Press
Pushbutton has boosted its research and development efforts with the hire of a dedicated software engineer to focus on 3D and Internet-powered television.
The past six months has seen major leaps forward in television technology – with a wide range of 3D televisions now on sale, and new IP-based TV services being announced daily.
Pushbutton Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said “The past week alone has seen the announcement of Google TV, rumours about a new version of Apple TV, and a new, social- networking-ready version of BBC iPlayer. Add to this, the boom in TV connected devices, and you start to see a picture emerging of a revolution in new technologies to enhance the TV viewing experience.”
Pushbutton has always been the first independent agency to harness the power of the new enabling technologies. Increasing the firm’s investment in R&D expertise for these areas will keep the company ahead of the competition, said Byrne.
“Pushbutton is now the ‘go to’ digital agency in London if you need help with connected devices, 3D television, or IP-based TV based on Microsoft Mediaroom or over the top, straight from the Internet, video-based concepts,” added Byrne.
“I am delighted to announce this new appointment. It shows Pushbutton has emerged strongly from the recession, and is now at the threshold of a new growth phase, as we position ourselves to exploit the new wave of TV technologies,” said Byrne.
Pushbutton has taken second prize in a global competition organised by Deutsche Telekom with its PLAN-IT TV app, designed to run on the Microsoft Mediaroom-based IPTV service.
The Pushbutton concept is a social TV planning tool, designed to help families plan their viewing, with the aid of an engaging app.
PLAN-IT TV makes best use of IPTV and broadcast media so that viewers can relax, sit back, and enjoy their viewing without all the hard work. Using profiling and recommendation engine techniques, PLAN-IT TV will take the arguments out of family TV schedule planning.
It embraces the family TV and the family group to create a superior social viewing experience. PLAN-IT TV knows what individual family members like to watch, and it recalibrates its viewing recommendations based on which family members are present.
Put simply, PLAN-IT TV takes the entire family and creates a whole packaged evening of entertainment based on their collective profile. Family members can be added into the mix and seeding can be adjusted to produce a different line up. Think of it as autopilot for your remote control.
This takes all the hassle out of searching for the latest TV content that everyone can enjoy and allows content providers to deliver premium content packaged alongside other quality programming.
Pushbutton Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said, “Our PLAN-IT TV app shows the way families will enjoy TV viewing in the future. It is an intelligent TV friend that will help families arrive at the best television to suit everyone. It is there to suggest, to learn, and to help – using clever profiling and recommendation engine techniques. I am immensely proud that Deutsche Telekom spotted the potential of our app, and awarded a prize to it in their competition.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.