EPG in numbers

How to make TV viewing convenient

To maintain customer loyalty and interest on their part, operators need to keep up with the times. A few years ago, people consumed much less information. Both the pace and the way it is consumed have changed. Today, the market is oversaturated with all sorts of gadgets and devices that make access to information easier, easier and faster. For example, the proportion of those who buy a weekly newspaper with a TV program is much smaller today compared to the previous decades. It is much easier at any convenient time to access the Internet from your computer or phone, and find the data you are interested in in a matter of seconds.

Operators can not stay away: they offer their subscribers a service that provides flexible management of digital television content. We are talking about an electronic software guide (in the people – EPG (Electronic Program Guide)). With this service, which is an on - screen menu that displays the schedule of TV or radio programs, you can rank channels by genre, get additional information about movies, set reminders about the transfer or event.

Every Russian operator using EPG tries to introduce its own "feature" into the service. Finding one company was the "progress bar": it is the subscriber sees when viewing the list of available channels and may use it easy to determine how much time has passed from the beginning of the transmission and how much is left until it ends. Another operator offers to use the "genre TV guide", which makes it possible to organize a TV viewing according to your personal taste and interest. Search the program guide may be based on several criteria: "genre", "word", "actors", "Directors" and "leading". However, I note that although the genre solution is useful, there are things that it does not solve.

If we are talking about the division of all content into genres, the most likely situation is uneven distribution. For example, the following genres are set: news, shows, movies, children's programs, sports. And then you go to the "news" tab on Saturday and you see two programs there, because everything else is entertainment content. Or on Monday afternoon you go to the tab "Movies", and there - some uninteresting series. A rigid breakdown by genre is a necessary but not sufficient condition for EPG to be intelligent.

Genre decision well in that case, if the operator has the possibility to use not only the library of streaming content, but also library of Catch-Up and, for example, OTT. In this case, the user selecting the "Show" tab on a weekday will not see an empty list or promise that the content of interest will be on the air on Sunday late at night. He will see real content that can be watched right now. But hybrid set-top boxes, with which these things are available to subscribers, have not yet become widespread in Russia. Therefore, operators are forced to fantasize using only one satellite communication channel.

How to make EPG smarter? Without a hard drive console there is no possibility of making a personal TV channel. How to be? First, the dimensions of television viewing are necessary. Realizing that the subscriber has seen, he can recommend similar content. And we can recommend this corny highlighting the same program/series. Moreover, it is not enough just to select a specific program in the General transmission table, which may be of interest to the subscriber. You can implement a reminder system. It could work as a computer "antivirus" that constantly reminds us that it has protected us from something or that it is time for us to update the program. Of course, we can recall the "timer" function, which many people used in the early 1990s. But then it acted like a tub of cold water. You sit, you look one program, and you suddenly write, that need switch on another, that you previously wanted to watch. If you want to do it in a smooth way: "you want to watch it in 15 minutes", it will be much better.

It is also possible to implement a system of intellectual recommendations from the broadcaster. There are programs that have a rating, you can vote for them on the site. All these data can be" lowered " on the console. For example, when the rating of voting activity of the program "to the barrier" crosses a certain threshold, you receive information in the spirit of: "Hot discussion in the program. You might be interested."The EPG then becomes the recommending mechanism for viewing content. It is also possible to implement additional functionality to help the hard of hearing, visually impaired people. Things like the famous Microsoft Windows magnifier would be quite useful. As well as the implementation of sound prompts.

Intelligent EPG can become an assistant and "outside the TV". Special mobile applications integrated with EPG will remind you that an interesting program will start soon. You can go further: the city hung hundreds of banners advertising a particular TV content (show, TV series, etc.). Today, such banners almost always have a QR-code. Take a picture of this code, you will tell your EPG that you are interested in this program. EPG will then remind you about it and recommend you to watch it. Users in Europe are already available such joy: they take pictures of the banner, and their application is updated label "I want to see."

A nice smart solution is to access different types of content that accompanies the viewing. Essentially multimedia electronic program guide. We picked a movie, and you not only offered extensive information about it (photos of the actors and the Director, their biography, movie rating, etc.), but also access to the online store where you can buy the soundtrack for this film. But, again, while this is only possible with the help of hybrid consoles.

One of the problems of EPG is that its design options often depend on the manufacturers of receivers. Operators, as a rule, can only affect the structure of the TV guide. But the design plays a huge role in the perception of the service.

It is necessary to develop and improve EPG. It is not enough for a subscriber to have access to a wide variety of high-quality TV channels. Fortunately, Russian operators have already begun to take the first steps in the development of the service. It is possible that in the near future, foreign users will put our services as an example to their operators.

Source: http://www.comnews.ru