Graphics come to Digital TV

Graphics for television, specifically for set top boxes and iDTVs is an interesting field. A few years back nobody considered graphics an important issue. TV is about Video right? Well, yes it is. That is to say, watching, previewing, buying, and in the future, sharing of video. None of which is possible without a user interface. Not to mention that your average set top box these days shows images, plays music, shares files with the PC or other devices and a host of PC like functionality. All of which needs an interface.

Prior to 2007, user interfaces for TV viewing were slow, poorly designed, 2D and limited to boxes, text and occassional images. Interfaces were at worst designed simply as an access point to underlying technology and at best as access to specific features such as an EPG. The screen would be splattered with too much info, helpful messages such as "Press OK button for OK" and a bare minimum of animation.

Then in March 2007, Apple shipped a device, Apple TV which changed the game. It showed movie posters and photos in carefully designed minimalist 3D. It worked beautifully with up, down, left, right and OK. No colour buttons here. No help appeared on screen - it was intuitive, it was smooth, it was ... shock 3D. AppleTV contained a 3D chip from Nvidia. Though the product itself was a failure, it succeeded in raising the bar in every way for graphics in TVs.

Round the same time, the first 3D interfaces and games in mobile phones began appearing. The user was becoming used to small devices doing 3D, looking good and reacting with smooth animation to button presses.

Since then, the industry has woken up. Now design and 3D technology is emerging in the TV space that will make yesterdays interfaces seem a joke in comparison. Yet there is still much ignorance surrounding graphics in the TV space. With this new need and a lack of experience, come the wolves seeking easy prey: a hundred new technologies and companies who proclaim to have the Holy Grail for Digital TV graphics. Thus we enter an interesting arena, and the battle begins.

Faced with this, the challenge of combining internet and traditional TV and the ever increasingly vast library of content that must be presented, its not easy on DTV companies. This blog aims to track the development of graphics in DTV and hopefully present useful information for those in the industry.