Taking a quick look around the Internet, from Twitter to blogs to sites like Television Without Pity, it’s clear that people love their TV. And second to wanting unlimited great content choices, they want to be able to find the content they want quickly and easily. The middleware’s job is to help users find what they are looking for quickly and easily.

First, the middleware needs to be proactive.  Rather than waiting for the user to search for a specific program or topic, the middleware can incorporate recommendations and provide an attractive and engaging UI that captures the user’s interests and leads them to relevant content.

Second, middleware needs to be intuitive. Just as navigation on the computer and on websites with great design is natural and enjoyable, TV navigation should let users focus on what they want to watch rather than how to get to it.

Finally, middleware should be unobtrusive to the user.  Everyone says they have great ease of usability, but the interface needs to be hardly noticeable to the subscribers to that they feel right at home when they sit down and begin browsing programs and channels. The user shouldn’t even think about navigating the interface as it works seamlessly to get them where they want to be. We believe there are no limits to what can be achieved and that middleware should be able to do anything that can be done on the web.

Keeping in mind that TV Middleware is constantly asked for increased functionality, it is also extremely important that there is a way for operators to extend the offering. At Dreampark for example, we aim to meet this challenge by combining our Dreamgallery Portal Generator, a web-based What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor with a Software Development Kit, a set of tools that place the control right at the Operators fingertips.  Dreamgallery middleware is dynamic so it doesn’t compromise speed or flexibility.  We know it is important for our middleware to remember the end user and for that reason we keep it simple and intuitive for them to use.  This will make it possible to launch new features matching the above criteria with an aggressive time to market.
This blog was also posted on the Official IBC 2010 Blog by Video Net News (on twitter: @videonetnews) and can be viewed here.

Author: Bjorn Lang, CTO

As the CTO of Dreampark, Bjorn has extensive experience from 20+ IPTV and hybrid deployments throughout EMEA.