Hyperlinked television research at the MIT Media Laboratory

In hyperlinked video, objects are selectable—resulting in an associated action—akin to linked words or graphics on Web pages. Possible venues for hyperlinked video include broadcast television, streaming video (e.g., video on the Internet or other forms of video-on-demand systems), and published media such as DVD (digital versatile disc). Hyperlinked video offers new interaction possibilities with streaming media and the opportunity to move electronic commerce from the personal computer to the television receiver while making it more dynamic and engaging. In this paper we examine some opportunities and challenges of hyperlinked video, describe an object tracking and identification algorithm and an authoring tool we have developed, and discuss two prototype hyperlinked television programs—one an augmented broadcast and one a video-on-demand application.