The Future interaction Television (FiTV) project continues research into the development of digital television that was started in the FutureTV project. This three-year research programme was funded by Tekes, and three universities involved (Tampere University of Technology, University of Tampere and Helsinki University of Technology) produced research and development results of the key applications, technologies, and services relating to the deployment of digital television.

FiTV project is designed to answer to the challenges of the next phase in media evolution. Traditionally, television has not been naturally suited for personal, interactive use. The integration with other media appliances and with the development of mobile media is creating more challenges.

The users are getting used to the advanced interactive services in the Internet, while they employ their personal terminals (of PDA or mobile phone type) for schedulling and payment services. Digital television has the potential to become a central node in this converging media network, but only if research and development work is conducted in several key areas.

The total duration of the project is three years. It will organise six seminars including workshops that provide exchange of knowledge with participating scientific and corporate experts, as well as various demonstrations, and presentations about the current state of the project. The project is structured into three phases, each one consisting of several work packages and their invidual subtasks.

Phase 1: Evaluation. The current strong research and development work with digital television is evaluated at this phase. The user experiences of prominent interactive services are also systematised into document Way for the Future, the first report of the project.
Phase 2: Development and Implementation. Concentration on detailed examples of advanced interactive services and on new technologies for their management, navigation and authoring. This work will produce comprehensive account of how realisable the interactive contents and technologies are.
Phase 3: Deployment and Integration. The outcome of the second phase is used as a point of departure for the third, concluding research phase. Use scenarios of digiTV in convergence of media and mobility, including collaborative use will be created. New hardware paradigms are researched and guidelines for the future research and development of digital television are offered.