Being a glutton for punishment, I recorded a few of the demos and screenshots shown during Paul Kagan’s “Getting Personal” conference last week in conjunction with the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. (I’ve gotten in trouble for posting “confidential” video demos shown at conferences before.) This one comes from Ensequence, showing off some interactive TV apps used in a trial with DirecTV and Dish during the Video Game Awards. In case watching TV by itself is not enough, Ensequence demonstrates some of the promise (or distraction) of interactive television: immediate access to relevant information, the ability to collect points for rewards from sponsors, and, my favorite, access to old arcade games on a split screen. Check out the 45-second mark in the video above.
A few things have changed since the first scramble for interactive television circa the late 1990s. Cable systems have gone digital, tru2way/OCAP is a reality, and the cable and consumer electronics industries are at least attempting to play nice with each other. iTV may still be a few years out, but the pieces are falling into place.