By passing Cable, PBS Takes Enhanced Content To The Air

Cable World, March 12, 2001 by Richard Cole

The laborious rollout of interactive television and the tug-of-war over open standards has at least one network looking at an alternative model that by-passes set-top boxes and cable operators altogether.

The move could whet the public's appetite for ITV and bring personal computers more directly into the television mainstream.

The Public Broadcasting System will enhance four shows of its new Scientific American Frontiers series with datacasting to small trial audiences in seven cities. The episodes, hosted by Alan Alda, include "Bionic Body," "Chimps R Us," "Flying Free," and "Fat and Happy?" The first airs on local PBS stations March 27.

PBS executives believe interactive television is essential to holding on to their viewership, says Deron Triff, director of business development for PBS' ITV operation. And they have little patience with the murky ITV picture they see before them.

"We're sending out a clear message in the market that enhanced TV is a priority for the content community and PBS, particularly," he says. "In the absence of compliant set-top boxes, especially on the cable side, we're going to move forward anyway."

PBS is testing two options in its datacasting trial -- one directly to personal computers and the other to a Zenith designed television set-top box. The network says the trials are the first over-the-air, or digital terrestrial, broadcast ITV enhancements using the open Advanced Television Enhancement Forum Transport Type B specification. That allows the enhanced content to be broadcast with the program, rather than requiting a connection to the Internet, thereby speeding up delivery of the enhancements to the viewer.

The PC version is handled by Wavexpress, which will run its trials for PBS affiliates in Washington, D.C., Portland, Ore., and New Jersey, the only market where both will be tested. Nielsen Media Research will monitor the results.

The personal computers of 20 to 50 people in each Wavexpress market will be fitted with digital tuner cards, which will receive the PBS signal and feed it directly to the hard drive, allowing the viewer to watch the program on the PC monitor.

Wavexpress software caches the interactive features on the hard drive and integrates them with the video and audio signal from PBS. What the viewer sees is an L-shaped overlay that has blinking icons to indicate when interactive or enhanced elements are available.

PBS will datacast five network enhancements that include quizzes on the programming, extra information about the subject of the show, two-way polling and a small dose of t-commerce -- the ability to buy tapes of the shows.

In addition, each of the seven local affiliates will have control of a sixth element. For example, as its enhancement for the "Bionic Body" show, which looks in part at the recovery of Christopher Reeves, KMBC of Lewiston, Maine, will make a feature available about the rehabilitation of a paralyzed Maine hockey player.

Localized features are crucial for affiliates, which must raise money locally, Triff says.

"That's also how we feel we can compete against the cable channels," he adds.

The PCs receiving the enhanced show will have an additional interactive level, which allows them to directly e-mail sponsor Agilent Technologies, although the other enhancement aren't dependent on an ISP connection.

On the television side, the trials will take place in Portland, San Francisco, Philadelphia and the Twin Cities, along with New Jersey. Triveni Digital will handle the TV trials, transmitting to Zenith supplied ATVEF-enabled digital television set-top boxes for the 100 or so participants.

The STBs will receive the over-the-air Advanced Television Systems Committee broadcast, display the program information and user-viewable enhancement information, and store the program enhancements for use by the viewer either during the program or at a later time.

Television programming with enhancements is the foundation of interactive television, and everyone participating in the PBS trials is aware of the implications. Brian Hickey, VP-marketing for Wavexpress, says datacasting has one glaring advantage over STBs and cable delivery of ITV services.

The negative about the set-top box is simply that they are not there now," Hickey says.

Datacasters, in contrast, are ready for the ITV market, he says. The only technical hurdle is improving the quality of digital tuner cards. Wavexpress is working with several card-makers, including Hauppauge Computer Works, and Hickey says he believes a TV-quality picture will be available by the end of the year.

"If the tuner card issues are worked out, there could be mass deployment immediately in the terrestrial broadcast space," Hickey says.

Datacasting carries clear advantages for the consumer -- a digital tuner card sells for as little as $49, compared with the $300 to $500 price tag for the next generation of ITV-ready set-top boxes. And datacasting through the PC -- which could eventually be networked into the TV set -- takes advantage of a computer hard drive that in most homes far exceeds the capacity of new STBs.