We've had several partners in this study, notably Comcast Corporation and Digital Video Arts and its parent SeaChange International. Comcast is the country's largest cable provider and SeaChange International is the largest VOD technology provider. Comcast has begun an aggressive rollout of digital cable and VOD services to its customers across the country, while SeaChange - Comcast's VOD partner - is deploying increasing interactive VOD servers; in fact, the capabilities of today's digital set-top boxes and VOD servers exceed the VOD services now offered to Comcast customers.

We discovered that VOD technology is crudely interactive today - but growing more and more interactive every year. This means that it's possible to interact with digital TV content in much the same way we interact with video cassette recorders (VCRs) and - soon - digital video disk (DVD) players. Eventually, interaction with digital television will equal the interaction capabilities of the Internet.

The figure below describes the interaction capabilities of emerging VOD technologies across three scenarios over the 2002 - 2006 period of time. The trends clearly suggest more interactivity which means more and more content will become accessible through VOD.

Video-on-Demand (VOD) Interaction Capabilities Over Time - click to enlarge image

The figure describes current capabilities as well as the capabilities that will exist over the next several years. The figure identifies the technologies that will enable VOD-based learning. Input devices, set-top boxes, VOD systems and distance learning server technology will evolve through 2006 to the point where it will be possible to provide more than DVD-like interaction with all varieties of learning content. Much of the interaction technology is ready today - though it hasn't yet been activated by cable providers. This technology lead makes us optimistic about future interaction capabilities; in fact, technology risk is virtually zero.

We developed technology trends projections as well as interaction scenarios that describe how digital cable/VOD can be used to deliver learning content. Our research positions us to experiment with digital cable/VOD to determine if this new technology can be used to deliver learning content. The full report is available at: http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/view/v2n6/pdf/v2n6_andriole.pdf.

Stephen J. Andriole Villanova University

Brian C. Dooner
Comcast Corporation VOD Consultant

Jeffrey L. Worthington Ascendigm, LLC

The Sloan Foundation recently supported a planning study to determine if cable TV – and its most recent offering, video-on-demand (VOD) – might represent another learning channel. The idea was simple: can we exploit the increasingly interactive features of digital cable TV for learning purposes? Can we use VOD technology to create a learning channel?

We concluded that there are several extremely promising opportunities for digital cable (TV)-based learning. This conclusion is based on:

• The roll-out pace of digital cable and its most promising interactive technology, video-on-demand (VOD),

• The VCR- and DVD-like interactive capabilities of video-on-demand (VOD) and

• The cable industry’s interest in learning content.

Cable has penetrated over 80% of the American households through which programmed entertainment is broadcast 24/7/365. More recently, digital cable transmission has become the new consumer standard target delivery technology, a technology that enables additional features, including two way interaction, time-shifted programming, customization, personalization and other forms of pull-versus-push content options. This is the change - the disruptive event - that we believe holds enormous promise for learning outside the classroom.

While the majority of cable programming is pushed at consumers at pre-determined times, an increasing amount is pulled through pay-per-view and the newest model - video-on-demand (VOD). VOD is the how the cable industry will personalize content. Programming will be selected and stored based on user/viewer preferences; content will be stored by cable providers who will host personal content on remote servers. What will people do with this capability? Some will direct their cable provider to build personalized content (sports programming, Mel Gibson movies) but others will want more specialized content, such as learning content in multiple forms.