Interactive Television Demystified

Rating:
Summary: Enough information to not feel like an complete idiot.
Review: Book could *definitely* do a better job of specifying which of its sections are relevant to Digital TV in general, and which are relevant to Interactive Television in specific. You do need to understand digital tv to understand the technical issues behind Interactive Television, but that should be made clear(er) by the editor.

This said, Whitaker does a good job of putting together enough information so that if you have enough media/technical background, you should be able to discuss iTV issues with some facility.

The book is divided into chapters written by separate authors, with each chapter having its own references and bibliography appended. Chapters include:

-The Promise of Interactive Television
-Video and Audio Compression
-Program and System Information Protocol
-The DVB System
-Standardization Issues
-Metadata Management
-Internet and TV Convergence
-Content Distribution
-PC-Based Receivers
-Interactive Videoconferencing

Honestly, for me the book was a little bit heavy on the digital television technical stuff and a little bit light on the possible business models and applications. Good glossary, however, and the references are also quite valuable.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough technical coverage
Review: I bought this book as someone who works in the industry and needed to sort through the various, and sometimes confusing, standards. The book does an excellent job of segmenting and explaining the technical components of interactive TV and its dependencies on digital TV. Though the book is designed to provide a broad coverage of the industry and technology, it also provides technical building-block details necessary to move beyond the books intent.

The author accomplishes his goal of removing the mystery and encourages forward thinking. The book is easy to understand and will always be on my shelf as a reference book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: The chutzpah these guys have. This book has nothing whatsoever to do with interactive TV. It's a technical overview of Digital TV (all the boring technical detail about standards, compression etc that is freely available on the web). They don't even mention a word about middleware providers(Open TV, Liberate etc); they don't deal at all with the business/marketing or media issues related to ITV. If u are looking fo information about interactive TV, look elsewhere. I feel ripped off and (angry).

Rating:
Summary: A Useful Overview of Interactive TV
Review: This book covers the technical basics upon which interactive TV is built. It is not a business-oriented look at interactive services, which are still very fluid. What it does cover, quite well, is the fundamental technologies that make interactive TV work. Considerable detail is provided on digital television, the real enabler of this technology, and the standards being developed to make it all work. I found the book a good primer on the technologies involved.