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Broadcast.com Debuts Broadband Box
All-in-one HDTV, TV, PC, home stereo, VCR, DVD, and radio even does Windows.
by Tom Spring, PC World
NEW YORK -- Never mind 500 channels to choose from -- try a zillion. That's the vision of Mark Cuban, chair of Broadcast.com.
During a keynote address at eTV World Tuesday, Cuban announced that Broadcast.com and its soon-to-be-parent company Yahoo are working with CompUSA to manufacture a PC set-top box that will bundle wireless broadband Internet access via digital TV broadcast signals.
The device, yet to be named, is best described as a set-top PC, and will likely gain popularity as the much-heralded convergence between PCs and TVs finally takes shape, according to Cuban. The device could go on sale as early as December. Cuban says the set-top PC will marry high-definition television, broadband Internet access, and a home entertainment center.
The demonstration model shown at the broadband eTV conference was a souped-up CompUSA PC loaded with special software and hardware and connected to a 21-inch computer monitor. The PC ran the Microsoft Windows 98 operating system and came in a jet black and bulky desktop computer form.
Cuban says that the boxes will be marketed as set-top box alternatives meant to reside in living rooms, not home offices. "The war for broadband will be fought in your living room," he says. "What we are trying to do is get people to change their attitude toward what a PC is."
Prices start at $1899 and include a 600-MHz processor, DVD-ROM drive, 27GB hard disk, Ethernet card, a high-definition television decoder TV tuner card, and video in and out ports. Cuban says the PCs will come with pre-loaded movies and music.
"A set-top box is a stupid computer that isn't upgradable, has no hard drive, and you can't take it back," notes Cuban. "What good is that?"
Set-top Hybrid
Short on detail, but grandiose in design, Cuban says his set-top hybrid would allow one to usurp many staple functions of cable set-tops. Not only would you be able to watch broadcast and interactive television, but with the set-top PC you could subscribe to Web-based movie channels, and listen to thousands of Internet radio feeds. The set-top PC would come with ample connectors allowing you to connect speakers, handheld video cameras, and monitors to the device.
Cuban says that he is working with undisclosed companies to send one-way high-speed Internet access to PCs using up-and-coming digital broadcast signals. He says typical customers would have high-speed digital subscriber lines or cable connections to upload streaming content both ways.
TV tuner card maker Hauppauge will supply the digital TV tuner cards. Hauppauge says its cards can receive digital broadcast signals along with data broadcast over the same spectrum at speeds up to 2.5MB-per-second -- or a full CD every 5 minutes.
At those speeds, streaming video is TV quality, Cuban says, opening the door for Broadcast.com and others to offer viable options to watching broadcast and cable television on TV.
"This means your 22-inch monitor has become your TV, computer, and your own private broadcast center," he says. He says that with a mammoth hard drive, you would be able to download programming and save it on your PC for viewing later.
"In the end it's all about bits," he says. "We can create new ideas of what is media and what is content. But we can't if we get stuck in the past paradigm of what it was." |
