Past Work – Mindhouse
In 2001 I set up Mindhouse as Managing Director with two colleagues. Mindhouse set out to:
- deliver creative technical solutions for broadcasters
- build bespoke applications for clients
- our vision was:
- to deliver ready to go, open standards solutions
- to solve, the “less sexy”, infrastructure requirements of Interactive TV broadcast
- increase efficiency
- reduce time across complete lifecycle…
- and cut costs
We bootstrapped Mindhouse for the first two years, securing funding from VCs after closing our first product license sale to CNN.
Our flagship product, Mindset, delivered the same content to each of the main middlewares (as well as web and mobile) packaging the data and the middleware-specific application together and publishing each one via the platform’s specific broadcast method (e.g. satellite or cable headend).
In addition, Mindhouse developed three key application frameworks, allowing cost-effective reuse of the most popular interactive services: Engage (for permanent channel and news information services); Elect (for voting); and Enquire (for quizzes and competitions).
Elect
- An end-to-end voting and polling system for broadcasters
- Uniquely flexible broadcaster-focused solution
Enquire
- A complete quiz /competition toolset
- Complete control for broadcasters
Engage
- A magazine-based application with a powerful, multi-lingual CMS.
On this page you’ll find a brief overview of some of the projects delivered by Mindhouse. All are based on settop box technology, covering MHP, Liberate and OpenTV.
Eurosport
Built with Liberate middleware to show the enhanced TV possibilities available on cable in the UK. The Eurosport service featured: multi-language audio switching and multichannel switching; contextual news articles; ability to set reminders for future viewing (including an SMS reminder service); vote on programme related topics; and shop for merchandise.
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Channel 4
As part of a Mindset-based solution comprising a suite of applications, Channel 4 offered viewers the chance to participate in programme-related voting and quizzes. Based on Mindset Elect (voting) and Enquire (quizzes) products, the broadcaster was able to offer iTV services across all their channels (C4, E4 and FilmFour). Once the editorial team had the idea and the visual assets to support it, it took literally minutes, as opposed to days, to put it on air.
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Mindhouse’s voting and quiz solutions will form the centrepiece of Channel 4 ‘5 interactive strategy across all its digital channels.
Peter Good, Head of Interactive Television, Channel 4
BBC
One of our first projects at Mindhouse, the BBC Prime service comprised a full content management and publishing service – allowing for language localisation (we demonstrated an Arabic version in parallel) and powerful image handling tools. Eventually becoming the basis of our Engage product, Mindhouse were responsible for the creation of the settop box application as well as the Mindset-based content management systems delivering the content into the broadcast streams. Utilising multiple broadcast platforms, viewers were able to access schedule information. additional information about the programmes on the screen, merchandising and contextual advertising.
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TandbergTV
Mindhouse were asked to partner with TandbergTV to deliver a cutting edge video on demand (VoD) service for cable companies using OpenTV middleware. based on their new end to end cable VoD platform, the brief was to create a dynamically updatable service which allowed for simple content updates. Mindhouse built an EPG for the service and a VoD client, allowing users to control the playback of their chosen video.
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“Mindset is a vital part of our Video On Demand system…it allows operators to churn their content quickly and efficiently, and means that Tandberg can offer a VoD system to our clients that can be easily extended to support additional Interactive applications using the same infrastructure”
Adrian Bell, Cable Segment Manager, Tandberg Television
CNN
CNN used Mindset to power their 24/7 News service, providing a system to support iTV platforms across EMEA.
With Mindset CNN were given:
- the capability to source, manage and distribute scheduled and real-time dynamic content from any content management system(s)
- the capability to manage advertising for iTV platforms across multiple territories
- the freedom to choose any application authoring environment
- the ability to manage multistream applications and VoD
“In a complex environment, we believe Mindset will give CNN the ability to manage cross-platform services cost-effectively”
Casey Harwood, Vice President and Commercial Director, Turner Broadcasting Systems Europe
Cartoon Network
Turner Broadcasting Europe were the first broadcaster to license Mindset. This is one of the first services which benefited – running simultaneously across satellite and cable here in the UK.
ITV
Mindhouse completed numerous projects for ITV, including two revisions of their prize interactive service, Who Wants To Be A Millionare? Changes included redesigning the sponsorship section to incorporate new sponsors and updating the return path system to handle score submissions at the end of each contestant’s round, rather than at the end of the programme.
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