rtv and Fraunhofer FOKUS to cooperate in the Media Lab - Working together for personalized TV

One of the first-hour partners in Fraunhofer FOKUS’s newly founded Next Generation Media Lab, rtv is cooperating with Fraunhofer FOKUS on the development of personalized IP-based television. One of their first concerted efforts is to integrate the rtv Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and its information in the TV Recommender System developed by FOKUS. Live demonstrations of the integration of standardized EPG data for the production of a personalized TV program will be given at this year’s IFA. rtv is published by the Deutsche Supplement Verlag (DSV), a company affiliated to arvato AG, a full subsidiary of Bertelsmann.

“On the one hand with rtv we welcome a partner in the Next Generation Media Lab whose comprehensive database of up-to-date electronic information (EPG data) delivers the program info on more than 160 TV channels which our technical systems need to demonstrate their functionality,” says Dr. Stefan Arbanowski talking about the benefits of the new partnership. “On the other, with the DSV and its subsidiary TVI (TV Information Services), we have gained an innovative partner who has already done a great deal of the groundwork needed to prepare TV content and information as personalized content.”

In a first stage the Next Generation Media Lab shall integrate available information on TV content – what’s known as Electronic Program Guide data – in FOKUS’s own ‘NextGenMedia Client’. This ‘NextGenMedia Client’ is an (IMS-based) IPTV client for use with media PCs and set-top boxes that combines NGN, IPTV and multimedia services and acts as an IPTV terminal. Both broadcasting and telecommunications services can be deployed with this Client which means that users can enjoy interactive and personalized media products alongside traditional live TV.

“As content providers we find that the FOKUS Next Generation Media Lab offers an ideal environment in which to rapidly adapt our products to the highly individual requirements of viewers or users,” comments Jan Reichold, head of Development & Technology at TVI, outlining the new alliance. “Above all, the ‘Recommender System’ developed by the Lab, which factors in both knowledge of individual interests and knowledge of what shall be offered in terms of future content, opens up a whole new dimension of possibilities in personalized TV right through to the personalized electronic TV magazine.”

Unlike the EPG and IPTV solutions now on the market, all of which lack freely available interfaces, FOKUS bases its work on the international IPTV standards under current development by standardization bodies like the ETSI, DVB, and ITU-T. One focus of joint efforts will be the delivery of the Broadband Content Guide (BCG), an advanced standards-based development of the present EPG.

rtv/DSV/TVI

rtv is a leading German language TV magazine circulated as a supplement in over 200 daily papers. With more than 12 million readers and a weekly print-run of 7.8 million copies, rtv is German’s premier TV magazine in terms of outreach and circulation. rtv is published by the Deutsche Supplement Verlag (DSV), a subsidy of arvato, the international networking media and communications provider of the Bertelsmann Group. DSV also owns the TV Information Services GmbH (TVI). TVI core business is the generation of program overviews and editorial content for the TV and media pages for supplements and over 20 magazines and 70 daily papers in German-speaking countries. On top of this, TV1 also offers
telephonic value-added services for dialogue marketing activities together with the design and implementation of high availability Internet applications.

Press Contact

Dr. Gudrun Quandel
Tel +49 (0)30 3463 7212
Mobile +49 (0)171 1995334
gudrun.quandel@fokus.fraunhofer.de

Contact Next Generation Media Lab

Dr. Stefan Arbanowski
stefan.arbanowski@fokus.fraunhofer.de

Jan Reichold
jan.reichold@rtv.de

The FOKUS Next Generation Media Lab

With the Next Generation Media Lab Fraunhofer FOKUS showcases its solutions and strategies for the development of open standards and applications for the converging world of new media. The scientists at the Next Generation Media Lab work together with partners from industry and research on the integration of traditional broadcasting systems with Next Generation Networks, and their connectivity to service providers, holders of rights, free communities, Web 2.0 services and interactive content – including for mobile end devices. All work is built on the on-going standardization efforts of the ITU-T, 3GPP, DLNA, DVB and ETSI.

This release was published on openPR.