Next-generation interactive TV enables a newly developed broadcasting system called Sheeva.
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Moderator controls studio technology
To give a practical example, a soccer game broadcast can be enhanced with inserts from bwin gaming line-up and a moderator-controlled Skype chat. Thomas Fürstner, Director of Research & Development at bwin, sums up the core of this development: “VJ and online-gaming culture have merged with Sheeva to form a new interactive TV experience.”
According to current figures from the Nielsen market research company, 43% of all European TV viewers between 15 and 35 years of age simultaneously watch TV and surf the web on their PC or mobile terminal. This is an incentive for TV and content producers to do some rethinking, in order to bring new formats from a platform to every conceivable type of terminal. The bwin Research & Development Department has met this challenge by combining bwin’s wide-ranging online gaming line-up, maximum interactivity and the product experience by means of Sheeva, in order to satisfy the new consumer demands.
Sheeva uses a graphical programming language and a framework of audio, video and web technologies. In addition, lighting and studio technology can be controlled by one person, which minimises equipment and HR costs. In the background, all the online-gaming transactions are processed by the existing back-end and billing system.
Sheeva is designed as a highly flexible system that can broadcast in real time via satellite, the Web and mobile TV in a single production environment. “So what we do is transform all kinds of internet messaging and social media platforms into a TV signal, which we then bring to the mobile phones of our customers in HD quality via satellite, as a flash video over the internet or via a terrestrial DVB-H signal,” adds Fürstner. In so doing, we rely on the Apple Quartz image technology, Quicktime and just:live from the Austrian broadcast specialist ToolsOnAir. just:live puts the real-time data converted into graphics into a format suitable for TV and the internet.
About bwin
The bwin Group has over 20 million registered customers in more than 25 core markets and operates a number of platforms offering sports betting, poker, casino games, fortune and skill games as well as audio and video streams of top sporting events such as the German football Bundesliga. The parent company bwin Interactive Entertainment AG ("bwin") is listed in the blue chip ATX index on the Vienna Stock Exchange and provides its subsidiaries and associated companies with various services such as software development, marketing, communication, human resources and finance. The operational business of the bwin Group is conducted by subsidiaries and associated companies based on licenses (e.g. in Germany, Italy or Gibraltar).
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About ToolsOnAir
Based in Vienna, Austria, ToolsOnAir designs intuitive global workflow solutions to meet the time-intensive demands of today’s fast-paced video broadcast professionals. The company’s acclaimed just: Broadcast Suite of powerful Quicktime-based applications delivers seamless integration of multi-format video, graphics, automation and asset management.