Louise Barkhuus is a researcher at the University of Glasgow's Department of Computing Science who received her PhD from the IT University of Copenhagen. Her interest is in users' interaction with leisure technologies, such as games and home entertainment systems. With her contribution to receiver she ventures some guesses as to how the central old-school constituent of home entertainment technology – television – will integrate into the digital home. According to Barkhuus, it's not least we ourselves who will experience a severe transformation – from couch potatoes to couch selectors.

http://www.itu.dk/~barkhuus
Louise Barkhuus' site

Artwork for this article by Veronica Buna & Daniel Bois

During television's first fifty years, the practice of consuming TV changed very little. A limited number of broadcasters determined the content, and the viewer could choose to watch or not to watch. Except for the transformation from black and white to colour, the soaps, movies, news and children's programmes merely changed according to the times, and we watched either together or alone in one particular setting: the home, more specifically, the sitting room. The magical 3D TV and programmes using smell and touch that were predicted to be the future of television in the 70s never really appeared. The structure of different types of content such as TV series, the Saturday night movie and the news was solidly ingrained as the predominant concept of television.

Instead of a dramatic change in content, the most important difference that we have witnessed so far and continue to see is one of time-shifting and the establishment of interactive rather than passive television watching. The notion of television as we have known it for over fifty years is evolving with the advent of personal hard disk recorders (such as TiVo and Sky+) and the increasingly varied use of the television, for example for games. But these are only the earliest effects of a significant shift in the medium.

The VCR contributed to the first wave of television time-shifting. Although this meant that television programmes could be stored and watched at any time, the limitations that tapes bring in terms of storage space and physicality (they can easily be misplaced or accidentally taped over) meant that most people would still only watch taped or rented television or movies about once a week. From a practical perspective the VCR has many of the same characteristics as the later hard disk recorders, but in actual use newer computerised recorders have changed viewing habits dramatically, a factor that is contributing to the evolution of television.

The PVR

The first personal video recorder (PVR) was TiVo, launched in 2001 in the US. TiVo also briefly launched in the UK, but Sky+, a similar recorder based on satellite television rather than cable, has taken hold of the market there instead. Now other recorders such as Freeview exist and other European countries offer different brands of PVRs. The PVR has several functions, all working in unison to enhance the flexibility of watching television. It can store a massive amount of material, often up to 100+ hours. It has more than one 'track' so it is possible to record a show (or two) at the same time as watching a previously recorded show. The television guide is often 'built in' to the recorder, making it easy to use and choose 'season passes' that record the same show every week, no matter if it is delayed or re-scheduled. This combination of functions changes the experience of television completely. Our studies of PVR users show that after a transition period, PVR owners switch to watching almost all their television from the recorded selection. The only television formats they continue to watch 'real-time' are news and live sports events. The effect is tremendous in terms of the social setting of television in the home, whole TV evenings can be 'delayed' to when the kids are asleep, or even to the weekend when there is time for watching the last three episodes of one's favourite show.

Because television is still part of our social lives in and outside the home (we enjoy conversations about the latest 'Battlestar Galactica' episode etc), it still has, and will in the future continue to have, 'release dates'. PVR users are still keen on watching television as soon as possible to be able to keep up the conversation with colleagues the next day, but they feel much more in control of their free time than with traditional television.

Buying television

Another new version of television can be downloaded from the internet, either through the broadcasters' websites or through independent websites (sometimes for a fee as with iTunes). Naturally, some of this downloading is illegal, but its prominence indicates downloading is here to stay. Transformation will either be through gradually changing regulations or the acceptance of fee-based downloading of television or a mix of the two. Watching television from the internet does not mean watching on a computer screen, as many people believe. Our studies have shown that television enthusiasts often connect their computer with either a television or a larger screen to improve the viewing experience. Most new television sets have easy connection to a computer by way of composite video connections. In the future, television will not be tied to a specific 'box' but will instead be played on any type of screen, large or small.

Mobile television

There has been much speculation about mobile television, i.e. television that runs on your mobile phone. Although this is already possible and will likely catch on gradually, one important issue limits watching in public: television viewing is an enjoyable experience that requires a fair amount of concentration and time. People are not likely to put on a headset and start watching television while waiting for the bus. However, some argue that the type of television watched outside the home will just be different, such as news snippets and updates on reality shows. One way of using mobile television that we observed in our studies was to take a mobile unit (e.g. a PDA) with a headset to bed, in order not to wake up one's partner. Not only is this scenario merely an adaptation of present behaviour (watching TV in bed), it also shows how inventively people will use new technologies. We can predict specific uses, but never be certain TV will in fact be used in those particular ways. Only time will tell how the public will accept this kind of behaviour; if mobile phone conversations give any indication of what lies ahead for mobile television, it is difficult to imagine a broad acceptance of television viewing in public apart from watching while on public transport. People are likely to continue watching TV in homelike settings, wherever they find them.

Games on television

Games played on a television set are not a new concept. As far back as the 70s console games such as the Magnavox Odyssey invaded homes and were being played by children and childlike adults. These games have developed from the simple ping-pong and the classic space invaders to multiplayer 3D games on today's Play Station 2 and even sensor-based games on the Nintendo Wii. Although computer based games evolved in parallel with these and were often predicted to push out console games, their present popularity shows that this is not the case. Video games have several advantages over computer games, but in particular the technology set-up in the home has influenced their use. Whereas PCs are meant for work, the television provides entertainment and is much more compatible with game play. The PC is often located in the home office, while the television is in the sitting room, thus emphasising their roles. Today video games are an integrated part of the television 'equipment' such as the DVD player and cable box, capable of providing interactive entertainment on a traditional lean-back medium. With internet connected game consoles, social games are increasingly gathering followers, from direct collaboration in game play to peripheral acknowledgment that one's friends are online too. All in all, this indicates a shift in how the television is used: from being a lean-back medium it is increasingly mixing approaches by combining different types of entertainment.

From couch potato to couch selector

As much as games and television might seem to differ, social and technological evolution have affected them both, pushing them in other directions from those their original creators had probably envisaged. The commonality in development is an increasing interconnection between people and a lean-forward approach to entertainment. In the future we will see, in contrast to channel surfing, an active choice of specific television programmes. The availability will be from a myriad of sources, making broadcasting just one choice, from online sources to peer-to-peer sharing. The content will be anything from a recommendation from a friend ("I saw this awesome programme last night, let me send you a copy") to an active search, for a specific black and white movie for example. Instead of distinguishing between 'series' of broadcast television, TV will be 'themed' into categories as seen now for example with music playlists. Recommendations from friends will weigh higher than what is 'on' on a Wednesday evening. This way, the social component of talking about shows will remain a big factor in television. Television will be watched 'together' among friends or family over a distance, either real-time or time-shifted with icons in the corner of the screen showing who is watching the same show. Afterwards, consumers can play the same 'themed' games with either their friends or other people online. What is important will not be the channel that broadcasts the specific content, but instead the theme of the content and how the users acquire television and games. The traditional division between television and PC will soon be gone and instead different rooms will have screens connected to a central media server where television is played from, either as broadcast, bought or transferred from other users. The sitting room might have a large screen with the central 'box' underneath, the bedroom a smaller screen, perhaps even a mobile one.

Future of television

One way of interpreting this development might be to claim that traditional television is on its way to extinction. However, this is definitely not the case. From ancient tragedies and comedies to theatre and, later, movies, it is evident that people enjoy being entertained by stories - regardless of the medium. Television is yet another step in the evolution of media that tell these stories, and just as television did not kill the movies (although it had an impact by decreasing their prevalence), interactive games and the internet will not render television obsolete. We will merely see innovative versions of moving pictures that can satisfy the needs of the 21st century's embedded acquaintance with a multitude of media.