Interactive Broadcast Story Manager Using Branching Graphs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional television broadcasting lacks interactivity, limiting viewer engagement to passive experiences, as integrating user participation into the content while maintaining story coherence is a complex task.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for providing an interactive broadcast that includes a content generator, active and passive collaborating users, a cloud-based data server, and a control server with a story manager, which generates and manages audio-visual content, metadata, and control scripts to allow user interactions that impact the storyline, using a branching story graph to manage multiple storylines and user preferences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If user participation and engagement are integrated into TV content, then viewer engagement and interactivity are improved, but system complexity and difficulty of maintaining story coherence increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the broadcast content into modular story units that can be independently managed and recombined based on user interactions. Each story unit contains specific interaction points and outcomes, allowing the system to handle complexity through structured decomposition of the narrative flow.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary platform that mediates between user inputs and story progression. This intermediary layer processes user interactions, determines appropriate story branches, and maintains narrative coherence without requiring direct complex integration between user participation and content delivery systems.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple storylines and user interactions are managed dynamically, then adaptability and viewer influence are improved, but difficulty of detecting and measuring story state increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms that continuously monitor user interactions and automatically adjust story progression. The platform tracks story state through structured data models that capture current narrative position, user choices, and available branches, making the complex state management detectable and measurable through systematic feedback loops.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-defining story branches, interaction points, and transition rules before broadcast begins. This preparation creates a structured framework where story state can be tracked through predetermined paths and decision nodes, reducing the complexity of real-time state detection and measurement.
3Adaptability or versatility
If real-time user interactions are processed to impact storyline, then interactivity is improved, but response time and processing speed requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and validating user interaction protocols, story branch definitions, and transition rules before the broadcast begins. This advance preparation enables faster real-time processing during the actual broadcast, as the system only needs to execute pre-validated logic rather than performing complex analysis in real-time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments interaction processing into discrete, pre-defined event types and response categories. By breaking down user interactions into standardized segments with predetermined handling procedures, the system can process real-time inputs more efficiently through structured decision trees rather than requiring complex real-time analysis of every interaction.
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a server for providing an interactive broadcast. The server includes a memory configured to store a story manager including an event controller, a story controller and an action processor, and a hardware processor configured to execute the story manager. The story manager is configured to provide, using the event controller, an event based on a control script, story elements metadata, one or more user performance analyses, and one or more user preferences. The story manager is also configured to generate, using the story controller, an action command based on the event received from the event controller and a story state. The story manager is further configured to determine, using the action processor, an action corresponding to the action command for initiating one or more control processes for distributing the interactive broadcast.