Content : The content unit of an application can be (e.g., a trivia question, poll, game element, and so on).

• Presentation : The presentation, or look and feel, of an application refers to the way in which this content is presented. For example, a question being displayed has a particular font size and color and displayed in a particular location on the user interface.

• Behavior : The behavior, or logic, refers to how the application behaves in response to an end-user's action or lack thereof.

The content production component of iTV programming is changing continuously; it changes more frequently than the presentation and behavior components. Content is grouped on an episode basis, and typically changes from one episode to the next . The term episode is used to denote one instance of an iTV program, essentially a grouping of specific content and interactive assets. An episode contains items such as trivia questions and answers, location ID's, points, duration, images, hyperlinks , and so on. Common content types are as follows :

• Aggregate : Aggregation of users/responses (e.g., leaderboards, polls);

• Response : Client action or client/server communication (e.g., trivia, incremental points);

• Info and timing : Display of assets/media types, timing of segments;

• Compound : Combination of any asset type into a new compound type.

Although additional categories can be identified, these initial categories are helpful in grouping the wide variety of interactive functionality. The full specification v1.0 provides prevailing types in each of these categories. The standard defines the XML elements and attributes related to a variety of content assets and provides definitions accompanied with examples.

13.7.4.1 Presentation and Behavior

Although content changes from episode to episode, the presentation description might remain the same for an entire season of episodes . Presentation description covers everything related to the look and feel of an interactive program, including location options for interactive assets, type of interface (e.g., right-side L-shape, left-side L-shape, overlay in bottom), fonts, sizes, etc.).

The behavior is the application-specific logic, including items such as the specific scoring mechanism for a show, the search mechanism for a VOD application, or the behavior of an EPG. The logic that underlies the behavior component (e.g., the logic for a scoring model) can reside client-side, server-side, or in both places. The location of the logic depends on the particular distribution platform, the type of application, and the back-end system powering the application.

13.7.5 Applicability of Content Specification Components

Whereas content assets are grouped on an episode basis, the iTV content production standards are designed such that they can be used at all stages of the production process, including (a) script writing, (b) video editing, (c) iTV production after master tape is produced, and (d) live production. The content production standards provide a common nomenclature for specifying the components of an interactive content asset. Each content asset has three associated components:

• Content type : There are a variety of different content types, related to games, polls, interactive advertisements, leaderboards, and more.

• Timing : Timing specifies the time in the program at which a content item appears and the duration for which that item is displayed.

• Content body : The content body refers to the actual text and images that make up a content item (e.g., the trivia question).

Figure 13.25 depicts the applicability of these components in the following example scenarios:

1. Type and body are determined in the script writing process while timing is finalized in the tape creation process.

2. Type and body are determined in the script writing process while timing is finalized in the pre-airing process (after the tape has been finalized).

3. Timing and type are determined in post-production through the insertion of interactive markers in the video. The body is created later, based on the shell timing and type.

4. Body, type, and timing are all created at the same time in the tape creation process.

5. The interactive show is completely produced after the TV show has been finalized.

6. Body and type are pre-scripted and timing is determined in a live environment.

7. Body, type, and timing are all produced in a live environment.

Figure 13.25. The production steps covered by the iTV production standards.

For example, the content type and timing of interactive content items can be determined by adding interactive markers during the video editing process. A file with these interactive markers can be exported and form the basis for the episode or content XML (see Example 13.3). The actual content body (text and images) can then be associated with these markers later on in the process. The reverse order can also be applied, where the writers of a program determine the iTV content while writing the TV show. Once the final tape is produced, the timing can be associated with the content types and content body that were already written at an earlier stage.

In a live production environment, content can be created in advance and the timing can be entered live; alternatively, both timing and content could be created in real time. A third example of live production is the integration of live data feeds into interactive applications obeying the content production standards schema.

The iTV production standards do not specify whether the content is (pre) processed on the client or server side. The goal of the initiative is to provide a common nomenclature that enables iTV programming to be distributed to all end-user platforms. There are multiple methods for implementing these standards.

Example 13.3 An iTV trivia question response file.

  <question alias="question 1" title="Welcome to the Show!"   text='In what year did U2 win their first two "Grammy" awards?'   start-time="00:00:02:23" segment="1" on-the-fly="0"   duration="30" type="1" location="1">   <question-choices start-time="00:00:02:23" segment="1"   on-the-fly="0" duration="30" type="1"   location="1">   <answer number="1" text="1986" correct="1"   email="You chose wisely. Click here to win a car!">   <answer-media title="" location="" alt="" credit=""   src="/images/u2.gif" url="http://www.rock.com"/>   </answer>   <answer number="2" text="1992" correct="0"   email="Not a wise choice!">   <answer-media title="" location="" alt="" credit=""   src="/images/u3.gif" url="http://www.rock.com"/>   </answer>   </question-choices>   <points correct="25" incorrect="10" no-answer="5"   point-system="1"/>   <reveal start-time="00:00:20:00" segment="1" on-the-fly="0"   duration="23" type="1" location="1"/>   <media title="" location="" alt="" src="/images/question1.gif"   url="http://www.images.com" credit=""/>   <sponsor name="Bill and Johnny's">   <sponsor-media title="Get the best frozen Tofu in the world!"   src="/images/billjohnnys.png" url="http://www.images.com"   location="" alt="" credit=""/>   </sponsor>   <field name="" value=""/>   <meta-data>   <meta-item name="emdss" value="overlay6"/>   </meta-data>   <response type="1" text="You were right! Way to go."/>   </question>