John and thread, article...The Desktop TV...
November 8, 1999
PC Magazine : Digital TV (DTV) is still a mysterious beast, but the computer industry is doing everything possible to tame it. Software and hardware developers--including Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft--are hard at work developing a platform for enabling DTV on PCs.
Initially, such a platform involves integration of data applications into digital TV programs. DTV signals are smaller and better compressed than analog signals. And with the whopping 6-MHz bandwidth over which DTV signals travel, there's enough capacity to deliver any of the 18 digital video formats to your screen and then some, including Web pages and multimedia files.
Perhaps while watching a football game on your new DTV, you'd like to download your favorite players' stats and bios. Or maybe you'd like to purchase the VCR you just saw featured in a commercial during the game's halftime. With a DTV-enabled computer, you'll be able to press a button on your remote control to download the Web pages or multimedia files to your PC. "HDTV bandwidth is even big enough for downloading software applications straight to your PC, " says Alfonse Licata, a group product manager at ATI Technologies.
DTV Hardware
But until HDTV sets are affordable, most consumers won't pay for them. That could open up a huge opportunity for the PC industry, which has been looking for some time at how to bring more computer functionality into the living room, either right alongside the TV or in place of it. Market research firm Media Metrix reports that nearly half of all Windows PC households have a television in the same room as the PC, compared with 40 percent in 1997.
All it takes is a graphics accelerator in your PC that can handle the DTV-format MPEG decoding and a DTV receiver card. The combined solution will run you $500 to $1,000, according to Licata, a far cry from the $5,000-to-$10,000 price tags of HDTV sets. Such a setup will let you watch DTV programming as well as interact with whatever special data files accompany a show.
On the hardware front, ATI just unveiled the RAGE 128, a graphics chip that card vendors can integrate to DTV-enable their wares. At Comdex, in fact, Compaq and Panasonic unveiled a two-card DTV tuner/decoder for PCs that uses ATI's chip. The device enables computers to receive, decode, and display digital television signals on-screen. Further, Hitachi America and Intel are developing All Format Decoder technology, which will enable PCs to receive and display DTV-formatted content.
ATI is also incorporating its RAGE graphics chips into digital TV set-top boxes, including one from General Instruments. IBM, LSI Logic, Lucent, Philips, PowerTV, and VLSI are also working on chips for digital TVs and set-top boxes.
The bad news, says Licata, is that broadcasters are moving really slowly to integrate these types of services into their digital shows. That delay could be costly. "TV broadcasters are losing viewers to the Internet. Some say there are now as many as 50 million Internet users. If TV broadcasters want to keep market share, they'll need to embrace the Internet," he adds.
Craig Mundie, senior vice president of the consumer platforms group at Microsoft, agrees. "PCs and converged digital devices represent a key element of the television industry's future revenue growth," Mundie says. "The computer industry will deliver millions of digital sets to the marketplace--as many as 100 million by 2005. In this time frame, hundreds of millions of sets and digital devices will be capable of receiving digital television signals, a ready-made audience. We believe the television industry will want to make sure it is reaching these viewers."
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