I've now spent two days in Berlin at Fraunhofer FOKUS for the second W3C Web+TV workshop. For me, this is an eye-opener. Bringing the Web and TV world together is not without struggle, although at a distance it looks so easy.
Web technologies in your TV has been around for some 10 years, mostly unnoticed by the end-user. There are some real attempts at bridging this from most of the major manufacturers and obviously the GoogleTV platform that is first being delivered by Sony.
The workshop addressed many different areas from basic use cases, adaptive streaming, content protection to accessibility discussions.
There was much discussion about the "second screen" or actually any other screen but the TV set itself. Most of these presentations revolved around how these other screens could be synced with the content being displayed on the main TV set. In practice, letting the broadcaster ensure that you get an inclusive experience related to the programming you are watching at the moment.
The second screen is also being viewed as the remote control going forwards. What I liked very much was the open discussion about API:s, allowing web (or other) applications to start controlling your TV experience. When put into practice it would potentially enable web services like tv.nu to change the channel on your set.
Given the number of business models and the way the TV manufacturers are developing their products, I am starting to believe that the TV industry, as a whole, will very quickly adopt HTML5 as their platform of choice. Many already has. In doing so being a quick driver of the adoption of web widgets, device API:s, web notifications and so on.
The problem at hand here is that the TV industry likes very stable specs since a TV set will not get more than a few software updates and that is only to fix critical bugs.
Once there, the web as a platform for your TV is a very promising one where the services and applications for your TV will be in a position to evolve as quickly as the developer wants them to. Adhering to a web platform also, somewhat at least, removes fragmentation issues as everyone is set on one platform.
A lot of suggestions for new features and API:s that look encouraging; multi-track support, trick-modes, recording, downloading, home networking (device and service discovery), real-time communications.
A fundamental question is how the user will react to having the web and TV merged. The TV audience is used to a TV that always works, is stable and does not prod you with strange messages. I am wondering if the tolerance for configuring things (such as privacy, security questions) when presented to the user through the TV will change as we move towards smarter TV:s.
All in all, it looks like we have a very interesting future ahead, coming soon to a TV near you. If you are interested I urge you to join the W3C Web and TV Interest Group.
