Enhanced television programming (ETV) is programming with an associated interactive software application. An application is delivered with a program, and its lifespan is tied to viewing of a program. Examples include voting contestants off a game show or purchasing an item from an advertisement.
Benefits
ETV enables programmer-driven interactivity for the most popular linear broadcasts across all cable systems on existing, deployed digital set-top boxes.Benefits accrue to:
- Customers—More choice, more entertainment, more control.
- Programmers—Grows current business models and enables new on-demand opportunities.
- Cable MSOs—Allows MSOs to leverage their secure, two-way, on-demand broadband architecture.
Technology
Enhanced TV is video programming that has an interactive application bound to it and which executes concurrently with that program. A user agent on the set-top box interprets ETV binary commands received via an in-band stream. Both native user agents on legacy digital set-top boxes as well as Java user agents on OCAP receivers are supported. The specifications are intended to provide a national cable footprint for ETV content.
Services and Applications Enabled
The advanced interactive cable services and applications enabled by ETV include:- Interactive applications tied to a particular program stream. This includes voting and polling applications.
- Video-on-demand (VOD); the customer can respond to a prompt while watching a particular channel to purchase and view a VOD offering.
- Advertising; the customer can respond to an on-screen prompt to launch an advertisement stored as a VOD asset.
