Receiver-side semantic reasoning for digital TV personalization in the absence of return channels

Experience has proved that interactive applications delivered through Digital TV must provide personalized information to the viewers in order to be perceived as a valuable service. Due to the limited computational power of DTV receivers (either domestic set-top boxes or mobile devices), most of the existing systems have opted to place the personalization engines in dedicated servers, assuming that a return channel is always available for bidirectional communication. However, in a domain where most of the information is transmitted through broadcast, there are still many cases of intermittent, sporadic or null access to a return channel. In such situations, it is impossible for the servers to learn who is watching TV at the moment, and so the personalization features become unavailable. To solve this problem without sacrificing much personalization quality, this paper introduces solutions to run a downsized semantic reasoning process in the DTV receivers, supported by a pre-selection of material driven by audience stereotypes in the head-end. Evaluation results are presented to prove the feasibility of this approach, and also to assess the quality it achieves in comparison with previous ones.

Ana Fernández-VilasEmail:

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Martín López-Nores   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2006. His research deals primarily with the design of personalization architectures for a range of DTV applications, considering both fixed and mobile receivers. Yolanda Blanco-Fernández   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2007. Her research is focused on knowledge representation, semantic reasoning technologies and recommender systems. José J. Pazos-Arias   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Madrid University of Technology (UPM) in 1995, and worked with Alcatel Laboratories in Madrid prior to joining the University of Vigo. He is the founder and director of the Networking & Software Engineering Group, which is currently involved with several projects related to DTV middleware and applications. Jorge García-Duque   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2000. His research is focused on the deployment of information services over heterogeneous networks of consumer devices. Manuel Ramos-Cabrer   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2000. His research interests include the application of artificial intelligence techniques to personalization systems. Alberto Gil-Solla   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2000. His research is currently involved with different aspects of middleware design and interactive multimedia services. Rebeca P. Díaz-Redondo   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2002. Her research is now focused on interactive DTV applications playing a central role in the control of smart home environments. Ana Fernández-Vilas   received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Vigo in 2002. Her research interests deal with Web Services technologies and ubiquitous computing environments.