ABSTRACT

The way we watch TV is changing. Digital television has brought numerous opportunities both for its operators, with the possibility of creating new business models, and for its viewers increasing the quality and transmission of television content. Nowadays, digital television services offer hundreds of channels arranged by an extensive range of thematics: However, with the recent ability to view the contents of the last seven days (time-shift) the vast number of options become even more significant, making even more difficult to the users searching for the ideal content for a given viewing context. This situation is also limited by the characteristics of the actual content selection and search tools, provided by the operators to their customers, which are not totally efficient, leading the viewer to a weakened experience of his TV service In this context, it is necessary to find solutions that meet the user needs in what relates to content discovery over multiple sources of content (live, on-demand and time-shifted) having in consideration the most important cognitive criterias that guide the user on the process of content selection such as: content format, genre, mood, duration and companion at the moment. It is in this framework that this dissertation reflects the development life cycle of the TV Discovery & Enjoy engine – an iTV application to support the user in discover the right TV content for a special viewing context.