neXtream: A Multi-Device, Social Approach to Video Content Consumption

Video content has become available on an increasingly diverse set of devices and from an ever growing number of sources, creating a vast amount of choice for viewers. At the same time, the varying methods of viewing, interacting with, and sharing content have diverged. This paper introduces neXtream, a new approach to delivering video by integrating multiple devices, content sources, and social networks. This concept is developed following research in social television and converged applications, providing both personalization features and social interaction. NeXtream delivers video by dynamically generating streams of video customized to a viewer, while facilitating a common dialog between users around the content, creating both a user- and community-centric viewing experience. NeXtream integrates smartphones, PCs, and TVs to deliver video content to viewers. The paper presents the system concept, theory, and architecture, and describes the developed prototype.