ARCHITECTURE

The software architecture consists of 3 tiers as described below:

The application tier hosts the applications that a viewer may use. For the Sony/WGBH collaborative development there was only one application which was the Antiques Roadshow enhanced interactive application. The applications User Interface was developed by WGBH to comply with the look and feel needed for Antiques Roadshow. Sony provided design collaboration in how to improve the viewer usability features through the enhanced capabilities provided by the Sony Application Framework and the Sony PVR/VOD Tiers. In essence, WGBH produced the Antiques Roadshow application as needed to suite the Antiques Roadshow interactive requirements. This was important because it demonstrated that application developers can design for their customers and are not be constrained by the software beneath the application.

The application framework tier provides needed services to interface the application with the PVR/VOD tier. Specifically, the application framework tier provides:

- playlist generators
- provide supplemental content
- preference manipulation
- content metadata search
- content server interfaces

The PVR/VOD tier provides the low-level capabilities of the system. These features provide:

- content retrieval and playback
- maintain multi-viewer preferences
- maintain content metadata database
- content metadata search

Next section: Features

Revised Tuesday, 15-Apr-2003 07:07:31 CDT - h © 2000 - 2003 Local Enhancement Collaborative & .