LIVE: An Integrated Production and Feedback System for Intelligent and Interactive TV Broadcasting

In this paper, we report recent research activities under the integrated project, Live Staging of Media Events (LIVE), which is funded under European Framework-6 Programme, and illustrate how a new LIVE TV broadcasting and content production concept can be introduced to improve the existing TV broadcasting services. In comparison with existing TV content production technologies, we show case that LIVE TV broadcasting format could achieve a range of significant advantages, which can be highlighted as: (i) real-time interaction between TV content production team and viewers to ensure the best possible entertainment experiences and to allow viewers not only to view but also to participate, to influence and to control; (ii) the traditional concept of TV content director can be changed to a TV content conductor, where live TV broadcasting can be conducted on real-time bases and existing content materials can be conducted into multi-streams of TV broadcasting, providing variety of choices to allow the audience to make their own preferences in watching TV programs; (iii) introduction of significant intelligence in terms of content analysis and behavior analysis etc. to further improve the quality of services based on the fundamental concept of LIVE project. When tested under field trials for 2008 Olympic Games by ORF, the developed LIVE system has illustrated great potential as well as significant promises to improve the TV broadcasting services not only in terms of the interaction formats, but also in terms of viewing experiences as well as the style of content productions and preparations.