VisualEPG: Informing the TV Experience with Web Metadata

Video can increasingly be watched from Internet streamed, downloaded and recorded sources in addition to live broadcast television. The quantity and heterogeneity of these often long-tail video sources are likely to spur the creation of new methods to browse and consume video. In addition, as television advertising moves closer to the Web model of targeted advertising, an interactive television experience that integrates both kinds of content in an open way is required. In particular, users can now move between watching video and browsing the Web. These two media experiences can be made synergistic if we think of Web content as informing the video experience and vice versa. We illustrate this idea with a system for browsing live HDTV based on Web metadata and suggest it as a basis for a combined system for viewing both diverse video sources and related Web content.