PBS announced agreements Wed. with Triveni Digital and Wavexpress...
PBS announced agreements Wed. with Triveni Digital and Wavexpress for interactive TV trials in 7 markets. Tests involve broadcast of interactive TV enhancements of 4 episodes of Scientific American Frontiers, airing on local PBS stations beginning March 27. Trials…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
with Triveni, digital enhanced data and metadata solutions provider, will be first digital terrestrial broadcast of interactive TV enhancements using Advanced TV Enhancement Forum (ATVEF) Transport Type B specification that allows enhanced content to be aired with program without requiring connection to Internet, they said. Program-related enhancements will be encoded and distributed via satellite through PBS to member stations. Additional enhancements, customized to local audiences, will be inserted into local broadcast of each participating station, PBS said. On Wavexpress’s platform, 4 enhanced episodes will take advantage of features to integrate national and local enhanced broadcast applications synchronized to program, including seamless integration of TV and Web. Triveni’s SkyScraper data broadcasting systems will be used by PBS and 7 participating stations. Zenith is supplying ATVEF-enabled set-top boxes for 100 participants in trial markets. In certain markets, select viewers will install Wavexpress TVTonic TV/Web browser software and digital tuner card on their PCs, enabling them to have single screen integration of TV and enhanced content overlays, including 2-way polling, PBS said. TVTonic users will be able to chat and engage in peer-to-peer communication with other viewers while watching PBS programs. Participating in trial are: WETA Washington; Ore. Public Bcstg., Portland; N.J. Network; Me. Public Bcstg. Corp., Lewiston; Twin Cities Public TV, St. Paul/Minneapolis; WHYY Philadelphia; KQED San Francisco. PBS Interactive Senior Vp Cindy Johanson said Interactive TV trials demonstrate PBS’s vision to seamlessly blend local and national content through digital TV: “By forging new ground in the development of interactive television programming, PBS sends a clear message to leading cable, satellite and digital terrestrial platforms that the content community is anxiously waiting the deployment of ATVEF compliant receivers.” Triveni Pres. Mark Simpson said that in both educational and commercial use, being able to provide easily navigable enhanced programming without requiring connection to Internet would be one of driving forces of digital TV for both broadcaster and users.