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Toy Daleks that move in time with their on-screen counterparts in an episode of Doctor Who have been demonstrated by researchers at BBC R&D North.
The prototype is part of a wider project called Universal Control, which is investigating how video played on a connected-TV or internet-enabled set-top box can be used to control other devices in the living room.
“It’s a playful illustration that shows the possibilities that exist to producers when we start to think about future connectivity in a home environment in which all devices will be IP connected,” explained R&D North project director Adrian Woolard.
“Effectively this puts another actor in the living room, enabling a production team to write a script and include it as part of the viewer’s experience.”
In the experiment, devised by trainee technologist Andrew Bonney, a 2 ft-high remote-controlled toy mirrored the movements of a Dalek from a sequence in Doctor Who.
Bonney had programmed the model, which was triggered automatically by timecode in the video sent over wi-fi from a MythTV open-source DVR.
In future, such metadata could be embedded into the video at the point of acquisition and applied to any commercial set-top box or connected TV.
Universal Control is primarily aimed at transferring the functions of a platform like YouView to devices and user interfaces that are more user-friendly to people with physical disabilities.
BBC R&D is also exploring the impact of dual-screen usage on content production at the points of acquisition and pre-production.
It has developed an iPad app for production teams to input data while video is captured, so that it is instantly available to all members of the production team and kept along with the video in perpetuity.
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