October 21, 2009

Microsoft Mediaroom Prizewinners

Filed under: 2009 archive, Press — Tags: , , , — Eugene @ 2:39 pm

Release date: October, 2009

Pushbutton took the second place prize in a worldwide Mediaroom developers competition organised by Microsoft. The aim of the competition was to find the best app to run on Microsoft’s Mediaroom IPTV platform – the IPTV platform used by the BT Vision service in the UK and by many telcos worldwide.

The London-based interactive TV specialist was the only UK company to make the final stage of the competition in which the finalists presented their apps at the Microsoft Mediaroom Developers Forum in San Jose this week.

The second place position carries a cash prize of $10,000 and an opportunity for Pushbutton to showcase its application on Microsoft stands at international trade fairs and conferences.

Pushbutton’s app is called ‘Time Capsules’ and it presents IPTV users with a unique navigational tool for exploring time-based video content. It can be used to present archive material of historic events, or as a time-stamped record of a live and unfolding event such as the Olympic Games, or a major breaking news story.

“The beauty of our app and the reason it got so far is its flexibility, which we demonstrated by showing how it could be used in everything from soap catch-up to documentary series,” said Paula Byrne, Pushbutton Managing Director.

Pushbutton is well known for its ‘red button’ applications, having recently created red button games for CBeebies and, in the past, developed applications for top ITV shows, including Coronation Street and The X Factor. More recently, it has invested heavily in growing its design and development expertise in the new, Internet-based TV technologies such as ‘Widgets’ and IPTV.

“I am delighted with our success in this competition. It puts Pushbutton in poll position in Europe as the first company you should talk to if you want to prepare your content or property for the new world of Internet-based television. Whether it’s via an IPTV service like Microsoft Mediaroom, or on one of the new ‘Widget’ opportunities, Net TV is coming and it is coming fast. Our success in San Jose shows that we are ready and able to help our partners prosper in the new world order.”

October 7, 2009

Winter Olympics app for FOXTEL

Filed under: 2009 archive, Press — Tags: , , , , , — Eugene @ 2:14 pm

Release date: May, 2009

Pushbutton has completed work on an interactive application to support FOXTEL (Australia’s leading pay TV provider) in its ground-breaking coverage of the Winter Olympics from Vancouver, in February 2010.

FOXTEL’s multi-channel coverage was complemented by a Pushbutton-designed interactive application providing a rich array of statistics and up-to-the-minute information about the events and competing athletes. By simply pressing red, viewers will have access to the latest results, top picks of what’s on each hour and athlete profiles.

According to FOXTEL “lt’s the ultimate viewer experience and will change the way you watch live sport on TV. And not only will you experience all the excitement, beauty, daring and triumph of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games but we can promise every gold medal event live and every competing Aussie live and in full, with on—air real time medal and Aussie event alerts.”

Speaking before the games, FOXTEL Chief Executive, Kim Williams AO, said: 
“We will complement our television broadcast with mobile, broadband, and interactive delivery platforms making the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games available anytime and anywhere. We will take all of the extraordinary possibilities of our digital platform – our iQ set-top-boxes, SD and HD channels, surround sound, interactive services, electronic programming guide, and mobile and broadband services – to showcase the 17 days of competition with greater depth, breadth, excitement and relevance than ever before.”

Pushbutton Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said “We are delighted to have opened our account with FOXTEL, and to have done so with such a high profile project is a tremendous compliment to Pushbutton. The Winter Olympics is one of the world’s top sporting events. We have designed an interactive TV application that both ourselves and FOXTEL are proud of and one that engaged, entertained, and informed the watching millions.”

Next gen user interface for Virgin Media

Filed under: 2009 archive, Press — Tags: , , , , — Eugene @ 2:07 pm

Release date: June, 2009

Virgin Media chose Pushbutton as the interactive TV developers to design a prototype of their next generation user interface. The project aims to redesign the way people use interactive TV.

The ‘VPlayer’ prototype was demoed at Cable Congress in Berlin, in March 2009. Designed from the ground up to feel different. It is more responsive, easier to navigate, and more enjoyable to use than the current generation of interfaces. Whilst the approach does not ‘reinvent the wheel’ of tried and tested EPG layout, the user experience is far more streamlined and accessible.

Pushbutton Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said “Looking to the future, and designing concepts for interactive media based on likely outcomes is one of Pushbutton’s core skills. This VPlayer concept for Virgin Media is a text book example of this strength. This is much more than knitting together video and graphics, but is based on Pushbutton’s deep understanding of how video, audio, and still image combine in the context of interactive television.”

Personal TV
Watching TV is often a family or group experience, but there is huge amount of value to be unlocked by tailoring content to individual users. The VPlayer prototype has a consistent login system throughout the app, which would allow Virgin Media to ensure the user sees only the content they want to see. This means that everything from settings, preferences, likes, dislikes, to PVR recordings and more would only apply to the user who chose them.

The VPlayer Grid
From the start of the project, the VPlayer prototype presents the user with different kinds of choices. With the vast array of channels on offer, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by content. The VPlayer Grid gives Virgin Media a way to suggest content they think a user will like, in an immediate and accessible way, so they don’t have to endlessly surf the EPG for something to watch.

Couple to this the ability for Virgin to personalise content for each member of the family, and suddenly you have personalised, suggested viewing which would be available from the moment you log in (and dad doesn’t accidentally get suggested Gossip Girl).

Virgin Media were so happy with the VPlayer prototype that they asked Pushbutton to work on a related project looking into the future of media selection and consumption – the companion app for mobile phones. Having designed and developed the VPlayer prototype, Pushbutton was in a unique position to use our understanding of Virgin’s vision of the connected home, to ensure the mobile app prototype fitted in perfectly.

Games for CBeebies channel

Filed under: 2009 archive, Press — Tags: , , , , , — Eugene @ 2:05 pm

Release date: September, 2009

The BBC have launched three children’s games for the CBeebies channel which were designed and built by the interactive TV experts, Pushbutton. The games went live in September ‘09 and can be played for free via the ‘red button’ by the UK’s ten million satellite TV households.

Based on the popular CBeebies childrens’ shows, In The Night Garden and The Green Balloon Club, the games offer visually rich interactive experiences which are both educational and fun. The third game, Tubes, is based around the popular CBeebies on-screen bugs, and allows kids to catch them in a tube.

Designed to use simple key presses of the Sky remote control, the games provide challenges for children of varying abilities and levels of development.

Tubes is simple, but addictive, and has several ‘zones’ to be completed. Aimed at very young players, it requires only the left and right arrow keys on the Sky remote control to play.

The Green Balloon Club game is a picture quiz aimed at slightly older children. The player is asked to match images to a given animal. The featured wildlife is what children might expect to find in UK towns and countryside, and will therefore be familiar to Green Balloon Club viewers. Again, a limited number of keys on the remote are needed to play the game, and the images and sound effects offer a visually rich interactive experience that is both educational and fun.

The In The Night Garden game is designed to help improve counting skills in a fun and visually rewarding way. Three separate counting tasks are offered based on popular elements and characters from the show. This provides a challenge for children of varying abilities and levels of mathematical development.

Finding and counting the ‘Pontipines’ that are hiding around the screen, making piles of ten stones to get Makka Pakka to play his trumpet, and finally counting the Tittifer birds all offer fun, animated counting challenges.

Pushbutton’s game engine has been designed to offer a personalised experience for its audience, registering if a player is giving multiple wrong answers. The game is able to deliver an easier level, offering a seamless experience, ensuring that the player can optimise their learning capabilities without becoming frustrated or disengaged.

Damian Vicary, interactive TV producer for BBC Children’s, wrote “Games are one of the most popular services for the CBeebies audience, but for a long time the games we’ve offered on the red button have felt a little bit tired and out of date.”…. “The new service brings with it brand new games for some of the most popular shows on CBeebies. Who doesn’t love ‘In the Night Garden’? Well now you can play along with Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy and Igglepiggle whenever you want. ‘The Green Balloon Club’ opens kids’ eyes to nature. Whether they live in the countryside or the middle of town, the gameplay has been designed to get children really involved.”

Paula Byrne, managing director of Pushbutton, said, “We are delighted with the quality and playability of the games we have developed. Great kudos is due to our design and development staff. The bar has been raised significantly with these new games.”

Pushbutton worked closely with BBC commissioning staff, to ensure that the interactive games met the high standards and strong production values expected by the corporation.

Chain Reactors slot game for Sky Vegas

Filed under: 2009 archive, Press — Tags: , , , , — Eugene @ 1:50 pm

Release date: 17th March 2009

Pushbutton has collaborated with Sky Vegas to lauch Chain Reactors on interactive TV. The popular, arcade-style, ‘tumbling faces’ gambling game is now live on Sky Vegas.

To win, the amusing and quirkily animated ‘tumbling faces’ must match up in clusters of at least five faces. Lining up the faces causes a chain reaction, where the matched faces will disappear in a puff animation, winning money for the player. New faces will then tumble down the screen to replace them. The fun part of the game is when your luck is in, and you start to get multiple chain reactions.

Three levels of progressive jackpot can be won from Mini through to a whopping Maxi Jackpot of £100,000! Players have the option to try out the game for fun only, although cash prizes and jackpots are not available on ‘Free play’.

Pushbutton was commissioned to develop the satellite TV-based version of the game. Working closely with Sky Vegas to deliver the game on time, and on budget, to an exacting schedule.

Pushbutton is particularly proud of the quality of the animations and sound effects that have been achieved in this satellite-based, interactive TV game.

Many of the subtle UI effects that made the web ‘Chain Reactors’ game so successful have been reproduced in the set-top box version as well… for example, the characters in the grid animate when idle, and exhibit behaviours like ’surprise’ as the grid empties and fills. Explosions of the chain reactors are colour-coded to each character and clever development means that the animation is super-fast, even on the slowest legacy set-top boxes.

Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said “Chain Reactors is the latest in a series of successful projects for Sky Vegas and its quality proves Pushbutton’s credentials in developing TV-based gambling and arcade style games.”

© Pushbutton 2010