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Broadcast TECH SECOND-SCREEN GROWTH


FEATURE


When long-running quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (pictured) returns in July, it will be with a twist. The show’s “ask the audience” lifeline is set to become “ask the nation” as part of a new playalong game for the ITV1 programme. Users of the online or mobile app will be able to answer the same questions as con- testants live on air. They will also compete with other players online in a live leader board, with points awarded based on the speed of their answers. Sony Pictures Television-owned Victory worked with ITV’s online team and French digital agency Visiware to create the Millionaire game, which will be available online and to download to iPhone and Android devices. It does not use audio watermark- ing but Visiware would not reveal which technology it does use. Channel 4, too, is boosting its playalong credentials with a


mobile app for its show The Million Pound Drop Live. It will allow viewers to play the game alongside contestants on the show in real time via a mobile phone, rather than having to log in via a computer. The online playalong element is managed by two- screen TV experts Monterosa and Remarkable. The use of mobile technology is not without problems. Con-


cerns around latency – and particularly bottlenecks – remain. In May, ITV dropped the in-app voting for Britain’s Got Talent after it failed during one of the semi-finals. The failure was blamed on “congestion” and follows a similar issue suffered by Sky 1 during the semi-finals of talent contest Got To Dance in March. Both in- app voting services were managed by mobile agency MIG.


Facejacker: app was Channel 4’s first to make use of audio watermarking Civolution says its SyncNow


system automatically handles distri- bution delays and supports all forms of time-shifted viewing. Keeping in sync is particularly


important for gameshows, says Woodley, adding that Intrasonics’ system is “pause-proof ”.


Fingerprinting technology Another way to recognise audio content is ‘fingerprinting’. This com- pares audio waveforms with a refer- ence library of content. Woodley says the advantage of watermarking over fingerprinting is that it requires less processing power. “Fingerprint- ing methods are quite processor- intensive. That’s fine for something that takes 10 seconds, but if you try to run it continuously, it’s likely to lead to bigger battery drain.” If a production company takes


responsibility for an app, the water- mark can be added before the


www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils


programme is distributed. Alterna- tively, if a broadcaster wants to build an app that can be used for a range of content and across different shows, the process of audio water- marking can be done on the fly, using embedding hardware at the point of playout. For Facejacker, the app was bolted


on to an existing format, but prod- uction companies and broadcasters are increasingly looking to design formats around the capabilities of an app. “That will eventually become the normal way of doing it,” Woodley says. “I think we’re right at the beginning and I expect this year to be when they really take off.” Just as a ‘killer app’ can boost the popularity of a show, having a unique piece of technology associated with a programme can provide an element of security for programme-makers, says Simon Ingram, chief executive of


 May/June 2012 | Broadcast TECH | 19


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