Another WAVO mention:
Television-Computer Convergence Hits U.S. Markets
By Dawn C. Chmielewski, The Orange County Register, Calif.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
Sep. 29--Couch potatoes take note: The "idiot box" is about to get a lot
smarter, even as your PC tunes in television signals and starts to
channel-surf.
We're at the bumpy edge of "convergence," when the distinctions that
separate your television from your home computer begin to blur.
You might not want to write a letter to a friend on your 36-inch
big-screen TV, there with your mother-in-law looking on. But you might want
to check NBA sports scores, soap-opera plot summaries or even closing stock
prices while you're watching TV.
If Japan is any predictor of the American TV market, such interactivity
will catch on quickly. With it, Japanese game-show viewers can compete from
home for prizes. Some even use it to order groceries.
The melding of PCs with TVs gives consumers a befuddling array of
choices when buying equipment, and in deciding how they want to get
information on everything from sports scores to stock-market prices.
Here's a guide to what's new and nifty, as well as a look at coming
services that promise to add interactive features to TVs, without consumers
needing to buy any new equipment.
Like an evangelist with fire in his belly and change in his pocket,
computer PC makers know television is the best way to reach 98 percent of the
nation's households.
But their visions of the convergence box -- PC/TVs with
home-theater-sized monitors with surround sound, all powered by brainy 200
MHz Pentium processors -- are a long way from mass-market products.
On the pricey side of the market, the two dominant PC/TV products are
Gateway 2000's Destination Big Screen PC/TV, and the PC Theatre from Compaq
Computer Corp. and Thomson Consumer Products. Each costs about $5,000.
"It's a very high-end product that is likely to appeal to people who are
very much into not just consumer-electronics products, but probably into
computer products as well," said Thomson spokesman James Harper.
Its makers envision the PC/TV as the answer to every home-entertainment
need. Want to watch a movie in crisp, digital video and Dolby Pro Logic
sound? Slap a digital versatile disk into the DVD-ROM drive and grab some
popcorn.
Ready to surf the Internet? Grab your wireless keypad and the kids and
access the World Wide Web via your cable modem.
Eager to play You Don't Know Jack or another computer game with the
whole clan? Don't squint at that 13-inch PC screen; bask in the brilliance of
a 36-inch monitor.
How about a night in front of the TV? The Destination's monitor crams
four times more picture elements (or pixels) onto the screen than
conventional TVs and uses line-doubling techniques to produce a more vivid
image.
Although popular on college campuses and corporate boardrooms, where the
big-screen PC/TV is ideal for group lectures or business presentations, the
Destination hasn't found its way into many homes.
Despite the machine's versatility, the average consumer hasn't found a
compelling reason to buy one. It's phenomenally pricey, as big-screen TVs go.
And as a gaming platform, it costs exponentially more than its popular,
proletarian rival, Nintendo 64.
"I think it's common knowledge that the product didn't meet expectations
at the onset," Bill Graber, Destination's marketing manager. "I'm pretty
confident that we'll be able to meet them."
Graber said the strongest draws for buying a PC/TV -- digital TV signals
and video-streamed broadcasts over the Internet -- are still in their
infancy. Once the digital era arrives, Garber predicts, the market will flock
to the Destination.
Other consumer-electronics giants have taken a low-tech road to
convergence through set-top boxes such as WebTV that bring up World Wide Web
pages with the click of a remote control.
WebTV Networks Inc. provides an inexpensive way for viewers to receive
interactive programming through a television. Every night, 3 gigabytes of
data will travel to a device called WebTV Plus.
When you tune in WebTV Plus the next day, you'll be able to instantly
access online magazines or your favorite World Wide Web sites, so you can
check sports scores, stock prices or traffic conditions before you leave for
work.
It also melds Internet and broadcast content, so that when you're
watching "The X-Files" or "Monday Night Football" you can simply point to a
symbol at the corner of the screen and leap to the related Web page or chat
room to get fresh stats or gossip.
WebTV faces a TV-top challenge from NetChannel Inc., which just
introduced its own version of Internet TV as part of Thomson Electronic's RCA
Network Computer.
Like the RCA entry, WebTV, due in October, will be priced at $299. It
offers faster access to data, a printer port and an upgraded electronic
program guide.
For buyers of WebTV, maker Sony is now bundling a free year's
subscription to WebSite for TV, Inergy Online's service that allows consumers
to create their own Web site with "point and click" simplicity.
Philips also plans to upgrade its WebTV hardware offering this fall,
while a newcomer to the field, Mitsubishi, will offer a slight variation on
the theme.
Despite this mad push, WebTV has hardly been a rousing success.
"They've sold 150,000 of them -- that's not terrible, but it doesn't
show a huge amount of hunger out there in American homes for convergence
technology," said Joel Brinkley, author of "Defining Vision," a book about
the coming digital-TV era.
Not sure if you want or need interactive services, and wary of the cost
of new equipment? A variety of organizations plan to bring interactivity to
ordinary televisions and PCs, without expensive upgrades.
- This fall, NBC will try interactive TV programming that allows viewers
to get certain types of information on screen -- say, a recipe -- even as
they watch Katie Couric chat with the chef on the "Today Show."
NBC won't say where -- or with which show -- it will attempt its
enhanced-television experiment, which will use ordinary set-top boxes
provided by most cable services.
- Wink Communications of Alameda transmits the data through the empty
portion of the TV signal known as the vertical-blanking interval. The data
ride piggyack on top of the regular TV signal, and software inside the
set-top box separates it and displays it on screen.
The technology, already incorporated inside some sets sold by Sony,
Toshiba and JVC in Japan, should reach cable-ready sets sold in the United
States by next year.
- By then, WorldGate Communications will have launched its
interactive-cable service, called WorldGate, which will also offer direct
links to the World Wide Web and E-mail.
For the price of a TV tuner card, or about $85, you can pipe a variety
of news, entertainment and information directly to your PC.
- Starting this fall, WavePhore Inc. of Phoenix will offer six channels
of news, from financial information and family entertainment to the best of
Pathfinder, Time Inc.'s online news service. Or you can request specific
content.
The data travel piggyback (sort of like fleas on a dog) on existing
television signals.
Because it's ad-supported, the service is free. All you need is a
TV-ready PC or a TV tuner card.
"What we do is we aggregate the best of the Internet content and
broadcast it to the home PC," said Sandy Goldman, WaveTop vice president.
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