Interactive TV Services on Mobile Devices

The recent digitalization of television creates new opportunities for enhancing the viewer´s experience with interactivity. Interactive TV (iTV) is often solely understood as the ability to change a program´s storyline. Besides this interpretation, iTV in general means providing some kind of interactive add-ons or TV-related content and services. For example, the viewer might participate in a game show, gather additional information on news topics, or buy a product presented in a commercial. The combination of digital TV and modern set-top boxes facilitates the deployment of such innovative services. In this context, we developed a prototype platform that uses mobile devices to support multiuser and personalized access for iTV services. The mobile devices connect to the set-top box with ad hoc mechanisms over an existing home network, enabling inexperienced users to access and use the services without having to worry about configuration.