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Interactive Sports & Betting Video Vault
Sports programming is one of the key drivers of digital and pay Television. With a wealth of statistics, scores and other supporting information available - and a proactive and competitive audience - it comes as little surprise that interactive sports are a key factor in the take up of interactive services on a number of platforms - most notably Sky in the UK.
UK
Wimbledon 2003 on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (6 Mb)
The BBC has launched a new improved
version of their interactive Wimbledon service on Sky Digital.
As well as featuring the multiple video feeds from the
various courts, as seen in previous years, the service now includes SMS chat on a variety
of subjects, e.g ‘Who is your tip for the men’s title?’ with the archive of
messages easily browseable using the remote’s up and down keys. Comprehensive news
and live scores are also accessible by pressing Blue.
The interactive service also allows viewers to access match highlights and interviews
outside normal hours of play. Virtually all the features of the Sky Digital service
are also available to Freeview and Telewest cable homes.
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New Zealand
Sky NZ Betting Service (OpenTV) (6.9 Mb)
Sydney
based interactive television developer Holotype has helped Sky Television New Zealand and New Zealand TAB
launch its first ever interactive television sports betting service 'SkyBet'. Running
across Sky’s ‘Trackside’ channel the service allows ‘next race’
betting for horse and greyhound racing and trots and is also providing ‘sports
betting’ on Sky NZ’s ‘Sky Sports 1’ channel for rugby, soccer and
rugby league.
Following Holotype’s initial launch of an OpenTV sports statistics application in 2002, the company has upgraded the solution to provide dynamic odds that update every 40 seconds (on average the access time is 26 seconds) and more importantly, the ability for viewers to place bets from their armchair using their remote controls.
Holotype’s application also allows the service to look completely different across
different channels and dynamically change the menu structure on those multiple channels.
Dynamic change is particularly important to Sky and TAB as events can change very quickly
at certain times of the day, with new races appearing every 2-3 minutes at peak times.
Once in the service viewers can highlight the horse they
want to bet on, highlight a bet type e.g. Win, Place or Each Way. They then enter the
amount they want to bet, their TAB account number and PIN and their bet is processed, with
their bet receipt number appearing immediately on screen.
Initial feedback on the service has been extremely positive. The local betting community
has already prompted Holotype and Sky to look at some other developments which include the
addition of Australian betting odds and the capability to offer ‘easy bets’ at
fixed amounts e.g. $8 bets at the touch of a button.
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UK
BBCi Six Nations on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (7.5Mb)
BBCi's
interactive sports have been improved significantly for the 2003 Six Nations matches. The
interface is cleaner and the return path has now been implemented for messaging for that
viewers can make their views known in ' Your Say'. plus the return path is employed again
in a new feature - voting for the 'Man-of-the-Match' - costing just 10 pence.
Once again the service provides multiple audio
and video streams with viewers able to access BBC commentary, Radio 5 Live or even BBC
Wales. A 'ref-link' provides access to audio from the pitch or you can listen to the match
commentary-free. Additional video streams include match highlights and 'extra' which
provides insight into the game, players and their strategies.
Accessing the statistics page provides the viewer with data on how many tackles, kicks and
passes each side has made and how many lineouts have been won and lost. In addition there
is a comprehensive news page with stories from the matches.
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UK
Attheraces (OpenTV/WapTV)
(3Mb)
The application
developed for the attheraces channel by tentendigital, went live in October 2002.
It is the first application to use the new Automated Broadcast Builder technology allowing 2 minute churn updates in the broadcast path.
It is also a major implementation of Sky's WapTV browser. The application allows users to view information on horses racing on the channel that day, as well as an up to the moment price for the bet. The user can view the entire application without dialling up. Dial-up only occurs in short bursts for the bet, account history, registration and competition processes.
Click Here for a Systems Diagram
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High-Resolution DVD of this and other interactive TV applications.
Greece
Localised Eurosport News on Nova (OpenTV) (1.68 Mb)
Clever and cost effective, this enhancement to the Eurosport News channel
superimposes localised content over the English text that is transmitted on Eurosport
News' Pan-European feed. In this case, the content is in Greek language and Greek
character set for the Nova (Multichoice Hellas) platform.
The application launches in the background shortly after switching to the channel and
places a Greek language ticker and news headlines window entirely seamlessly over the
English language text.
This provides a highly cost effective way of regionalising the news service beyond the simple addition of a localised soundtrack.
Once loaded, the viewer is able to toggle between English and Greek text just by pressing the OK button.
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UK
BBCi Euro 2004 Qualifier on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (3Mb)
The application developed for the World Cup is finding itself
actively employed by the BBC on a variety of soccer matches. The application banner at the
top of the screen allows the viewer access to additional audio tracks and commentary,
match highlights etc. The viewer can also submit short comments via SMS using their mobile
phone and consult simple statistics. This example is taken from the England vs
Slovakia game in early October 2002.
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Spain
Champions
League on Via Digital (OpenTV) (5.5 Mb)
Winning the Antena de Oro from the Spanish Frederation of Radio and
Television, Via Digital's Champion's League application allows the viewer to choose from a
number of different video feeds including replays and statistics as well as the main live
feed via an interactive mosaic.
Whilst watching the game, viewers can also get in-vision statistics including the current
score and also pull up info on the goals and who scored them, team changes, team line up
and cards shown by the ref.
One segment of the mosaic also leads to a more in-depth menu with information on the
various teams in UEFA, leading goal scorers, a calendar of games and background on the
UEFA Champion's league.
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UK
Ryder Cup Golf
on Sky Digital (OpenTV) ( 9 Mb)
Effectively re-using the application template developed for the Formula 1
service, Sky's Golf application - here for the Ryder Cup shows just how comprehensive an
enhanced sports application can be. Multiple camera feeds (Master, Star Match, Key Holes,
Head to Head) are
complimented by scrolling scores, a guide to the course, Top Shots (highlights), Off
Course (press conferences etc) and other feeds bringing the total number of video
feeds to 8. (all of which are so generic they could be easily deployed by Telewest or NTL
at a future date should they ever choose to do so!)
In addition to the video there is "Stats" - a comprehensive database of
information such as a mapped graphical guide to the course and its holes, statistics on
the players, trivia etc. The application also offers a shop and quiz.
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UK
Sky Sports Active Tennis (OpenTV) ( 3.9 Mb)
Sky
Sports Active have now added Tennis to their interactive portfolio with this fairly basic,
but nicely designed video switching application.
Clearly Sky are able to create this service by having access to multiple feeds via
satellite from the US.
After pressing the red button (the call-to-action here is a fairly discreet red icon in the bottom left of the screen) 4 video feed windows are presented simultaneously on screen. Notably Sky have chosen not to use a highlight box overlay to aid navigation. - Instead pressing any of the corresponding colour keys takes you to that video stream. In the case of the video featured here, raid had stopped play so there was a live feed showing the rain soaked court plus two streams showing match replays and lastly a statistics feed. Normally up to 3 matches could be shown simultaneously with one remaining feed for statistics.
I said this was a simple application because as with Sky's Formula 1, dynamic statistics are not put in the datastream but are pre-composed and broadcast as a regular video signal. This unfortunately makes it impossible for the viewer to call up the statistics they want when they want.
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New Zealand
Sky NZ Sport Statistics (OpenTV) (6Mb)
Enhancing Sky Sport New Zealand's Soccer, Rugby and Rugby League matches,
this application created by Australian developer Holotype dynamically provides live game statistics as well as
historical statistics on each team.
In the Sky Bet section of the application viewers can also pull up betting odds on a match and place a bet using their remote control.
Using Sky NZ's EN2 platform, the application allows the main video to be resized and re-positioned whilst consulting the statistics and placing a bet.
Click the image below for an
interactive Flash demo of this service.
From a
backend perspective, the service has been put together using Holotype's iTV Sports
System It is a second-generation iTV solution based on powerful and sophisticated
infrastructure software to make the day-to-day management of dynamic, multi-channel iTV
services simple, appropriate and cost effective.
The Holotype iTV Sports System is built around the Holotype Service
Manager. a generic multi-channel iTV content management tool. In the
Holotype iTV Sports System, the HSM has been configured to optimise
delivery of sports and betting content.
From the viewers perspective the Holotype iTV Sports System delivers
intuitive, consistent and easy-to-use interactive sports applications
across multiple sports channels. At the same time the system enables the broadcaster to
fine-tune sports statistics and betting content so that it perfectly complements the
broadcast.
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High-Resolution DVD of this and other interactive TV applications.
UK
BBCi Commonwealth Games (OpenTV) (4.3 Mb)
To
be honest once you've seen one BBCi multistream interactive service, you've pretty much
seen them all.
Broadcasters like the BBC are fortunate to have access to major sporting events, the resources to provide multiple simultaneous video feeds and the bandwidth to transmit them.
With so many events taking place simultaneously at the Commonwealth Games, its an ideal way of ensuring the viewer gets the maximum value out of the event by being able to follow the sports of their choice.
In addition to the multiple video feeds, viewers can also use the menus to consult a selection of news stories from the event and also a league table of medals that have been awarded to the participating countries.
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UK
Gobarkingmad on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (4.2 Mb)
Gobarkingmad's
interactive TV service officially launched at the end of June 2002 and its probably fair
to say that the channel itself is still in soft launch mode. Currently the channel is only
showing Australian Greyhound races, (I haven't seen any live video of US or UK meets as
yet!)
Also, its still possible to bet on some US
races - even though it would seem that GBM aren't currently transmitting live video of
these events.
The interactive service is pretty simple to use (although registration is always a painful
process, particularly if you don't have an infra-red keyboard) but once you are in and the
box is connected (the box must stay online at a local call rate both to see the form and
bet) it is easy to navigate, pull up the form, see the odds and place a bet with the video
remaining constantly available in the top right hand portion of the screen.
Netimperative in a news story this weekend said the service's parent company - (Gaming
Insight) reported a near £20 m loss and requires additional funding to support
Gobarkingmad.
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UK
Interactive Cricket on Sky Sports (OpenTV) (6.5 Mb)
As
expected, this application features multiple audio streams, multiple camera angles
(including the stumps view pictured here) selected match highlights in a loop and some
pretty comprehensive stats.
There is also some noteworthy fluidness in the animation of this application
compared to previous interactive cricket services. It would seem Sky have thought very
carefully about how to make the service as user friendly and integrated with the whole
broadcast experience as possible. There is also something slightly more logical in having
the rounded coloured buttons appear on screen with text alongside each option.
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UK
BBC Wimbledon on Sky Digital (OpenTV) ( 2.6 Mb)
Reaching 3.4 million individual Digital Satellite viewers, the Wimbledon 2002 service was an outstanding sucess for the BBC although frankly there wasn't a huge difference between the Wimbledon 2002 application and the service provided last year - although there have been some changes in how the service is accessed.
Now viewers can access the multiple video streams by pressing the standard "BBCi Press Red" icon during the live Wimbledon broadcasts. The service is also accessible by navigating through the various menus that pop-up when you press TEXT on a BBC channel. (This is because the Red Button is also now used to link viewers to BBCi's interactive news and other services).
In addition the multiple video streams from the various courts at Wimbledon, the service also offers Match Scores and Match Results accessible by pressing the blue key.
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See the BBC's
Wimbledon 2002 Interactive Services Promo
(1.3 Mb)
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UK
BBC World Cup on Telewest Cable (Liberate 1.2) ( 8 Mb)
Full congratulations are due to the BBC and Telewest for delivering a full
enhanced TV service over Liberate for the World Cup and proving the versatility of the
middleware. The service appears almost identical to the Sky service, featuring switchable
audio, video "Highlights" switchable between a Live stream and match highlights,
the "Extra" video stream featuring the tactical view, live match and moderated
SMS / Email contributions which are pre-composited into the video stream.
The only difference with the Sky service is the lack of dynamic statistics in-vision on
the Telewest version. This is apparently due to some technical challenges that according
to the BBC should be solved by the time the BBC launches its 2002 Wimbledon coverage at
the end of July. This will also be carried by Telewest.
According to Telewest some 50% of their digital cable viewers chose to use the interactive world cup services.
Regrettably the interactive service is not carried by the other major UK cable network, NTL, who have yet to upgrade to the 1.2 version of Liberate which facilitates enhanced TV services.
A clear lesson to learn from this BBC service is that a lot of value can be created in an interactive service by thoughtful use of video.
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France
Eurosport Interactive on CanalSatellite (Mediahighway) (8 Mb)
I genuinely think the design of this new Eurosport service is much better
than the previous interactive service on CanalSatellite (see below) and the
semi-transparent blue is quite pleasing to the eye and in-keeping with Europsport's on-air
look and feel.
The application has been launched with very short notice (less than 10 working days) and therefore there have been some teething troubles, particularly around a trigger based mechanism which prevents the application from appearing during World Cup matches.
The magazine part of the application is authored using NPTV's iTV Factory tool by Eurosport themselves, giving them the flexibility to add more services and features as they go forward.
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China
CCTV World Cup (OpenTV) (3.3 Mb)
OpenTV has
worked with CCTV, China’s national broadcaster, to create an interactive World Cup
application, offering enhanced programming features nationwide – across 19 different
provinces.
Featuring multiple games within one screen, viewers have been able to watch as many as
four different matches simultaneously. This is one of the first large-scale,
multi-provincial, nationwide deployments of interactive TV technology that is fully
supported by the Chinese government.
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Latin America
DirecTV Latin America World Cup (OpenTV) (4.9 Mb)
DIRECTV Latin America subscribers are able to enhance their World
Cup experience. The satellite operator is offering six exclusive video channels and
three different audio options. (Viewers are able to choose the game narration with
commentators from Argentina, Mexico and an international , non-partisan Spanish language
feed!)
The different features of the service are:
Mosaic – A screen divided into four sections, each one highlighting
a different view of the action taking place in the field, along with a stats screen.
Main – A full screen coverage of the game with the international
feed broadcast worldwide.
Team – A perspective into the action taking place onin the
sidelines, and among the coaches and additional players of both teams. Images and audio
available for both teams.
Field – A unique perspective of the action taking place onin the
field, with strategically placed cameras over the stadium that will give the viewer a wide
and global view of the game.
Highlights – A channel dedicated exclusively to the compilation of
instant replays of the best action of the game.
DIRECTV also offers an interactive statistics application (in the countries where this
application is available) that provides a real-time look at statistics and scores of the
players and the teams, with information that will be updated as the game is broadcast.
As part of DIRECTV’s innovative interactive applications, throughout the series
viewers will be able to vote and answer questions related to the sport and the results
will be revealed at the end of the game.
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Italy
FantaCalcio on Stream (OpenTV) (1.94 Mb)
This is the iTV version of the widely
played italian strategic game called "Fantacalcio Grand Prix".
It follows the "Independent Team" regulations and is played using an Internet
connection for exchanging data with a central server.
Starting with an initial budget of 200 "FantaBillions", each player can create
and manage at least two "FantaTeams" by buying or selling football players on a
virtual football market, with respect of the budget available.
Each FantaTeam has a "FantaCoach" and is composed by 18 elements (2
goalkeepers, 6 defenders, 6 centerfields, 4 attackers); its position in the placings
depends on the sum of scores obtained by each element of the team represented in the real
championship.
The goal of this game is to achieve the best score among all players and win one of
the fantastic rewards offered by Stream. An extended version of the game is also available
for public activities; it allows managing up to 20 FantaTeams.
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Turkey
Digiturk World Cup Service (OpenTV) (9Mb)
This
enhanced TV service exists across a number of Digiturk's channels including ShowTV,
Fox Sports, NBA channel and Supersport. (Shown Here). The service is accessed by pressing
a small grey "OK" icon which appears in the bottom right hand side of the
screen.
The service also features dynamic news content provided by Reuters (Haberler) , Information on Turkey's World Cup performance (Türkiye), Match Schedules (Maç Prog) plus World Cup information (Kupa Bilgisi) which includes a detailed history of the World Cup and information on the various match venues including small images of each of the Korean and Japanese stadiums .The Results section (Puanlar) allows you to track the scores of each team in each group.
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Scandinavia
Canal Digital / Zonavi World Cup (Mediahighway) (5 Mb)
Canal Digital have pushed the limits of their
Mediahighway STB's with this application for the 2002 World Cup. Most interestingly in
this case special code has been developed by the operator to enable their set-top-boxes to
seamlessly switch between video streams. Something that previously wasn't possible.
The different World Cup iTV services are selectable from an overlaid menu box and also from an interactive multiscreen "MULTIKAMERA" The makeup of which can be clearly seen as it loads in this video. 3 Different versions of the application are provided for the different language areas in Scandinavia.
Zonavi were responsible for all the design work - both interaction and graphics whilst the coding/testing was done by the operator through Canal Digital's Multimedialab group.
The multiscreen option allows viewers to simply choose between a variety of video feeds including the main match, match highlights, a tactical view of the game plus feeds of the managers of each team - (Team A, Team B). - in this case South Africa and Paraguay. The overlay app also has a full set of match and group stats and team/player profiles which are continually updated. The dynamic data feed is provided by Infostrada.
Zonavi World Cup Magazine (Mediahighway) (5 Mb)
Other services accessible from the menu include this World Cup magazine created by Zonavi using RegieLine. The magazine is full screen because Canal Digital's set-top-boxes can't do any video scaling. The magazine has 3 different news providers and a Quiz with revenues coming not from the STB dialing up, but via premium rate SMS. This circumvents the need to ensure that all set-top-boxes are connected to the telephone line - an issue than many digital TV operators face.
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UK
BBCi 2002 World Cup (OpenTV) (4 Mb)
During July 2002, 3.8
million individual World Cup viewers 'pressed red' on their Digital
Satellite remotes to access additional live services including alternative
commentary and highlights, as well as the out-of-hours service offering repeats of every
match.
The World Cup application offered viewers a simple and familiar colour coded navigation
bar to access their interactive features. These include the ability to change their audio
track from regular TV commentary to no commentary and also to the BBC's Radio 5 Live
service which has a unique and popular style of commentary. Other features include the
ability to have a mix of Highlights and Main Video simultaneously on the same screen -
with the ability to switch the focus between each option using the SELECT button.
Effectively the BBC are just transmitting 2 pre-composited discreet video channels.
The Extra option (ANALYSIS) is yet another pre-composited video screen made up of
the Live Match feed and the Tactical View feed - but with an invitation for viewers to
email or SMS their comments to the BBC - the results then being broadcast in
"Ticker" format. The STATS function is kept in-vision and is simply browsed by
the left and right keys.
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Middle East
Arab Radio & Television World Cup Demo (OpenTV) (3.1 Mb)
Visionik have kindly provided
BroadbandBananas with pre-launch video of their World Cup interactive TV service which
will shortly launch to ART ' s digital satellite homes in the Middle East.
This solution includes a multi-screen video mosaic featuring highlights etc. The
rest of the application provides detailed statistics on the players and the match - with
reguarly updated news and information being supplied by Reuters.
UK
F1 Digital+ on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (5.2 Mb)
Formula 1 has been providing multiple camera
angles (ON BOARD, PIT LANE etc) in continental Europe for a number of years over digital
platforms such as Canal Satellite and Premiere, however these platforms have not had the
flexibility or technology to offer an interactive experience as user friendly as the one
Sky has recently launched. Also Sky has added a nicely packaged HIGHLIGHTS window -
similar to those offered in Sky's interactive football (Soccer) service.
Sky have used the same multiscreen navigation principles as their Sky News Active and Interactive Customer Information channels to offer easy access to a choice of 8 full screen video feeds, plus these feeds are accompanied by a stand alone STATS application which offers driver profiles, circuit info and other information whilst still offering a small video window of 1/8 normal size which allows the viewer to stay in touch with the live action.
The DATA window in the bottom left of the screen is a simple video
feed delivered live from the track which scrolls through various statistics on a
pre-determined cycle. It is NOT an interactive application! Unfortunately these statistics
are not yet available as a true interactive service - although it would certainly be
possible to deliver such information in an OpenTV application in real time.
By contrast the STATS service, selectable by
pressing RED isn't actually live statistics but pre-loaded or near-real-time news and
information on the teams, drivers and circuits. Its design is extremely clean, the fonts
are clear and bold and its fast to navigate through.
Also throughout the service, there are clear navigation options and guides to help the viewer find their way around or back to the main video - this service has been carefully though through.
Sky are particularly fortunate to have the capability to be able to resize video across all their STB's in the marketplace - by contrast most OpenTV operators around the world today, and particularly those using OpenTV 1.1 don't. There are ways around this limitation, but it can be costly on bandwidth.
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UK
BBCi Six Nations Rugby 2002 on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (4.1 Mb)
The BBCi Six Nations championship service
allows viewers to explore a dedicated interactive service.
Pressing Red calls up the interactive menu and all the options are selected using the Sky remote's four colour keys.
By pressing the green button, viewers can switch between quasi full screen video of
the live game or of the game's highlights. 
(This is effectively
using 2 seperate video channels - each pre-composed before broadcast with a primary and
secondary window.).
Viewers are also able to pull up game statistics in-vision and toggle audio between regular commentary, no commentary and the ref's comments.
You can also see the BBC's on-air promo for this service in our iTV Marketing section.
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Italy
Speciale Tennis on Tele+ (MediaHighway) (1Mb)
The Speciale Tennis magazine ran on the Italian Telepiu platform
during January 2002 for the Australia Open. Sadly, like many of Telepiu's interactive
services, this magazine is hidden in very high channel numbers - 450, 451 etc. - meaning
it is highly unlikely that the viewer could stumble across them. Most of the core Telepiu
channels are on channels 1-100.
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UK
BBCi Winter Olympics on Sky Digital (OpenTV) (3.3Mb)
The BBC's interactive
Winter Olympics service has a lot in common with the Wimbledon application - using much
the same structure. The service is accessible via the RED button during Olypics
programming on BBC 1 and BBC 2 and also via the TEXT button (standard on all Sky remotes)
when no Olympics programming is showing live. Once in the service you have access
to 3 seperate video streams plus news and results direct from Salt Lake City.
See the on air promo in our Marketing & Promo section
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France
Canal Plus France Interactive Rugby (Mediahighway) (2.7Mb)
Unlike Sky, Canal Satelltie doesn't have
STB's in the home that allow the resizing of video or the dynamic switching of video feeds
- however that aside - this simple application provides team info, scores and statisitcs
overlaid on the main video.
However the service is simple to use and relatively fast to load.
A similar application structure is also used for football matches carried on Canal Plus France.
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UK
Sky Sports Active (OpenTV) (3.4Mb)
Sky Sports Active has been redesigned for
the new football season with less intrusive overlays and a look and feel that is far more
inkeeping with the video programming. As previously the viewer can select from a number of
CAMERA ANGLES using the remote control's colour keys, catch up with match action such as
missed goals in the HIGHLIGHTS section, listen to real fan's commentary and read fan
comments with the onscreen ticker in the FANZONE and read the latest statistics and trivia
in the STATS area.
Its a great enhancement to Sky's Sports programming and much talked about by viewers across the UK - but still requires nearly a whole satellite transponder to operate - equivalent to 5 or 6 conventional TV channels.
A few interesting stats on Sky
Sports Active.
(Courtesy of NDS and B-Sky-B.)
- 50% of viewers of football coverage choose Interactive
- 86% of Sky Sports Subscribers have used the Sky Sports
Active service
- Interactive football is the second most used interactive TV
service in the UK (Continental Research, July 2001)
- Sky Sports Active is the third most popular reason for people to sign up to BSkyB (Sunday Business, 13 May 2001)
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Scandinavia
SVT's Sydney 2000 Olympics
on Boxer DTT (OpenTV) (2.8 Mb)
During the 2000
Sydney Olympics, Boxer aired 6 live simultaneous channels. A number of interactive
applications were developed to enhance the TV viewing experience. Digiscope was
responsible for the sports information application that presented facts, history and
Swedish contestants for all the Olympic sports.
The service ran 24/24 during the Sydney Olympic games on SVT "OS 1-6" (temporary channels during the Olympics)
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Scandinavia
TV4's Euro2000 on Boxer DTT
with Svenska Spel (OpenTV) (1.5Mb)
During
Euro2000 DTT viewers were given the opportunity to participate in a quiz and to get the
latest odds from Svenska Spel for the game. The odds were set five minutes before
kick-off. The demands for efficient, secure and fast information handling were therefore
very high. Svenska Spel provided the odds data in real time with the help from tailor-made
editorial software also developed by Digiscope. The quiz was based on multiple-choice
answers and the users could both participate in current game competition and in an overall
competition during the whole Euro2000. The second competition was formed in order to
reward high frequency users.
The service had a very high response rate compared to other media (DM: 2-3%). Over 14% of
the viewers responded the first match. The average response rate was 8%.
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UK
Wimbledon 2001 (OpenTV) (3.9M)
(Offline - available on request)
Running on Sky Digital, the BBC's Interactive service allows viewers to
follow up to 5 matches simultaneously with small video windows of each.
Using the up and down keys viewers can highlight a particular match, switching to the appropriate audio and then enlarge to a full screen, full bandwidth video service by pressing the RED key.
Additional services include match scores and results in a very easy to navigate menu.
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High-Resolution DVD of this and other interactive TV applications.
UK
BBC's Interactive Golf (OpenTV) (2.3M)
Using
a similar navigation to the interactive Wimbledon, this service provides scores and
multiple camera angles/video streams.
Interestingly note how the UNISYS logo only appears for 5 seconds before disappearing!
After all the BBC isn't a commercial network!
Read Paul Fox's Commentary on
the BBC's Interactive Golf
Taken from UK Telegraph on 20th July
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Spain
Sportmania on CSD Spain (Mediahighway) (3.47 Mb)
This simple application provides the latest
soccer results for the Spanish football and Basketball leagues to subscribers to Canal
Satelite Digital in Spain.
The service is accessible from the OK Plus interactive
portal. (see EPG's & Navigation Section)
For more info on CSD and their services, contact: scortes@sogecable.com
More Stills
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France
Eurosport France (Mediahighway) (5.6M)
This application has provided partial screen supplementary information to
the French version of Eurosport for approximately 2 years.
Navigation is simple left/right to choose option and then OK to select. Pages can then be scrolled with up/down keys.
The application often features background information such as scores or player profiles during key events and additionally provides sports results and selected programme/schedule highlights.
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UK
UEFA Champions League Football (MHEG5)
(Offline - available on request)
This enhanced soccer service includes statistics, match scores, team
profiles, tables a football quiz, spot the ball and a simple "Penalty Shoot Out"
game. Also not one but four sponsors are featured in the service!
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UK
Sky
Sports Active (Cricket Version) (OpenTV)
(Offline - available on request)
Whilst users are able to jump from camera shots fairly seamlessly in this
application, (including a micro camera in the stumps!) the generation of statistics isn't
making significant use of OpenTV with the "Scorecard" and "Stats" data
coming primarly from pre-composed stills.
It remains, however, a valuable extension of the Sports Active brand.
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