TV advertising set for massive slump

Active-TV ecosystem developers,

The shift in TV advertising due to the increasing availability of the Digital Video Record (DVR), is a growing topic of concern for advertisers. The Extended-PC and Extended-Notebook’s role in support of new forms of advertising is important. This is the reasoning behind the development of overlay media applications, synchronised to IP or broadcast content. The PC’s overlay media application carries the advertising material. It is also the “push red” entry into interactive TV and promotional IP-TV channels.

Many of the technologies used in 2’ advertising, supported by the PC browser, are likely to make their way to the 10 location via Extended-Notebook browser projection. The Extended-PC with active-TV technology is positioned to support the transition to new forms of advertising. Ecosystems supporting this are likely to have greater access to content paid for via advertising revenue. They may also cost less due to advertising and brand promotion subsidies.

more at http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/548813/tv-advertising-set-massive-slump-us-research-says/

HP hybrid-TV (TV + DMA

Active-TV ecosystem developers,

HP has added DMA (Digital Media Adapter) technology to a TCP/IP networked TV.
Here is the opening sentence from the HP SLC3760N brochure: “The HP Advanced Digital Media LCD HDTV takes television and makes it personal by bringing your photos, music, and videos from your PC to your TV”. There is now a clear trend to integrate convergence features into a high-end TV.

The approach taken by this yet un-priced hybrid-TV, follows some of the active-TV principles – adding convergence features to a consumer-understood appliance which inherently supports digital TV broadcast reception. There is no indication of advanced active-TV features, such as the merging of broadcast TV images with media application images.

It appears the DMA support does not extend to thin-client UI projection. Images of the TV UI appear DMA-like and not the more advanced MCE spotlights (see attached image). The features list below is extracted from the data sheet http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2006/ces/ds_e_37lcd_adm.pdf

• Stream audio and video files via your wired or wireless network from your PC to your TV
  
• Connect directly from your TV or via your PC to Web-based media services
  
• Windows Media Connect compatible, Intel VIIV™, PlaysForSure™ and DLNA certified™
  
• Supported digital media include: JPEG, BMP, GIF, and PNG photos, Windows Media Audio (WMA), WMA-Pro, WAV, and MP3 music files, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@ML, MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-4 (including DivX), AVI, Windows Media Video (WMV), and WMV-HD files
  
• Compatible with Windows Media Player 10 and its digital rights management (DRM)
  
• Built-in 10/100 based-T wired and IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless networking [end]
  

Direct web-based access (no PC required), suggest there is support for a micro-browser. Likely, the full array of formats supported is accomplished with some PC transcode processing. I guess the integrated SOC Si is from Sigma.

I also found … [Extract] Furthermore, the SLC3760N is also capable of streaming audio and video directly from the Internet courtesy of compatibility with RealNetworks' Rhapsody online music subscription service and CinemaNow. …..the SLC3760N can also access Web-based media services such as online photo service Snapfish or … [end]

There appears to be no requirement for Media Center Edition (MCE), only the Windows Media Connect (WMC) available with XP Home. So, there is no use of Microsoft Extender Technology.

Compatibility with ViiV is claimed, but this may be nothing more than WMC support; as there is no appearance of the promised ‘higher-level’ ViiV features, such as projected UI support.

Comments, corrections and feedback welcome.