Interactive TV Award - Blog zum Interactive TV Award der Deutschen Telekom

Remote controls are not the most attractive and smart parts of a television. IPTV deserves better, according to guest author and Mediaroom expert Roger Pitton from Microsoft. Naturally he recommends his company´s new Kinect product - or maybe you´d prefer a magic wand?

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Is there anyone who hasn´t experienced the problem? Television, set-top box plus home cinema - everything I could want to relax and enjoy an evening in front of the TV. However, there´s not much pleasure in still having to use three different remote controls.

 
Are we all going to become Harry Potter as we sit in front of the TV?

As the project manager for Microsoft Mediaroom in Switzerland, I have been working on the next generation of TV for eight years. As part of the team that designed the remote control for IPTV, I have long been interested in the topic and wonder: Isn´t there a better way to operate your television?

In my own living room I have tried to get a handle on the issue by using a universal remote. This pretty toy cost a pretty penny, but it took a few hours before I got everything working acceptably. Don’t forget: this is followed by the learning phase, which means that each member of the family has to work out the functions. Things also get complicated if one of the original remote controls is used occasionally.

In our case, after an initial phase everything finally worked to the satisfaction of the whole family after a startup phase. However doubts remain: Can we really expect television users to accept such a complicated learning process? I don´t think so.

The approach taken by others is to reduce complexity. For example, just one remote control with no more than five elements (up/down, left/right and OK) or with a touchscreen, like a smart phone. But I feel that models like this restrict your options too much or are simply too expensive. After all, you won´t get far without numbers in German-speaking countries - I´m thinking of how you would use Teletext or Videotext.

One of the most curious solutions I have come across is the magic wand from Kymera Magic, which can operate all the devices. Like Harry Potter you can switch on the TV and change channels with a simple flick of the wrist. I haven´t tried it for myself, but I think the wand is a really interesting solution as an interaction medium.

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo´s Wii take things even further with their motion-sensitive options for controlling the TV. This makes a lot of sense for very interactive applications like games and opens up new markets for these companies and new forms of entertainment for us all.

How do things look regarding the transfer of such concepts to the television? Will this facilitate a new interaction with content? I´m sure that this can be achieved in technical terms, but such systems really need to mature. You don´t want the channel to change just because the dog wags its tail.

Microsoft´s approach with Kinect has a number of interesting functions. As well as the motion control option, a voice control feature is also available. The following demonstration with the Xbox 360 shows how this works:

You can use your hands and feet - but words still have their place with Kinect.

At the beginning of the sequence we saw how the camera identifies who is stilling in front of the television. For me and my family this means: I am sitting by myself watching my favorite channel and recordings. However if my daughter joins me, the TV guide will change automatically.

In addition, the movies guide suddenly becomes very interactive when you use Kinect - here is my favorite video about this:

 
TV without remote control: unexpected interactivity for children´s programs.

A lot of concepts are still something for the future, but I am convinced that the way we manage electronic entertainment media is going to change significantly. But in what direction - what do you think?

Roger Pitton´s TV -

- is usually controlled by the three women in the house. He has been working on IPTV in Switzerland for over eight years and was there right from the start. He is fascinated by the opportunities offered by the new TV and how it can benefit us all. When he gets his hands on the remote control he mostly only watches programs on the video recorder.