The LIVE Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC) is composed of leading experts from the European broadcast market and beyond who come together on a regular basis to advise the project on market and industry trends that may impact the development work in LIVE.The role of the Industrial Advisory Committee in the LIVE project is to improve the impact of the project (externally) on the one hand, while increasing and extending the project’s network. On the other hand the IAC can make recommendations to improve the quality of the project (internally).

The first LIVE IAC meeting took place in June 2007 at Fraunhofer Institute Intelligent Analysis and information Systems, Sankt Augustin Germany. Representatives from ZDF, BBC, Thomson, Grass Valley, LIWEST, Vodafone, and T-Online met to discuss the following topics: Concepts of LIVE in general, creating a multi-stream non-linear viewing experience, and the future of semantic-enabled TV broadcasts. 

LIVE can play a major role in shaping the new multi-channel viewing formats

The participants agreed on the fact that LIVE is dealing with innovative aspects of TV production which will have a major impact on future TV production. ZDF is already active in creating multi-linear interactive sports channels and emphasised the added value of having archival material as well as consumer feedback available at the point of production. It was noted that BBC is already strongly present in the interactive TV area and echoed the view that the work of LIVE is innovative and important in shaping the new TV multi-channel viewing formats. Thomson acknowledged the  potential of bringing new information to the broadcast content. Grass Valley pointed out the great advantages in creating qualified semantic metadata and having enriched archival material generated (semi)automatically and on-line. LIWEST (is a cable network operator delivering MHP applications to the Austrian market) highlighted the importance of consumer feedback. Vodafone which is increasing efforts in distributing content over mobile networks underlined the importance of content from archives for telecommunication and broadcasting as well as user feedback especially for new interactive rich services. T-Online called for standardisation of production and distribution of content and sees the potential of LIVE also beyond the broadcast environment.

If you are a recognised leader from the European broadcast industry and would like to join the LIVE IAC please send your contact details to Joachim Koehler at joachim.koehler(at)ais.fraunhofer.de