David Krall, president/CEO of Tewksbury, Mass.-based Avid Technology, addressed the national gathering of the Association of Independent Commercial Editors (AICE) earlier this month during the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas. He briefly mentioned Avids entry into an agreement with Intel Corp. and Microsoft to develop an authoring toolacode named AvidITVauthorafor creating interactive digital television content compliant with the Advanced Television Enhanced Forum (ATVEF) specification. Krall projected that the product might become readily available two years down the road.
From the AICE audience, editor Steve Armstrong, a founding partner of Santa Monica-based editorial/design shop ARTiFACT, asked about his company being a beta site for the technology, explaining that he is exploring interactivity nowaand is in no position to wait a couple of years. ARTiFACT has been integrally involved in creating and designing for interactive platforms. The company was a key contributor to the creation of prototype interactive and enhanced television spots, which were showcased at the Western Cable Show, held last December in Los Angeles. ARTiFACT collaborated on the enhanced ads with commercial production and new media firm Random/Order Information and Entertainment, Culver City, Calif. Random/Order later acquired a majority interest in ARTiFACT (SHOOT, 1/21, p. 1).
After the AICE meeting, Armstrong told SHOOT, Companies need to advance meaningfully into interactive now. Id like to see the Avid timetable [on Avid ITVauthor] pushed up. Were already involved in other enabling technologies. But it would be great to have the Avid modelawhich we work on alreadyabroaden into interactive.
Avid, which previewed an early version of Avid ITVauthor on the NAB exhibit floor, expects to ship a functional pre-release version to qualified customers in the fall. With the emergence of broadband networks, PCs and digital TVs, satellite and digital set-top box technology, and enabling industry standards, the building blocks required for the widespread rollout of enhanced, interactive broadcast television will soon be in place, related Krall in a released statement. However, one other key ingredient is requiredaa professional content production solution for broadcasters and postproduction companies. A We plan to extend our current product offering so that todays Avid-trained users will be able to leverage their current investments, processes and assets, and extend their skills to embrace the emerging field of interactive TV. Our AvidITVauthor project is the first step in helping our users address this new opportunity.
Avids goal is for the ITVauthor to allow video editors and Web content developers to use an integrated toolset to combine audio, video, HTML, and other content to produce comprehensive interactive programming. Enhanced content will be encoded into ATVEF format through a mechanism developed in conjunction with Intel, and distributed to network operator services targeting ATVEF-compliant devices such as the Microsoft TV platform or DTV-enabled PCs.
Currently, content developers must hand-link their HTML to pre-edited video sequences and manually program the triggers required to drive ATVEF devices. With AvidITVauthor, the intent is to accelerate that process by incorporating a point-and-click, what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface with the ability to preview the results on the developers PCaeliminating the need to use a separate set-top box to validate the output. The AvidITVauthor application will function as a final assembly and publishing station within a digital media production work group where professional Avid video editors, HTML editors and graphic artists will feed completed content components to the ITV editors to create the final multimedia, interactive experience.
Advertising agencies and clients have been experimenting in interactive television. One recent example is J. Walter Thompson, Detroit, which ran an enhanced Ford Focus spot in five markets during CBS February telecast of the Grammy Awards (SHOOT, 3/10, p. 1). In this case, J. Walter Thompson took an existing broadcast spotaParking Lot, directed by Scott Burns of bicoastal Tool of North Americaaand added to it an interactive layer. Consumers with the proper digital set-top box technology could access the interactive version of the commercial, and request further information on the Ford Focus.
Tim Myers, director of strategic marketing and business development for Avids office and consumer group, sees that kind of work continuing. But his hope is that the ITVauthor will play a prominent role in the simultaneous creation of spots and interactive elements, making for an even more relevant and compelling mesh.
Mixed Signals
Also generating traffic at NAB was Mixed Signals Technologies, a Culver City, Calif.-based company that has made direct inroads into interactive TV programsaand indirectly facilitated interactive commercialsawith its ITV DataFlo System, an integrated interactive television production suite package of hardware and ATVEF-compliant software. Headed by president/CEO Alex Thompson, the three-year-old Mixed Signals deploys its ITV DataFlo System to produce the interactive telecasts of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Additionally, Mixed Signals licenses its DataFlo System to networks such as The Discovery Channel, the Game Show Network and The Weather Channel, that produce their own interactive programming.
Mixed Signals has impacted the spotmaking industry through its program producer and network clients. For example, King Worldawhich distributes Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortuneasells ad time on the interactive versions of the two popular game shows, and in the process has been introducing advertisers and their agencies to the enhanced spot arena. Columbia Tristar, which sells ad time for the Game Show Network, has also been exposing agencies and their clients to the ITV spot medium.
Bicoastal/international commercial production/new media house Cylo (formerly Atherton) screened work at the Mixed Signals booth, including the noted Ford Goodbye/ Hello, directed by Edouard Nammour for J. Walter Thompson, Detroit. With the DataFlo system, Cylo placed an interactive layer on Goodbye/Hello for the purposes of the NAB demonstration.
This past NAB also marked a broadening of Mixed Signals sales push into the postproduction house arena. In February, the company hired Colin Ritchie as VP of sales and marketing. The former business development manager for Quantel, Newbury, U.K., Ritchie is well connected in the high-end post studio sector, which he believes is keeping a watchful eye on interactive television in order to serve the needs of its program and spot clientele. Ritchie says that Mixed Signals is in the process of developing compensation packages for its proprietary software, with the DataFlo System itself priced at less than $20,000.
But Mixed Signals overriding goal at NAB, said Thompson, was to educate the industry about the potential of interactive television, what it can do and how it can be done. If we can properly and successfully educate people who are in the business of television, then this [interactive television] market will mature, and business models will develop.i
