The Graphics On Your Television Will Be Customizable

Topic(s): me,computers,internet
2010-03-31 22:59:27 US/Pacific

So I'm watching Lost last night. Opening sequence, first thing I notice is it looks like it's going to be a Sun and Gin episode. Cool. I like the Sun and Gin characters.

Opening sequence continues, and ABC decides to put a gigantic red V along with a by-the-second countdown timer in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. And it never leaves. It's there for the entire episode. (In addition to the usual ABC logo that I would have otherwise completely ignored.)

I don't care what the red V with the countdown timer is advertising. I just want it off my screen. Like any fan of Lost I'm worried that I'll miss something critical to the episode.

And sure enough, during the critical closing sequence, Sun scribbles something on a notepad. What does she scribble? I don't know. Her scribbles are covered by the red V and countdown timer.

But ABC isn't alone. All networks put crap on the screen. Any sports fan will tell you. At times there are more graphics on the screen than sports. I suppose Fox made it popular perhaps fifteen years ago when they introduced the score box to the screen -- at the time an excellent innovation no doubt. But here we are in 2010 and now we have a red V and countdown timers.

Here's what I want. I want a raw video feed of the broadcast. No graphics. No banners. No scores. Nothing. A bare, raw video feed. Not even audio.

I also want the ability to add graphics as I see fit. My set top box should allow me to add graphics to the screen. Go to a menu on the set top box and select a graphic -- say, a score box graphic -- and the set top box should then ask how big I want it to be, and where to position the box. What style should the box have. Colors. Those sorts of things.

Where does the set top box receive information about the score box graphic? From the television station. The television station should encode data files along with the video feed. By default, all the data files should be ignored by the set top box. How would it work for my score box graphic?

First, there would be one main data file. The main data file simply tells the set top box what data files are available and what they represent. The set top box would use this data file to present options to the end user about what graphics are available. The available graphics would vary by type of video. (Obviously, a drama like Lost would have no use for a score box, but apparently it does a have need for a gigantic red V graphic.)

Second, each data file would be sent from the television station to the set top box only as appropriate. Perhaps once per second for a score box. Perhaps once and only once for, in the example of a sports broadcast, the thumbnail pictures of the competing teams' logos.

What might the score box data file contain? It might contain just two bytes. The score of one team, and the score of the other team.

What might the team logo thumbnail file contain? A 64x64 PNG of a football helmet or whatever.

Together with the score and the team logos, the end user could construct a pretty nice info box on their display.

What might some other data files be?

Play information. In the case of football, the previous play's yardage. Who passed the ball. Who caught the ball. The receiver's updated statistics.

And for each data file, the end user has defined when to display the information. Perhaps the user has selected to display a receiver's stats every time they are updated. Perhaps only upon a significant change in the receiver's stats. Or perhaps not at all.

There is one other big data file. The audio. The end user should be able to select from several audio feeds. If I'm watching a Mexico-USA soccer match, perhaps I could select between the Spanish and English audio feeds. Each audio feed would be separately supplied to the set top box as a streaming audio data file.

The audio streams would not be limited to different languages. For a Texas-Oklahoma football game, the end user could select between the Texas audio and the Oklahoma audio.

Some years from now I believe all of this will happen. When? Shortly after televisions switch over to packet-based traffic. Another way of saying that is when people switch from watching television on their, uh, televisions and instead watch on their computers. Which has already begun happening in small percentages.

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