1.1.

3 The PDR and non-lineal consumption of TV Another one of the technological changes of the last decade that are having a significant impact in our television habits is the growing popularity of the DVR (Digital Video Recorder)or, using a more general term, the PDR (Personal Digital Recorder). After all, it is a modern version of the traditional video recorder, now equipped with a hard disc, in which the contents are stored after extracting the transport stream (or after their digitalization in case of receiving an analog signal). At first, this can seem as a simple technological evolution, resulting in quantitative improvements (more storage space, better quality and reliability on the recordings or easier access to contents). However, it implies a great qualitative improvement, more important than it may seem, mainly due to the great flexibility that digital technologies have to add descriptive data to audiovisual information, and for the further processing inside or outside the receptor, before, during or after the reproduction of the content itself. This flexibility results in important advantages on the field related to recording and enjoyment of audiovisual contents: More ease to plan recordings, based on EPGs that only require the pressing of a button and avoid us to indicate the complete period we want to record. Direct access to stored contents, indentified by a significant name, without searching and waiting times that discourage the punctual and spontaneous consumption. Ability to stop naturally live content and resume it afterwards (time-shifting). Ability to edit the recordings, and extract them from the PDR in several formats and mediums.

It also opens a world of new possibilities directly derived from the abilities of interaction with the environment, characteristic of digital devices, for example: The ability to exchange information with computers, not only to transfer to them our recordings, but also to import contents or to reproduce them remotely. The ability to reproduce all kinds of content of multimedia character, such as photos, music, radio The ability to access directly to contents given through internet services, some as known as Youtube or Picassa. The ability to take the iniciative in the name of the user in processes of selection or acquisition of contents.

It is, in essence, a whole set of new or improved abilities in comparison to the previous scene, result of the process of convergence between smart devices that favor digital technologies. If we concentrate on the different aspects related to out leisure habits, this convergence opens the door (although not necessarily directly) to an extension of the traditional way of consuming television, which is based on a lineal distribution and

visualization of the contents, in which these are sent to the mass users from a central point through a controlled agenda, leaving a small margin to the telespectator. On this new scenario, the non-lineal consumption of television gains importance, in which the consumer uses these new devices to access contents different from the planned programs, extracted from multiple sources, possibly some of the on the devices initiative. Moreover, it sets the basis to overcome the traditional isolation that is characteristic of entertainment platforms, unifying the consumption of audiovisual contents by diffusion (television and radio) with the consumption of live contents under demand through streaming services, including internet access and gaming platforms, centralizing everything, following the style of smart phones and multimedia tablets. Examples of these kind of devices have been entering the audiovisual market, as is the case of TiVO, ReplayTV or Windows Media Center, which are a unified point of access not only to different diffusion webs (TDT, cable or satellite), but also to content available through streaming directly from the internet (Youtube) or through the services of Video On Demand of the operators or third parts (Netflix). This is true especially in the USA, where the latest surveys reveal that a 40% of northamericans own a device of these characteristics, and that they record contents of an average of 24 hours each month. However, its acceptance in the rest of the markets has been limited, and it has not achieved its objective of entering significantly in the habits of consumption of the average population. They are, in any case, private initiatives developed through the owners infrastructure (hardware, software, and information formats), that lack the main element that has granted in the past the success of technologic developments in a great scale: the compatibility between sources of information and devices.

1.5 Content of the book Just as it has been mentioned throughout the previous Chapter, the rest of the Chapters of this book analyze in detail the various parts of the TV-Anytime standard. Summarizing: Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the standard, showing the logic architecture of a possible platform that realizes the TV-Anytime services, and describes the main elements involved, together with the information they handle. It can be considered, partly, the summary of the book, in which the content of the following chapters is presented. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the mechanism defines in TV-Anytime for the univocal reference to the contents, and the resolution of the mentioned references to get localizators that make it possible to get the contents. Chapter 4 is entirely centered on the description of the metainformation, standardized for the description of the audiovisual contents. Chapter 5 deals with different elements and procedures to implement the smart personalized services related to the audiovisual contents: facilities to manage the personalization processes, mechanisms for the dynamic substitution of commercial ads, and a coupon system to promote sales related to the previously announced contents or the products. Chapter 6 deals with the packaging of the contents, a procedure to group and coordinate many thought contents to be consumed together in a synchronized way. Chapter 7 handles different aspects of the transport of the TV-Anytime metainformation in unidirectional contexts, including facilities for its management at the destination. Chapter 8 deals with the characteristics of the communication with external services of provision of metainformation, accessible through bidirectional networks, and the procedures for the sharing of user profiles. Chapter 9 covers the remote programmation of a receptor (of a user or a service given by third parts) and the formats of exchange of information with cases in which the regulations of TV-Anytime are not applied. Finally, Chapter 10 closes the book with brief conclusions.

It is clear, after this summary and what was described on the previous section, that this book gives a complete treatment of all the aspects that are dealt with in the TV-Anytime standard. Without doubt, this requires a more ambitious and extensive work. On the contrary, the aim of this text is simply to awaken the curiosity about the standard, the services and models of the business it is trying to impulse, and the aspects to which it presents a standardized solution to facilitate the development of audiovisual smart services. Because of this, to achieve an simple and understandable text, in which technical details do not bore the readers that hold certain curiosity, we have limited the description to those

aspects that we find more interesting, because they have solutions more related to the context we deal with, because new mechanisms to solve the problems throughout the development are involved, and they are not only technological generic adaptations, as can be the management of rights or encrypted and authentication of information. Equally, in the parts dealt with, especially the description of the types of metainformation, the examples given pretend to illustrate the descriptive possibilities of language, give an image of the characteristics of the contents we can find in the documents, to be afterwards be processed by software applications. They are not, in any case, complete specifications of all the fields that can be used to describe the contents, something that would require more space and would probably end up being a more tedious text. If the examples exposed here awaken the curiosity of the reader to know details of the descriptive options of a concrete structure, a simple reading to the documents of the standard will solve any question quickly and precisely. The aim of this book is to encourage that, that simple reading, offering a panoramic outline of the parts of the standard, with the aims and bases of each of them, to help those who want to find more about any aspect of the standard.