User-Centric Companion Screen Architecture for Improving Accessibility of Broadcast Services

Bridging broadcast and internet services can be difficult because the system architectures are typically different. Although integrated broadcast-broadband systems that can provide companion screen (CS) services have been standardized, the existing systems are television-centric. Therefore, it can be difficult for users to easily access broadcast services through mobile applications. We propose a CS architecture (CSA) that can be used to tune to specific TV channels and launch broadcast–related applications from a CS such as a smartphone, smart speaker, or smartwatch. The general versatility and feasibility of the proposed CSA was verified through prototyping of multiple use cases. Moreover, based on user tests, we confirmed that our proposed CSA has the potential to improve broadcast accessibility from mobile applications and increase the number of times the users watch broadcast programs. Thus, our proposed CSA can help bridge broadcast and mobile or Internet-of-Things services.