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Australia Austar - ABC's Long Way to the Top |
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 Recently honoured at the AIMIA awards (http://www.aimia.com.au), 'Long Way to the Top' is Australia's first interactive television documentary.
This special programme was broadcast via ABC's digital satellite feed on Austar in December 2002 and in a similar format to some of the BBC's recent enhanced documentaries featured mutiple video feeds which provided alternative content relevant to the programme. These were accessible by pressing 'OK' on the remote and selecting the relevant colour keys.
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The multiple feed format provided an enhanced experience to Austar's subscribers. In addition to the main concert feed, viewers could access the "green" channel which offered a Woodstock style 'Split Screen' which allowed viewers to follow the main view of the concert in the upper left quadrant of the screen, with footage from up to 14 cameras on view in the other three quadrants.
Pressing the yellow button took viewers to 'The Vault', where alongside the artist's performance they could check out archival concert and interview material from the performer's heyday. Classic footage was unearthed from the ABC's archives and further afield.
By pressing the blue button, viewers could access interview footage from backstage wheere all the performers were interviewed by either one of the promoters (Michael Chugg and Amanda Pelman) or John Paul Young. Disarmed by the circumstances, many of the artists gave historic interviews. So viewers could experience all the streams, the two-hour program was transmitted continuously for 24 hours.
This was the second time that Austar has collaborated with the ABC in presenting interactive television. In July and August 2002, the ABC broadcast the BBC's Walking With Beasts documentary series. |
Enhanced TV 
