Inanimate objects have become personal. It's not at all rare to hear someone say that she loves her mobile phone or that he feels naked without his iPod.

The love affair between us and our devices is based on more than technology. Just as we're attracted to looks and personality in people, we're drawn to design and intuitive behaviour in consumer electronic devices. It's no coincidence that the look and feel of today's accessories is often called the "human interface." Modern design humanizes the interaction between people and their devices.

Ironically, the most popular of all entertainment activities – TV – is lagging a long way behind the field when it comes to the human interface and user experience.

Up until now, there have been valid reasons for that. The TV set-top box (STB) is an impersonal device and, in most cases, a proprietary one. It has little of the flexibility that we have come to expect form our mobile phones or music players.

People swap out mobile phones every 18 months, on average, so new functionality spreads rapidly through the market. The average life of a TV set-top box (STB,) on the other hand, is five years – virtually a lifetime in today's hyperactive technology environment. During that time, the only way the user interface can be changed is by a laborious and costly process of building a new design and then downloading it in its entirety across the TV network to millions of STBs.

The changing face of the UI

No wonder, then, that TV interfaces have evolved at the pace of a tortoise while, all around them, other device interfaces have propagated like hares.

But that is now changing. NDS' revolutionary concept UI, Snowflake, won the CSI  "Best Interactive TV technology" award at the recent IBC exhibition and another of its products, EPG Framework, looks set to transform the way program guides are built and distributed.

EPG Framework is a technology infrastructure that puts control of the TV interface firmly into the hands of the TV operator. It enables the operator to build and change the EPG at its own discretion, without needing to download the entire EPG when only a cosmetic or editorial update is required.

Reduced cost and increased efficiency would be enough to make the release of EPG Framework a turning-point in the evolution of the TV user interface. But there's more to it than that. EPG Framework transforms what is traditionally a user tool into a revenue generator for the TV operator, by opening up screen real estate for advertising and promotion.

The function of the EPG has evolved since the advent of multi-channel TV. Competition from other broadcasters, as well as from broadband video, has compelled operators to continually expand their channel lineups and offer supplementary services such as DVR, VOD, PPV and Interactive TV.

TV has become richer and more sophisticated, but it has also become a lot more complex to navigate. Most TV viewers are not technology geeks. The increasing difficulty of programme discovery has left many of them either confused or simply unaware of the content and services available.

Enriched programming without enhanced discovery has left many consumers confused and unaware of what's available

For the operator, that defeats the whole purpose. New programming and sophisticated services are expensive. If the consumer can't access them, they are neither competitive nor revenue-generating. The solution is obvious: the program guide must both enable the consumer to discover new content and services, while providing the operator with the means of highlighting and promoting them.

The flexibility for change

But knowing the solution and being able to implement it are two different things. The built-in rigidity of the traditional EPG, makes it incapable of meeting the needs of the contemporary consumer and TV operator alike.

That is the radical value of EPG Framework. By providing a platform for the search and discovery functions that the consumer needs, giving the operator the flexibility to make on-the-fly interface adjustments and utilizing the EPG real estate for promotions, sponsorship and advertising, EPG Framework sets the mark for all future TV interfaces.

EPG Framework is now successfully deployed at several NDS customers around the world. As one customer, Mr. Sugato Banerji, Chief Marketing Officer of Bharti Airtel, puts it “NDS EPG Framework is already proving to be a powerful tool that allows us to engage more effectively with our DTH customers. We have designed and branded our EPG using NDS EPG Framework and have also used the EPG Updates feature to promote our PPV movies and to make seasonal greetings to our DTH customers.”

Comments such as that are causing the TV industry to sit up and pay attention. The era of the contemporary user interface, with its interchangeability and promotional capabilities for the TV operator and its choice of themes, widgets and screen animations for the consumer, is coming to the TV.

Just as it's already impossible to imagine the mobile phone landscape without the iPhone or the music player industry without the iPod, it may soon be difficult to conceive of a successful digital TV service without the underpinning of EPG Framework from NDS.