Photo caption: Frontline as viewed through one of WebTV's several screen options.

"Convergence" is here: you can watch video and listen to audio tracks on your computer, and with Microsoft's WebTV you can surf the Internet on your television. The Caption Center at WGBH is leading the way toward this convergence of computers and TV by creating Internet links on television programs to take viewers directly to related Web sites. Interactive TV links, also known as crossover links, are Web addresses (URLs) embedded in line 21 of the video signal - the same line that carries closed captions. These links can be inserted in a television program when captions are created.

Viewers with WebTV boxes connected to their televisions are alerted to Web site connections by a small icon on the screen. They can visit the sites while the program plays on a portion of the screen, or store the links and visit the sites later.

Several PBS shows produced by WGBH/Boston, such as NOVA and Frontline, have been carrying Web links for over a year. Last September, The Caption Center became the first captioning agency to insert Web links live, during NBC's national broadcast of the 50th Annual Emmy Awards. Networks, advertisers, and music video producers see these links as a valuable opportunity to extend the reach of their productions by capitalizing on the popularity of the Web.

Media Access, Spring/Summer 1999:
The Phantom Menace Comes to NCAM | Accessible Digital TV | Enhanced Arthur 2000 | CD-ROMs, Useful for Everyone | MAGpie: Hot New Web Tool | Caption Center Links TV Viewers to the Web | MIT and Online Learning | From the Director | "Messages" at the Museum of Science

Priority Access: Serving NCAM Business Partners
NCAM Helps Prepare Business Partners for the Future | Millennium Partners | Collaborative Partnerships Increase Access | Equal Access: From the 1950s to the Future

Copyright © 1999 WGBH Educational Foundation

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NCAM | WGBH Educational Foundation