Research group for Media, Innovation and Contemporary Technologies

xTV - Explorative television

About

Interactive digital television (IDTV) is already a quite highly adopted technology in families all over the world. The interactive aspect of digital television enables the medium of television to develop progressively and challenge upcoming problems. Yet it seems that the ever growing impact of the internet has lured a lot of people (especially the younger generations) away from their television screen. IDTV needs to step up its interactivity and challenge the increasingly dominating role of the internet. xTV may have the potential to do this.

xTV or Explorative Television is an ICON-project which aims to develop a new way of experiencing and interacting with television. Making use of surround video, in which one can freely look around, the user experiences the imagery from the “inside” rather than as an “outsider”. Passively watching television might be something of the past as actively interacting and exploring the given video footage becomes more common.

This interdisciplinary project brings together a variety of smaller and bigger players in the technological, media and research sectors with the goal of developing new television production techniques and new IDTV experiences using surround video. Thorough research will be done on how surround videos is best captured by state of the art cameras, processed, distributed to television sets nationwide and finally presented to the spectators at home.

Research design

MICT is charged with involving the human side of xTV. What are the possibilities and added value of this technology? How is xTV experienced and what are the expectancies of the user? To answer these questions, measurements and experiments will take place in a controlled lab setting pinning down the important variables in usage of xTV. Furthermore Quality of Experience and Quality of Service research will be done. Secondly the market adoption potential of xTV will be assessed by means of the PSAP methodology and a blueprint introduction strategy for xTV will be devised.

Publications

Decock, J., Van Looy, J., Bekaert, P., & Bleumers, L. (2013). The Pleasure of Being (There?). An Explorative Study into the Effects of Presence and Identification on the Enjoyment of an Interactive Theatrical Performance using Omni-Directional Video. AI & Society. doi: 10.1007/s00146-013-0487-6

Duration of the project

The project runs from 01/02/2011 - 31/01/2013.

Staff involved

  • Prof. dr. Jan Van Looy

Clusters

  • Media Production & Distribution

Financed by

  • iMinds