Sport events, games and talk shows are just a few examples of possible iTV applications.
The LiveLink system consists of a variety of components that can be adjusted to the particular usage site of the TV studio.
A novel object tracking system makes this functionality possible. Small infrared transmitters, the so-called LiveLinks, can be attached for example at a guest of a talk show. Every LiveLink emits signals with a distinct identification, so that the system can distinguish several LiveLinks in the same scene.
An infrared camera, the so-called LiveCam, detects the synchronous positions of the LiveLinks and forwards the pictures to the image processing system. In order to transform the coordinates to the video picture of the studio camera, the infrared camera must be assembled close to the objective of the studio camera.
The streams of coordinates of all registered persons and objects are enriched with their context information to LiveLinks. The basic of the editorial content (texts and pictures) is normally the content management system for existing internet or videotext presences. Consequently, there is only little editorial effort required. Only the classification of the infrared transmitters to the context information must be carried out by the editorial office. Thereby, the editorial office can decide freely, which number is assigned to each person.
The heart of the LiveLink system is the LiveStation. It is responsible for the co-ordination of the data generated by the LiveLink and the LiveCam as well as for the broadcasting of that data.