Time warp sports for internet television

Abstract

Internet-based video delivery offers new opportunities for interactive television. The creation and usability of interactive television is very different from desktop or web-based interaction. The concepts of frameworks and genres provides an approach to learnable interaction in an entertainment rather than task-oriented activity. The concept of a framework defines the tools required for both producing and viewing a particular style of interactive video experience. An interactive framework for televised sports is presented. This framework implements a sports television experience that support play-by-play navigation as well as viewer's interactive choice of camera angles. Tools for creating and viewing interactive sports are developed in parallel. In-home and in-lab experiments give indications of how sports fans will use interactive television in the future. The experiments demonstrate that fans will use the interaction rather than passively watching, can easily learn the interactive features and strongly prefer the new features over tradition rewind/fast-forward. The data indicates that many users will use the interactive controls to enrich and prolong their viewing rather than simply skipping as rapidly as possible through a game. However, there is also indication that some viewers will simply skip rapidly. There are also indications that the skip vs. review interaction depends on the interest level of current game play.