Chapter 2 - How to get started with an ETV Application

Chapter 2: How to get started with an ETV Application

If you have a concept for an interactive television application and decided that ETV is the way to go, there are several items to take into consideration as you begin. The final release of an interactive television application will require agreements between all parties involved, which include the development house, content owner, and MSO.

However, with the host of tools and developer programs available, it is now possible to tease out a prototype ETV application at a relatively low cost.

Essentially the first step in making ETV applications is taking the leap to develop for the standard in a way that meets your organization’s mission.

Defining requirements of your application:
Once the business and organizational goals have been defined for your application, the next step is defining what components of ETV you plan to utilize. This doesn’t necessarily require detailed specifications at first, but rather a fundamental understanding of how the application is going to behave and the resources that will be required to complete the end-to-end experience.

• Information flow: Outline the sources of information that will populate any data in your app. This might require back-end components to be developed alongside the on-screen interface.
• User experience: Design the user experience to ensure that it provides intuitive navigation. Also, the experience must be able to be understood and acted upon within the timeline defined by the video content.
• Backend systems: Identify areas where your application requires reporting information to a backend server and relies on broadcast data or 2-way responses
Keep a careful eye on the following:
• While ETV can be developed to broadcast updates to your application and use 2-way data, the capacity of the MSO network and set-top capabilities are critical in building a functional app
• Images: The ability of image files carried into ETV applications will vary depending on the set-top box platform (Moto, SA) and the box-specific resources.

Choosing your development tools:

The actual programming of the ETV application can utilize one of several EBIF-compliant tools that vary in functionality, price and user-agent (A list of tools can be found here). Toolkits that utilize ETV will allow your team to author and simulate applications on the PC before attempting to broadcast them to a set-top box.

ETV Authoring:

ETV apps can be created through authoring tools where developers create source code that compiles to EBIF-compliant data, or design tools that use a graphical interface to create app functionality. The programming languages used in authoring tools are typically XML-based and can vary between toolkits. The expertise level required is similar to that of HTML authoring and usually can be adapted by a competent developer.

ETV Simulation:

Toolkits will allow the developers of an application to simulate the ETV overlays and navigation on the PC. This way progress can be tested and demonstrated to interested parties. Other tools will allow for pre-production of ETV applciaitons, allowing them to be bound into MPEG video where they can be delivered to a set-top box, given the right broadcast equipment is available.

User Agents:

Each toolkit will employ specific ETV user-agents for compiling and simulating the applications. While ETV apps will essentially be understood by set-top boxes with a user-agent, there are some differences between user-agents that may affect the display of the application or its reliance on other set-top box software such as interactive programming guides and video-on demand middleware.