| Type | A branch of Sony UK Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1999, see #History |
| Headquarters | Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
| Key people | General Manager-Tassilo Raesig |
| Website | tvtv.co.uk |
tvtv is a consumer oriented pan-European Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) service provider. The service makes television program listings available for up to three weeks in advance,[1] including information about the program, genre, actors, directors and pictures.
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In 1999, the first tvtv website tvtv.de was launched by FAST TV SERVER to enable remote programming. FAST TV SERVER announced the first personal video recorder (PVR) with tvtv analog service in 2001.[2] The first TV set with EPG and PVR was launched in 2002.[3] Sony UK Ltd. acquired all FAST TV SERVER AGs assets in relation to its EPG service in November 2003 and ‘tvtv services’ is founded as a branch of Sony UK Ltd. This is followed by the launch of first digital PVR in 2004 and first customized web-EPG in 2005. In 2006, tvtv services launched a digital PVR first time for a network operator. Tvtv received various awards. In 2006, tvtv.de received 5 stars from German 'Video' magazine for being fast, intuitive, clearly arranged and having a valuable system of categories and subcategories, 21 days preview and a very precise search for keywords, genres and attributes such as 16:9-movies or Dolby.[4]. In November 2009, tvtv is announced as the best EPG in Germany by Satvision, tested on the Humax iCord. The award is received for providing tips per genre, comfortable search and the high quality of the data with 14 days preview, descriptions and pictures.[5]
tvtv enables users to personalize their TV listings, receive personalized and collaborative recommendations, recommend programs to their friends and remotely control their recording lists via internet, mobile or PDA.[6] Tvtv provides EPG technology and metadata to various set-top boxes and websites of large cable operators, digital TV sets, digital video recorders, TV tuner sticks, mobile devices[7] and web portals. Tvtv operates 8 websites of its own across Europe providing TV program listings online for free.[8] In order to benefit from the premium services like remote recording, users need to have a compatible device and register to the service.[9]
Tvtv collects television program data for more than 1100 channels which have their origin in 38 countries, mainly in Europe.[10] tvtv works with editorial sources, local aggregators and TV stations directly to be able to deliver the pictures, and descriptions of the programs. The program data is then structured and put into one format and one categorization scheme and distributed mainly to consumer electronics devices and TV network operators. The transmission is hybrid; it can take place via broadcast play-out, and broadband through an application interface on the device or XML-file transfer, depending on the capabilities of the devices and the TV systems. The tvtv system is using open standards, like DVB, WST, DSM-CC, XML and JPEG for data provision and using a unified data format for digital broadcast, analog broadcast and Internet.
In addition, the EPG data is published on various websites, such as tvtv.co.uk or specially customized websites. In most of the cases, the content of the websites is available to the public. Owners of a tvtv enabled device can also remotely record programs to their devices through the tvtv websites.
A widget application is also available for German TV program information.[11] The widget gives you a quick access to tvtv.de program listings and allows you to search programs, define your own search filters, group your channels, set reminders, mark programs, or set recordings for your devices.
As one alternative to the EPG services such as tvtv, broadcasting device manufacturer could also use DVB-SI data which are a part of the DVB specification and are broadcasted along with the TV content. The main difference between tvtv and DVB-SI is that information depth as well as preview period, varies a lot between channels and countries in the case of DVB-SI.
tvtv participated in trials of delivery of TV-Anytime. TV-Anytime forum is working on the standardization on the local storage of digital content to maintain interoperability between consumer electronics manufacturers, content creators, telcos, broadcasters and service providers.[12]