Interactive Apps: A New Way to Watch TV

For consumers, interactive television offers a great new media experience. For cable and satellite service operators, telecommunications companies, internet access service providers and manufacturers of consumer electronics, interactive television provides an unparalleled opportunity in the development of new revenue streams and the possibility of gaining new subscribers through new services such as e-commerce, interactive advertising, enhanced programming, and on-demand media. For example, while a user is watching a TV commercial, he can select an icon on the TV screen to learn more about the advertised product. Viewers will be able to select another icon on the screen and see a list of local distributors of this product, choose the color and size of a garment, and even purchase the product through an online transaction. But most importantly, all of this is possible without the viewer missing a single moment of the TV show they are watching.

The platform that makes this possible is Liberate TV Navigator. Its software delivers interactive applications based on approved standards to a wide variety of devices, including, of course, digital set-top-boxes , Internet TVs, game consoles and other devices that may appear in the future. This platform allows device manufacturers and network operators to combine standard conventional Internet applications, such as Internet search engines and e-mail, with a new form of media that links television programming content with Internet content. Designed to be viewed on television, content is delivered and presented by utilizing open standards for the internet and television to ensure universal access and compatibility.

The Liberate browser combines the best of TV and internet standards into a single, compelling interactive environment. This content, aptly named enhanced TV, is sent to television receivers that have interactivity capabilities as an additional component of the normal television transmission signal. The software has the ability to combine content in standards such as HTML, JavaScript and Java with current digital television standards, within which are DVB and ATSC.

Some partners of this company, Liberate Platforms, are expanding the range of action of this platform by integrating applications based on digital television technology such as Electronic Program Guides (EPG) and Video-on-Demand applications. (VOD). This open architecture makes it simpler for content creators to build interactive applications by combining the best of both worlds: the internet and television. Developers can add features like e-wallets and Video on Demand, along with a wide variety of user-adjustable interfaces built in HTML and JavaScript.

As television and internet technologies converge, network operators want a strong and consistent corporate brand presented through properties and services. This platform offers content to integrate a company's particular graphic identity within its final products. Using HTML and JavaScript, developers can design a graphical interface that influences brands with its power and ensures a strong brand presence throughout the product line. As it works on open standards for the internet, it is possible to take advantage of the existing web programming tools, as well as the vast number of qualified creators and developers of web content.

Within the intense competitive environment of today's business world, there is no company that can afford the waste of time and money by adapting its media assets and interactive content to be sent across multiple formats that lack compatibility. With that in mind, the Liberate platform builds all its products on open standards created and used by the internet and content creators for broadcasting. This approach to standards makes it easier for network operators to provide the services they use with the latest internet innovations. Additionally, the support it offers to these standards means that application creators enjoy access to an innumerable variety of programming tools and content development for the web. Liberate actively works with numerous regulatory bodies such as W3C, ATSC, DVB and OpenCable, to promote the use of these standards in the development of applications for enhanced TV. In addition to being a founding member and lead author of the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF), which developed a standard for the delivery of integrated HTML and JavaScript content to be used in broadcast television signals.

In the era of global markets, a network operator can significantly increase its subscriber base by offering new services with international reach, while still achieving growth rates in domestic markets. Liberate's browser offers full support for international standards for broadcasting television signals, including DVB and ATSC, as well as transparent compatibility with international channel frequencies. Among its features it has a wide range of support for various languages, including double bitio characters. Keyboards, and entry methods. Finally, thanks to the fact that the software has been implemented in HTML and JavaScript languages, it is easy to translate the content of the interface into local languages.

When network operators buy set-top boxes they want to have options. No company wants to tie itself to buying expensive systems based on proprietary developments that force them to rebuild the company's infrastructure. This concern is resolved by Liberate because its Navigator TV software runs on the broadest base of currently installed devices such as the Motorola DCT 2000. On more robust platforms from companies like Motorola, Pace, Scientific-Atlanta, and Philips, modules that include animation and Java can be added to offer subscribers additional wealth and options.

The design enables real-time operation over a layer containing an abstraction of the software on top of the client's platforms and operating systems (RTOS), allowing Liberate to connect on the ports of a wide variety of hardware platforms and operating systems. The risk of application obsolescence is eliminated as this platform can be dynamically upgraded using the existing broadcast infrastructure.

With the universal acceptance of HTML as the format for the web, content providers can create once and reach millions of TV and personal computer users. Unlike other solutions for internet consumers, Liberate does not require content providers to adapt the presentation of their websites to be displayed on a television set. Liberate's IQView technology automatically adjusts the standards of internet content for television, ensuring high-quality graphics and updated text on the screen. IQView performs color correction and reduces real-time blinking to improve image quality. Intelligent graphics scaling adapts websites and eliminates the need for horizontal image correction.