- From: Craig A. Finseth <fin@finseth.com>
- Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 11:08:46 -0600 (CST)
- To: rob@mtvmail.com
- Cc: Ted.Wugofski@otmp.com, gadams@spyglass.com, tenkate@natlab.research.philips.com, www-tv@w3.org, e-e@toocan.philabs.research.philips.com
Of course, the EPG doesn't tell you the one thing everyone will need to know, which is "When is the commercial break?" The reality of the TV business world is that some resources we send during content may not be appropriate for use during commercials, and some commercials may require their own resources. Therefore, whatever system we use for resource ID must also consider the commercials as "segments." But, of course, they can't be identified as such (directly or indirectly) or we've just created a "commercial killer." Not good (for some people). What is comes down to is that all broadcasters need a direct an accurate connection between on-air and the resources being sent. Right now that data exists at the head-end in real time. If we really want to solve the problem, we would develop a system that puts a continuous trigger signal in the video feed so that we can ID at any time exactly what is on, where we are in it, and so forth. In my opinion, this is going the wrong way. As more people have access to more channels, it becomes harder to locate desirable content. The only resource available is the EPG (printed guides can't be updated). I expect viewers to rely more on this source and increase their expectations for its accuracy. After all, if you're going to shuffle your schedule and not tell anyone, you can't expect people to find your programming, can you? Without that, the LMS is as good as it gets. And why can't this be fed into the EPG? Craig
Received on Tuesday, 17 November 1998 12:08:52 UTC