Web TV: 11 useful links

Broadband portal to watch live TV broadcasts and on demand TV broadcasts on the Internet.

Articles related to WebTV issues: The History of WebTV, Surfing-WebTV Style, WebTV HTML, WebTV or MSNTV, WebTV Tags, Designing Your Site for the WebTV Browser, WebTV Tutorials and Help, MSNTV HTML, and more.

The television interface to the web offers potential to providers of goods and services. As WebTV's CrossOver Links become more common, integrating television programming with web site content will enhance the media experience for the viewing audience. Today's webmasters need to be fully prepared to meet the challenges of this emerging market. This article covers: primary considerations, document structure, document elements, and multimedia.

This tool simulates the TV browser on a personal computer. It tells if web content is appropriate for the receiver. It shows how content is altered to look the best on a television screen. There is a special window that shows how tables and images are scaled, information that is not available on a standard receiver. It contains utilities for creating triggers and sequencing them into a file for use when links are incorporated into a broadcast.

This article compares television and traditional computers along a number of dimensions: screen resolution, input devices, viewing distance, user posture, integration opportunities with other things on same device, number of users, and user engagement.

WebTV is the first web user interface for which I have discovered a serious need for navigational aids within the page.

My main recommendation is not to design explicitly for WebTV unless you are creating a service dedicated to television users. The power of the Web is cross-platform design and the ability to have your user interface reside on a server under your control from which it can be projected to any customer in the world no matter what local equipment they have.

MSN TV is part of Microsoft's MSN division. The group delivers interactive services to the TV, develops and distributes MSN entertainment, information and communication services to the living room through TV-connected devices.

Originally launched in 2000, AOLTV was expected to extend AOL's dominance from the PC to the TV set. AOL teamed up with consumer-electronics manufacturer Philips Electronics to create a set-top box that could be purchased at Circuit City stores or offered through DirecTV. However, AOL was unable to gain enough consumer interest in the product.

This web includes web design rules such as: designing for TV, navigating on TV, TV screen resolution, text on TV, layout, graphics, color for PCs and TVs, and content across platforms. It explains how to develop and code, covering: HTML, cascading style sheets, JavaScript, interactive TV, multimedia, secure pages, proxy servers, and testing. It offers tips, tools, an a forum.