‘Adjustables’ are an online TV ad format technology which enables ads to float inside an online video. In most cases advertisers insert a brand logo into the video playback. The logo can be clicked on and links through to an external advertiser site.

The advantage for an advertiser is self evident: the ad floats inside a video, right where the viewer is focused. This has reportedly proven to be highly effective delivering click through rates (CTR) of up to 20% (InVideo, 2009). According to research carried out by Thinkbox, ‘adjustables’ delivered higher recall than other forms of online advertising because of their ability to standout from the video content, while taking advantage of the viewer’s active mindset.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line – Is the technology that enables broadband Internet content to be delivered over existing copper telephone lines.

A form of broadband technology known as DSL (digital subscriber line), ADSL refers to an internet connection where the flow of data being downloaded is disproportionate to the amount of data being uploaded. ADSL enables greater download speeds for the end user, meaning that video services run much more reliably, and is a more efficient use of broadband infrastructure for the internet service provider (ISP). Most of use currently get our broadband via ADSL, which means it is the technology which also enables us to get lots of lovely Web TV.

'As live' advertising whereby graphic overlay technology is used to update a commercial message throughout a programme or a series of live interactive promotions are run where viewers can participate

Anaglyph 3D describes a primitive method of producing images with depth that has been used in print, cinema and TV for over 50 years. It involves wearing glasses that have lenses tinted with colours from opposite ends of the spectrum, often red and cyan. Images are made up of two colour layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect. The glasses then filter out only one image to each eye.

It is based on the same principles as other 3DTV technologies (see Active and Passive 3D TV Technology entries) which are concerned with providing the brain with an image taken from two perspectives. This image is constructed in the brain to give the illusion of depth being present in the image.

Whilst being the forerunners of 3D technology in cinema and TV, anaglyph glasses have severe limitations most noticeably that the images have to be fairly heavily tinted with two opposite colours, this severely diminishes the quality of the image. Due to the poor quality of images and the falling costs of other 3D technology, anaglyph is now rarely used.

Channel 4 produced a featured week of 3D in November 2009 which employed anaglyph images to produce 3D. Content from Miley Cyrus, JLS and Derren Brown was shown over the week and glasses were available free of charge in Sainsbury supermarkets in the lead up to the event

The term analogue broadcast refers to the traditional method of broadcasting TV and radio signals over the air or via cable. Information in the form of channels is transmitted in the form of radio waves with variable wavelengths.

As part of the UK's Digital Switchover programme, all analogue signals will be switched off by the end of 2012, and UK households will need a digital service (digital terrestrial, cable or satellite) in order to keep receiving a TV service.

Sky Anytime is a service that comes with Sky+ boxes. It offers a selection of the top programmes from a number of premium Sky channels that can be watched ‘anytime’. This is a ‘push’ on demand service provided by Sky at no extra charge to Sky+ and Sky+ HD subscribers. The volume of content is limited to about 30-50 hours of shows at any one time. Consumer perception of Anytime is that it is an editor’s choice of some of the best content broadcast on Sky. Anytime mainly focuses on providing content from premium Sky channels such as Sky 1, Sky Sports and Sky Movies, as well as their HD counterparts. Users can’t influence the shows ‘pushed’ onto their box and their viewing behaviour has no bearing on the content available. There are simply 2 types of Anytime packages – SD and HD. HD subscribers will essentially get more HD content. Amongst its customers Sky reports that Anytime is the 6th most popular commercial channel on the Sky platform

Because a ‘push’ VOD service stores shows on the Sky+/Sky+HD  box and the volume of content is limited to the amount of space on the Sky+ hard drive. Typically Sky Anytime offers 30-50 hours of shows from various providers. Most shows are typically available for 7 days before being replaced. It’s termed ‘push’ because content is literally pushed onto the box by Sky. This works in the same way as a user selecting a programme to record onto their PVR, but in this case Sky selects the show to be recorded. This show will be broadcast on a hidden channel where the Sky+ box will record it from. The consumer outcome is then a selection of extra content from their premium subscription that can be watched ‘anytime’. This differs to a pull VOD service like Virgin or BT Vision, or indeed Sky's new Anytime+ service, where content is stored on servers in another location. When the users selects the show to watch the content is then ‘pulled’ over the cable/ADSL network to play out on screen.

Anytime is closely integrated with the main Sky EPG (see screengrab). When a users selects a programme to view from Anytime the cease to watch broadcast TV and start to watch a recorded file that is sitting on the STB. Anytime content is accessed from the main EPG on a Sky box by pressing the red button. Here they will find content listed by genre (movies, entertainment, kids etc) as well as A-Z (all).

Unlike other TV VOD services, Sky sells ads around all content available. These take the form of pre rolls and end rolls. Post roll ads often consist of long-form advertiser funded programming. See also http://www.skymedia.co.uk/

iAd is a mobile advertising platform developed by Apple for its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad line of mobile devices which allows third-party developers to directly embed advertisements into their applications. Hosted and sold by Apple, the iAd platform is expected to compete with Google's AdMob mobile advertising service.

Similar to AdMob, iAd will integrate advertisements into applications sold on the iOS App Store. If the user taps on an iAd banner, a full-screen advertisement will appear within the application, unlike other ads that send the user into the Safari web browser. Ads are promised to be more interactive than on other advertising services, and users will able to close them at any time, returning to where they left their app. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has indicated that Apple will retain 40% of the ad revenue, in line with what he called "industry standard", with the other 60% going to the developers.

The ad appears as a small banner in compatible applications and carries a distinctive "iAd" mark in the lower right corner for identification purposes. Tapping the ad launches a full-screen interactive experience, and users may exit the ad at any time and return to their application by clicking the "X" button at the top left of the iAd.

For a demonstration of how Apple iAds are being employed and combined with the features of their host device see:

Apple TV is a digital media receiver manufactured and sold by US firm Apple Inc. It is a small form factor network device designed to play IPTV digital content on a television screen. Think of it as a box which connects to Apple’s iTunes software and becomes an iPod for your TV.  It streams content over a home's broadband network from a designated computer to the Apple TV box and connected display. It accesses pay-content primarily from the iTunes Store but also from Netflix (currently US only), YouTube, Flickr, MobileMe or any Mac OS X or Windows computer running iTunes, Apple TV displays content to any HDMI display. Apple TV is currently available in the UK for £101. By January 2011 over a million of the devices had been sold worldwide.

Before the January 2010 refresh of Apple TV, the device included a hard disk drive which could store any content in addition to the streaming service described above. However, Head of Apple Steve Jobs announced that it would now be solely a streaming device which had the additional advantage of allowing Apple to significantly shrink the size and price of the product.

An increasing number of TV channels and studios are distributing their content through iTunes. Because Apple TV is essentially a ‘big screen’ version of iTunes all of this content is available through Apple. Currently the BBC (Worldwide), Channel 4, Sky 1, ABC, Disney and Discovery, to name but a few, all offer pay content through Apple TV. Free content on Apple TV is limited to YouTube and a selection of podcasts.  Despite its connection to the internet, Apple TV is a ‘walled garden’ device, which means you can’t access any content from the internet other than that stipulated by the Apple. Apple limits the Apple TV to iTunes, YouTube and Flickr. It’s not possible to connect to the BBC iPlayer, 4OD or similar web TV sites. YouTube and Flickr are available as pre-downloaded applications. There is currently no app store on Apple TV allowing users to access additional serivces, media or games.

Due to the first-generation Apple TV seemingly struggling to sell to the masses, many believed Apple would drop the product, especially when Jobs was quoted calling Apple TV a ‘‘hobby project’’. However, the launch of the second-generation product revealed Apple’s intent to re-position the device and continue its operation.

Apple has considered a subscription model for VOD content as opposed to the current PPV model, but the new lower price makes the device a graphic-rich affordable streaming device for consumer’s home cinema. Some commentators predict Apple will incorporate the product into its own-branded TV in the coming years, but this has not yet been confirmed by Apple.

To learn more about how Apple TV contributes to Apples bottom line click here

Apps, short for applications, are small software programmes designed to do a specific task such as play a game, communicate with friends, watch video etc. By introducing product images, tag-lines, slogans and wider marketing tie-ins both large and small brands have been able to access wide audiences, most notably through smartphones or tablets.

However, over a similar time TVs and their connected accessories have also becoming increasingly 'smart'. By plugging a broadband connection into the back of a TV set or Blu-ray disk player, manufacturers allow customers to access a wide variety of content such as BBC iPlayer, LoveFilm movie rentals or news services. Technically all these services are provided by an app (sometimes called a 'widget' on this platform) - a small piece of software on the TV set which facilitates the users journey to renting a film or watching the latest episode of Eastenders. These same apps could also be produced by brands, such as Guinness or Nike, to place some rich Media content directly on a users device - whether it be a TV set, Blu-ray player or games console. They act as a direct marketing medium and as a data collection device, as well as facilitating contact between communities that use the same websites.

The aspect-ratio of a TV describes the shape of the screen. Common aspects ratios are 16:9 and 4:3. These expressions denote that the aspect ratio of an image is its width divided by its height:

• 16:9 - used in HD (high definition) and European digital TV
• 4:3   - universal SD (standard definition format

Other aspect ratios include those used in cinemas (1.85:1 and 2.39:1) and those used in mobile phones. Since playback of video isn’t typically the primary function of a mobile phone they often use unusual aspect ratios. However as watching video content on mobile devices becomes increasing common, the aspect ratio of mobile phones will have to take into consideration the TV viewing experience. The iPhone, for example, uses a very unusual aspect ratio of 1.5:1. As a result users may see ‘letter boxing’ around video content not optimized for playback on the device. Yet this isn’t only a problem experienced by mobile devices. Different aspect ratios were a challenge to broadcasters, and that’s where anamorphic broadcast comes in.

In TV, anamorphic refers to the process of compressing widescreen images to fit into the standard 4:3 television broadcast signal.  As viewing takes place, the video is expanded into the original 16:9 format. Conversely, a non-anamorphic programme watched in widescreen is designed to be shown with the letterboxed; if the viewer changes the settings of the  TV this can result in a loss in resolution and cropping of the picture. As a result, an anamorphic picture, often referred to as being ‘enhanced for 16:9’, or ‘enhanced for wide-screen’ delivers 33% more resolution than and no loss of the overall picture. It can achieve this because anamorphic images are made up of pixels that are rectangular. On an analogue TV transmission the pixels which make up the image are square.

Europe’s major digital TV channels, including the UK’s five major terrestrial channels, broadcast standard definition in anamorphic widescreen. 4:3 is also typically broadcast on the same channel. A set-top-box can then inform the TV of what kind of programming is being received and the TV can change mode as necessary. This is a fundamental difference between digital TV and analogue. It gives you the option of watching TV in a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio without stretching or cropping the image. With analogue, regardless of the aspect ratio of your TV, you would have to watch your show in the format that the broadcaster had decided upon, regardless of whether you have a widescreen TV or not. By changing the TV’s settings, you could manipulate the image to make use of all the real-estate on screen, but this would produce a letterbox format, stretch the image or crop the image (see below).

The Broadcasters Audience Research Board - Provides TV audience measurement ratings for the broadcasting and advertising industries. It is the most robust in-home TV measurement system in the world.

It provides audience measurement data extrapolated from a representative panel of 5,100 households (around 11,500 viewers in total) from across the UK. Respondent’s homes are fitted with black boxes or 'People Meters' which measure and report on what they are watching and when. The peoplemeter provides an accurate minute-by-minute record of the channels viewed by all individuals in each panel household. Quite apart from the obvious advantages of monitoring the same families over long periods of time, the capital costs of recruitment and metering technology demand that a continuous panel is the cost-effective solution.

Audiences are reported minute by minute and data is available to subscribers the morning after transmission. BARB also includes guest viewing, time-shifted viewing (through both DTRs and VCRs) and viewing to both primary and secondary sets across the various different rooms of the house. The daily reporting samples are subject to post collection weighting in order that they represent the wider population rather than just the sample size. These weighting routines are highly sophisticated so that the figures remain accurate. BARB is currently developing a non-linear database will facilitate a structure for reporting of viewing that falls outside the core BARB service – potentially facilitating separate additional reporting to cover timeshift viewing of material broadcast more than 7 days previously, or viewing archive material that has been made available on-demand.

BARB data forms the basis of TV trading in the UK.  BARB is owned and operated by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Sky and the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising). See also <www.barb.co.uk>

A linear channel that prompts viewers to access on-demand menus directly using an interactive call to action (CTA). A barker channel is used almost entirely for promotion and advertising, usually marketing various features of the service carrying the channel.

Virgin Central was broadcast until March 2010 and provided users with a back to back reel of on-demand programme previews. By clicking the red button, the viewer could directly access the content held in the Virgin Central area of the EPG and in doing so, the viewer did not have to navigate through numerous on-demand screens to access the content. However, with the increased willingness to use menus to access video on demand, Virgin no longer needed the channel and users access content through the menus only. Barker channels are effective ways of aiding impulse on-demand viewing, giving the broadcaster greater editorial control and limiting the amount of time it takes for a viewer to choose a programme to watch.

The ‘iPlayer’ the BBC’s cross platform VOD brand. It is available across a number of platforms including Virgin TV, PC, Mac, Wii, Playstation 3 and on selected mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad and selected Nokia's. Formerly called the iMP (interactive media player), it was launched first on PC on the 25th Dec 2007. The PC version has been followed in 2008 and 2009 by separate iPlayer launches on the Virgin platform, Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and a selection of mobile devices, including the iPhone and Nokia N96. Most recently the BBC launched a new variant of the BBC iPlayer especially for young children. The CBeebies iPlayer is currently only available online and can be visited here

What can you watch on it?

As a minimum the iPlayer carries 7 day catch up for the BBC's TV programmes. On selected platforms the iPlayer also offers 'series stacking', HD streaming, HD and SD downloads as well as radio programming. Series stacking is where a selected number of programmes are available for duration a series is broadcast (up to a maximum of 13 weeks). In other words, as each new episode is broadcast it's 'stacked up' with the previously broadcast shows.

BBC iPlayer on TV

BBC iPlayer on PC

At the beginning of December 2010, the BBC announced an international or ‘Global’ iPlayer to bring the service to non-UK viewers. The service will use a single subscription pay model at launch and also be initially available only as an application on Apple’s tablet computer the iPad.

It will be free to download the app for iPlayer and some free content will be provided to user in order to showcase the service. Furthermore, advertisers will be given the change to partner on free sections of the site in much the same way as advertising appears on the international version of the main BBC (www.bbc.com) website.

Luke Bradley-Jones, current Managing Director of BBC.com outlined the service would be more than a catch-up service as it is in the UK and will include ‘best of’ and classic BBC programming content. Furthermore, he outlined that it would not remain exclusive to the iPad, but would eventually be a multi-platform service. 

Pricing and availability were announced in March 2011 and will begin as a subscription model costing $10 a month. The global iPlayer will be debuted in Western Europe in the late part of 2011. The BBC have outlined a plan to roll the service out across the Atlantic to the US, but no date has been announced. The have also outlined the potential for a non-subscription, ad funded version in the future - this would be sold by BBC Worldwide around their content. Interestingly, the $10 monthly price brings the yearly cost of the service well below the standard UK licence fee for UK residents.

The BBC News app for connected TVs is a service which allows user to access video news clips and text via the web to living-room TV screens. It can be thought of as a really rich, web-delivered red-button news service from the BBC.

It presents the existing video and text content from BBC News Online in a format designed to be displayed and operated on a big-screen TV. It is currently available only on Samsung's range of Smart TVs and Blu-ray Disk players. The BBC have outlined it is in talks with all the other major TV manufacturers, including Sony's Bravia Internet Video platform, which currently offers Sky News content.

The BBC have outlined it is designed to work alongside the BBC’s live 24-hour news channel and will offer a similar selection of stories curated in the app by BBC editors.

The News app is added to the BBC iPlayer app, which also features on Samsung’s Smart TVs, to form the current BBC presence on connected TVs. The app will also be available on YouView, the video-on-demand venture backed by the BBC, when the much-delayed set-top boxes launch next year.

The BBC News app is now available free of charge from the Samsung Apps Store. BBC Worldwide will also launch an international version of the product which will be advertising supported – video advertising will be shown between stories and it is likely banner advertising may appear around the menu and wider app interface.

Bebo Video is an area on the popular social networking site Bebo. It contains wide array of user generated content channels similar to those found on YouTube, alongside a number of channels created by high profile broadcasters such as the BBC and CBS.

Viewers of Bebo Video content are able to drop the content they see in to their own profiles as a means of letting their friends know what they're in to. In doing so, these channels can act as useful tools in supporting programme and channels brands through the facilitation of word of mouth recommendation. Bebo has also recently begun supporting new content formats, such as Kate Modern, a murder mystery series made specifically for playout online.

Best of Freeview' is a video-on demand service hinted at by Freeview. It is believed it could provide owners of Freeview+ boxes (Digital Television Recorders) with the ability to catch up on a selection of the most popular programmes that have aired each week. The service will see an as-yet-undetermined number of hours of Freeview programming pushed to personal video recorders whereby people can view a selection of content as and when they want to, without having to wait for it to download over a period of time. There have been no official announcements or developments relating to this service since it was first rumoured. See also <www.freeview.co.uk>

A third-party content aggregator, Blinkbox pulls together content for access to users through its website. Since its launch in April 2008, Blinkbox has amassed a catalogue of over 9,000 film and TV titles from top tier studios including BBC Worldwide, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, Sony Pictures Television International, Twentieth Century Fox and more than 15 leading independent producers such as FremantleMedia, All3Media, Revolver, Zig Zag and Aardman Animations.

blinkbox claims to have 1.2 million unique users and aims to combine premium programming with leading edge technology and an easy to use interface. The company offers a buy-to-own and a watch-for-free service in a single destination where consumers can buy or rent the latest releases or watch free TV catch-up content. Blinkbox offers its 9,000+ films and television shows available on devices including the PC, Macs, Sony’s PS3 console, tablets and internet-enabled TVs. Most recently the blinkbox app arrived on Samsung's SmartHub connected TV app suite.

This model draws on pay per view and rental models such as that on Apple TV and iTunes and LoveFilm but combines it with free catch-up TV programming from broadcasters such as Channel 4 and the BBC. In the case of Channel 4 content, Blinkbox in fact has a relationship directly with the content producers (e.g. Endemol, All3Media etc.) in order to include programming. Therefore, Channel 4 branding is entirely absent around programmes such as Shameless, Skins and Peep Show.

In April 2011, retail giant Tesco bought Blinkbox and therefore set up their proposition to enter the British video-on-demand market. After having a fairly successful physical DVD distribution arm, running Blinkbox creates a formidable competitor for existing digital distribution services such as Amazon's LoveFilm. Tesco have outlined there are no plans to re-brand Blinkbox and it will maintain its name and presentation.

Advertising features around all free commercial content. Programmes which would ordinary appear on Channel 4 broadcast, feature on Blinkbox and have advertising around them in the form of pre- and mid-rolls. However, unlike when they appear in either Channel 4 broadcast or on 4oD (web, iPad app or YouTube) advertising is sold by Blinkbox not Channel 4. For more info see < http://www.blinkbox.com/Info/Advertise> 

Blu Ray is the latest form of optical DVD storage disk that is able to hold 5 times as much data as old DVDs. It can also carry bulky high-definition video. A rival to HD-DVD, the format differs in 3 distinct ways: content, capacity and hardware support. Combined this means Blu-Ray can offer the consumer higher quality video, audio and the widest choice of films and hardware support. In 2008 the Blu-ray Disk Live service was added; an interactive system that brings functions like gaming, e-commerce and new content to a Blu-ray Disc players works through an Internet connection in the player.

The Blu-ray Disk Association calculate that 13m Blu-ray Disks were sold in the UK in 2010.

On launch, Blu-Ray was backed by 7 of the 8 major US studios: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Fox, Disney, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate. Whereas HD-DVD was backed by just Paramount and Universal. Of these studios, a number began backing both as the format war began to divide sales. In terms of capacity, Blu-Ray holds 25GB to HD-DVD's 15GB. Blu-Ray has the broadest support in the hardware community, with Sony, Panasonic, Apple, LG, Dell and HP, among others, supporting the format. At launch, only Toshiba supported the HD-DVD format. The Playstation 3 also comes bundled with Blu-Ray technology.

In January 2008, Blu-Ray was outselling HD-DVD in Europe at a ratio of 10 to 1. At the same time Warner Brothers, followed by a number of other major studios, announced they would no longer support both formats. With 70% of Hollywood output now backing Blu-Ray, the format war ended and started a chain reaction of desertion in the retail and movie industry. Blu-Ray has now effectively become the standard and successor to DVD with HD-DVD becoming redundant.

With 3D television sets being developed and released by many of the major TV manufactures in 2010, Blu ray Disks have emerged as the best way to deliver 3D video due to its high capacity disks and the ability to deliver high quality video. When the 3D standards were released some new Blu-ray players, such as those from Sony, could simply download firmware to allow 3D content to be viewed, other players did not have this ability so would have had to be replaced. The disks are branded as Blu-ray 3D.

Branded players, channels and pages are where an advertiser takes over all or part of a designated space on a third party site. This ranges from a branded video player to a ‘channel’ devoted entirely to the advertiser. YouTube have implemented this successfully by giving both Channel 4 and Five their own branded content areas.

Similarly, In Skin are a company who deliver interactive advertising which wraps around an online video player, remaining visible for the duration of the video. While in wrap-around state, the skin counts down pre-roll ads. When clicked on, the ad pauses the video and becomes an expanded interactive creative. Once the user has finished interacting, they can close the advertisement which returns to its original wrap-around state, and the video resumes play. The coding of InSkins means that it is possible to vary the ad served, by the viewer’s demographic, rather than having the ads hardwired into the site.

Broadband is short for broad bandwidth and is a term used to describe a form of high-speed Internet connection. Around 70% of UK households have broadband access and this represents the size of the addressable market for online video, since it’s necessary to have a broadband connection to be able to watch video online. The remainder of internet connections are ‘dial up’. The UK government hopes to introduce 'super-fast' broadband to two-thirds of the country by 2015. Jeremy Hunt, Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, outlined the governmen's detailed plans for the future of UK broadband in December 2010 in the National Broadband Strategy.

In the UK you can buy a broadband internet connection from a number of different providers, but essentially you are either buying a broadband connection that uses either Virgin’s cable network or BT’s ADSL infrastructure. Virgin doesn’t have to wholesale its cable network however BT must wholesale its ADSL infrastructure. Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone and others are all essentially resellers of BT Wholesale's broadband network. Even BT Retail, the broadband division of BT is a reseller of BT Wholesale’s broadband network. To learn about BT Wholesale click here.

Broadband speed differs depending on provider and differs depending on whether you’re using cable or ADSL. Typically, cable is much faster due to its higher levels of bandwidth. An Ofcom report in May 2011 found average actual broadband speeds in the UK were 6.8Mbit/s, a 0.6Mbit/s (10%) increase since November/December 2010. Cable and fibre services achive much higher averages: Virgin Media's 10Mbit/s cable service delivered average speeds of 9.5Mbit/ and their 20Mbit/s cable service averaged 18.2Mbit/s and it’s 'up to' 50Mbit/s service 48.4Mbit/s. Download speeds for BT's fibre 40Mbit/s Infinity service, currently available to around a fifth of UK homes, averaged 33.8Mbit/s.This meant that cable and fibre was more reliable for websites that delivered online video, however unless you’re watching HD on sites such as the BBC iPlayer, a 3.5Mbit/s connection is more than enough.

Increasingly, technology in the home is connecting to the internet via broadband connections. Not only does this allow access to extra video content and interact in more complicated ways, but additional applications can be added to TVs, Blu ray Disk players, games consoles and set top boxes. This is exemplified by the expansion of YouTube and BBC's iPlayer which have a presence or more and more connected devices. Furthermore, the connected nature of these devices makes broadband a conduit to help them integrate more effectively. For example, Apple TV can communicate to not only the iTunes store via broadband, but to other devices such as the home PC and Apple's mobile devices.

BT Vision is TV set top box (STB) from the division of BT that offers broadband and landline connections (BT Retail). BT Vision is essentially a Freeview box with a broadband connection in the back. By plugging the BT Vision box into a TV aerial it’s possible to watch all the linear channels from Freeview and by plugging an Ethernet cable into the box it’s possible to watch a selection of on demand content from BT Vision. For sports fans it’s possible to buy a viewing card for ESPN. There aren’t currently any linear channels delivered over ADSL, although offering more pay channels over ADSL has been muted. Talk Talk TV (formely Tiscali/Homechoice) offers pay channels such as Sky Movies and Sky Sports delivered over ADSL (broadband connection in the back of the box). The BT Vision STB is also a 2 tuner PVR and can record up to 80 hours of SD content (there is no HD content on Freeview). For more information on the BT Vision box click here.

BT Vision offers a selection of on demand content under the categories Replay (catch up), TV (archive), Film, Kids, Sport and Music. Each genre area can either be subscribed to or content can be watched on a PPV basis. For more information on subscription packages for BT Vision click here. BT Vision currently has nearly 0.5m customers and boasts the highest monthly number of VOD views per household, at 37 per month.  For more information on BT Vision subscriber numbers and on demand usage click here.

BT Vision’s major USP is its wide range of US studios offering on demand content (Warner, HBO, CBS, Sony) as well as offering archive seasons of 24, Lost and Prison Break. BT Vision has recently had to change their delivery of BBC catch-up TV to suit the BBC's new syndication policy. This means that instead of listing content out in BT menus, the BT Vision box now lets users access the Big Screen iPlayer form the World Wide Web. This significantly increases the amount of BBC content BT Vision users will be able to access and also makes radio catch-up available from the TV set top box.

Unlike other platforms in the UK, BT offer a degree of customisation in Vision which gives broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 the opportunity to bring some branding into their catch-up and on-demand areas. Channel 4 have been particularly creative in this instance and provide programme-based backgrounds to contextualise their areas of the BT Vision menu in addition to thumbnails of programmes which appear when a individual video asset is highlighted.. Whilst not advertising this increase in branding certainly enhances the presence of channel and broadcaster brands in the platform.

BT doesn’t currently sell ads around any of its on demand content. This is a fact that BT often cites when marketing its kid’s VOD content. However, recent reports in the trade press have suggested that BT is looking at rolling out an ad product on BT Vision, for at least 4OD catch up. For more information on BT Vision and the expected roll out of an ad product in its VOD service click here. For more information on BT Vision on demand usage and the challenges for IPTV platforms in the UK market click here.

Burnt-in advertisements are those which are inserted and coded into on-demand content by the broadcaster, before it is sent to the platform. This is an alternative method of  video-on-demand advertising to that provided by "served" advertising. There is less flexibility in using burnt-in ads due to the inability to change them once coded. However, not having to build the infrastructure and employ teams to insert ads, as with served advertising, means that cost and time is reduced when creating VOD content.

Currently, Channel 4 catch-up programming distributed via Virgin Media employs the use of burnt-in ads. For example, Hollyoaks programme sponsors Phones4U have their short pre-roll ad burnt into the programme so that regardless of how the user access the content through Virgin media they will see the same Phones4U clips.

Catch up TV, (or Replay TV) refers to the process by which a TV platform facilitates the on-demand delivery of a broadcaster’s content for a set period after the point of broadcast. The term catch-up TV usually refers to programming broadcast in the last 7 days though it is sometime available from longer periods (14-30 day content windows are not uncommon, partcularly in the BBC iPlayer).

In the UK, the following digital TV platforms offer catch up services:

Virgin Media – Catch Up TV On Demand: broadcasters include; BBC, ITV Channel4 (4oD), Five (Demand Five)
BT Vision – Replay TV: BBC, ITV, Channel4 (4oD), WarnerTV
TalkTalk TV – Replay: BBC, Channel4, ITV
Sky – Anytime+: Sky channels content e.g. Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, History, Sky Movies, Sky Sports,
Fetch TV – BBC iPlayer, Sky Player (Access to a selection of Sky channels catch-up e.g. Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Movies, Sky Living)
3View – BBC iPlayer
Freesat – BBC iPlayer, ITV Player (Beta Testing): Available on Humax FOXSAT-HDR only
Freeview – BBC iPlayer: Available on Humax HDR-FOX T2 only

Currently only Virgin Media and Sky are offering advertising opportunities around on-demand catch up services on the UK TV set. However, it is also possible to access on-demand catch up via a PC using broadcaster owned internet TV propositions such as ITV Player and 4oD, and these services are able to provide measurable pre-roll advertising options. Both the broadcasters and platforms are investigating the future of advertising both around programming and within catch-up menu systems and EPGs. See also <www.itvmedia.co.uk> and <www.channel4sales.com/home>

Choose Your Ad refers to a technique of presenting pre- and mid-roll advertisements with a choice between the two. The concept is simple with the user accepting that they must watch a pre-roll/mid roll for a given show but they are given the option of choosing the ad they see. The basic premise being that an ad selected by the user will have greater relevance to them and the viewer will therefore give it more attention. To see an example of this click here http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1095, where the viewer is invited to choose and ad on the ITV Player for Jaguar, Cadbury or L’Oreal. UK web-video aggregator SeeSaw were also trialling a Choose Your Ad system in early 2011, howver their closure and aquisition in May 2011 has put these trials on hold.

Trialled by YouTube in 2009, user were offered the choice between watched a long advertisement of their choice (one of two on offer) or they could start their video and have it interrupted by small mid-roll ads. American online TV aggregator Hulu also implemented the approach and reported that 88% of its users chose a two-minute pre-roll instead of 30-second ads interspersed throughout a half-hour (23 minute) program.

In 2009 YouTube trialled a “Choose Your Ad” where a “very small” number of “random videos” gave users a prompt at the start of a video to select one of two ads to watch, this then entered into pre-roll flowing into the video seamlessly. Users who didn’t want to choose an ad watched up to 4 short ad breaks through the full video.

Interestingly, although the advertiser that gets clicked on pays for the ad and not the other, both ads are highlighted for the user to choose between, which essentially is free branding for the 'loosing' ad, so make sure you have a good title, description and screen shot! Furthermore it is expected that users pick an ad which is of interest to them, thereby targeting the content to their taste. By taking out the work on behalf of the distributer, advertisers could hope to target viewers with less data input. In the UK, research from Thinkbox has shown that consumers value the greater level of control and think it’s an original means of advertising.

Xfinity is the name for the re-branded triple play services in US cable network Comcast's largest markets. This includes the company's digital cable, cable Internet access, and cable telephone services. Initially called On Demand Online, Comcast rebranded the service in December 2009.

The initiative was started as Comcast were experiencing an increasing level of customer churn, losing subscriptions to other services such as Netflix, Hulu and other cable providers. The Xfintiy brand seeks to add significant value to the subscription paid and offer customers a comprehensive solution to accessing their content at home and on the go.

According to Comcast, the name Xfinity stands for infinite content choices and cross-platform features
As of September, 2010, Comcast had a total of 22.9 million cable customers, 16.7 million high-speed Internet customers, and 8.4 million voice customers.

What Does It Do?

In addition to the standard Cable TV system which offers user’s access to over 275 broadcast channels including HD and 3D channels, Comcast customers can access the companies large library of on-demand content from a selection of broadcast partners.

The Xfintity brand seeks to better integrate the cable TV service with the mobile platforms which users can use to access Comcast content.

On Demand On-The-Go is Comcast’s online player which gives subscriber’s access to TV. Movie and sports content wherever they are. This content is a combination of archived on-demand programming and catch-up TV from the last weeks broadcast.

The Xfinity TV app allows subscribers to interact in new ways with their TV. They can watch On Demand shows and movies directly from an iPad, using a Wi-Fi connection. Also iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Android devices can be used as a remote control, to search On Demand and TV listings and perform remote record when not near the set-top-box.

Component video is a type of standard definition video connection which is offered on some audiovisual equipment. Its image quality supersedes composite video and S-Video by providing greater signal clarity than either, resulting in better picture quality. The component video interface consists of three RCA or coaxial jacks, one green, one red and one blue, requiring three cables. Component video carries visual data only. Audio cables are still required.

Like composite and S-Video, component video is an analogue, rather than digital, interface. However, unlike the other two, its three cables better preserve the various elements of the video source signal. These elements are the Y signal, which carries brightness or contrast values, and the C signal, which carries red and blue or colour data. Green values are parsed by a deductive process from reading all three streams. Therefore, component video is sometimes referred to as "RGB" for red, green, blue. The component video interface is marked either Y Pr Pb or Y Cr Cb. As component connections only cater for video, left and right audio cables are also needed – This results in a consumer plugging in 5 total connections (three for video, two for audio).

Composite Video is a type of standard definition video connection which is offered on most audiovisual equipment. It is the lowest quality transmission format for Standard Definition (SD) analogue video. It was originally designed to take advantage of the separation of video and audio on VHS videotapes, allowing the video to be transmitted separately. The alternative requires combining the video and audio together, resulting in interference between the two. It's transmitted either on a dedicated Composite Video cable (often yellow) or a SCART connector.

With the introduction of S-VHS, LaserDisc, and eventually DVD the Composite Video was replaced as a standard with the higher quality S-Video. Unlike Composite Video, S-Video transmits brightness and colour information separately, reducing interference, and therefore raising picture quality even further.

Connected televisions, sometimes known as Internet Enabled TVs, are those which include a connection to the internet either through an Ethernet cable or a Wi-Fi link. Developed in tandem with connected Blu-ray players, device manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung and LG are slowly increasingly the additional functionality of TVs to become more than just displays for other pieces of hardware or broadcast receivers.

A surge of industry interest in TV application (app) development, coming off the back of developer successes in the mobile market, has made many users more willing to hook their TV up to the net. Device manufactures are touting more than just the ability to bring more content to television sets through established services such as YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Netflix (currently only in the US) and LoveFilm (UK). The emergence of service apps not only allow users access to weather, stocks and news data overlaid on their screens, but can use Facebook and Twitter to manage their social connections.

Device manufacturers are increasingly including either wired of wireless connection across their entire ranges thus leading to mass market take-up over the forthcoming years. Forrester research expects that the number of web connected TV's in the US to go from about two million this year to 43 million by 2015. Decipher believe there are 2 million internet connectable sets in UK homes as of summer 2011. For more information see glossary entry for Internet-Connected TV.

Convergence refers to a trend in consumer electronics which has seen multiple products, devices and media types come together into a single device. In general terms this most commonly refers to mobile devices and the multitude of devices that have previously plugged into a TV. When we refer to convergence we are not generally referring to additional devices being incorporated into a TV set, rather it means numerous devices are consolidated within one peripheral that then attaches to the TV.

For example, in the living room this has led to converged devices such as the Playstation 3, which is a games console, Blu-Ray player, PVR and music player, with a VOD capability and DTT add on, called Play TV. Convergence properties can also be observed in set-top-boxes (STBs). Many STBs are now not only receivers, but also offer video storage, VOD capabilities and internet access.

While these boxes are incorporating certain technologies which may be referred to the trend of convergence, by and large converged devices not only offer these functionalities, but they also possess an element of value beyond the functionality they possess i.e. there is an element cutting edge chic which defines these converged devices as desirable consumer goods in themselves, as opposed to STBs which possess desirability in the content they provide access to. For example, the holy grail of convergence has been the integration of the mobile phone, email, video, music, sat-nav, camera and other multi-media types into a single mobile device.

With products like the iPhone this level of convergence is finally becoming a reality. Simply put, convergence refers to diverse systems, functions, software and file types working seamlessly within one device. This 'one' becomes a single proposition marketed to the consumer.