As the name suggests, the concept of “interactive television” assumes the existence of interaction between the viewer and the broadcaster. This is possible when digital television is enriched with a return channel, for example in the form of a telephone modem.
We will watch Gołota’s fall
The viewer will be able to order a current program on video that was not aired, or an archival program, watch additional live broadcasts, and also pause a live program at any time to resume it later. This last service will be possible thanks to a personal video recorder (PVR). So we will no longer miss the moment of Andrzej Gołota being knocked out just because we went to get warm slippers at the beginning of the boxing match. We will watch Gołota’s fall calmly, already in warm slippers and with a glass of hot tea in hand. The technical novelty will be available to users of computers connected to the Internet, primarily with broadband access to the global network, but also to televisions equipped with a special set-top box.
Interactive Poland
Interactive television in Poland is being created by a team led by Leszek Bogdanowicz, a thirty-eight-year-old IT specialist, previously the creator of, among others, the popular portal Wirtualna Polska. Bogdanowicz has been working on the project since August 2004. The team leader assumes that we would use interactive television via various technical devices. People like variety; therefore, the thesis about the creation of one super-device combining the functions of many others can be put aside.
And so, for example, a viewer will be able to watch a movie trailer and place an order via mobile phone. Then watch the movie itself on a traditional TV screen. And then discuss it with other viewers via computer. Interactive television viewers will indeed form an active community, similar to participants in Internet discussion forums.
Featured cities
– As a pilot project, interactive television will first appear in Krakow, Poznan, and Warsaw – said Leszek Bogdanowicz. – This should happen in the last quarter of this year. Owners of computers with broadband Internet access will be able to use interactive television without any additional investments. TV owners could get a connection via IP. Then both the transmission and reception of feedback are carried out in the same technology – via the Internet protocol IP. If the results of observations and analyses are successful, which I hope they will be, interactive television will appear throughout Poland. When that will be, it is hard to say for now.
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty” 5/2005.