Delivering Multi-device Synchronised Interactive Services in a Broadcasting Environment through UIML Deployment

Abstract

As the variety in network service platforms and end user devices grows rapidly, content providers must constantly adapt their production system to support these new technologies. A factor that highly complicates this process is the need for interactivity. In the Multimedia Content Distribution Platform (MCDP) Project, an architecture for deploying highly interactive and synchronised television programs over a diverse collection of broadcast networks and end user devices was developed. It consists of a middleware platform with pluggable support for new broadcast networks and end-user devices, whilst preserving synchronised interactivity. In order to support a maximum of functionality and use cases; downloadable applications are used to provide the interactive services. As the user interface of such applications may vary depending on the capabilities of the different target devices, the MCDP middleware uses UIML for the description of generic user interfaces: The MCDP middleware is also used as the main platform for the delivery of synchronized, interactive services in a IP Datacasting system combining DVB-H and UMTS.