TCI begins the race. Microsoft and Sun are off and running.........
(hardware MPEG2 decode)
techweb.cmp.com
Sun, M'soft duke it out on cable TV
By Junko Yoshida
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- The recent decision by cable-TV operator
Tele-Communications Inc. to license versions of both Java and Windows CE
for its Web-enabled, digital set-top boxes promises to resonate far beyond
the business plans of TCI, Microsoft and Sun. Wielding its influence as the
nation's largest cable operator, TCI has set the stage for a broad battle
between the two computer giants for dominance of the digital set-top and has
strengthened the likelihood that Microsoft and Sun's JavaSoft will tailor their
technologies to the cable industry's emerging OpenCable specifications for
digital interactive service.
"It's a very shrewd business move on the part of TCI," observed a high-level
executive of a set-top box manufacturer who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. "TCI has essentially set up a horse race between two very
motivated companies" to create low-cost, flexible set-top box architectures in
a multivendor, modular environment.
The opportunity to influence the cable industry's development of
programming interfaces for interactive digital-TV applications has both
computer companies chomping at the bit. They also see an opportunity to
protect computer-industry interests in the emerging digital-TV market.
Specifically, the TCI/Microsoft deal revives the debate over video formats.
Citing bandwidth concerns, the cable industry has been reluctant to support
all 18 of the formats specified by the Advanced Television Systems
Committee (ATSC) and backed by terrestrial broadcasters. Microsoft
scored no small coup in getting TCI to agree to support the HD-0 formats
favored by members of its DTV Team initiative. HD-0 favors
progressive-scan formats and supports legacy NTSC.
"The cable industry has a proxy in digital TV," said Craig Mundie, senior vice
president of Microsoft's consumer platforms division. "The HD-0 formats are
more relevant [now] than ever before."
And while Java and the Windows CE/WebTV platform are favorites in the
"horse race" for market share in Internet-centric set-tops, they're not the only
contenders. An in-depth look at the deals reveals that Sun and Microsoft will
have to put in a few laps pleasing TCI before they can hope to win over the
cable industry at large.
The goal of the industry's OpenCable initiative is to define a set of interfaces
that will let cable operators purchase and deploy next-generation set-top
boxes with operating-system and microprocessor independence. The specs
will also detail the key application programming Interfaces (APIs) to which
cable operators and application developers will write interactive services and
applications.
In TCI's view, neither Windows CE nor Personal Java is a completely
satisfactory solution for advancing the cable industry's set-top goals. "There
are still a lot of functions in Windows CE that we feel are unnecessary for
cable set-tops," David Beddow, senior vice president of TCI Ventures
Group, told EE Times. Similarly, Beddow said, TCI hopes to work with Sun
to streamline Personal Java or adopt a set-top-centric subset, to trim the
memory footprint required for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Through collaborations with both Sun and Microsoft, "we'll hammer out the
technical specs within the next 60 to 90 days" for the minimum of 5 million
set-tops TCI plans to purchase from Next Level Systems Inc, Beddow said.
As part of the Microsoft deal, TCI will adopt key building blocks of
Microsoft's internally developed digital set-top specifications, code-named
WebTV 98. The specs target design of set-tops for entertainment TV
viewing as well as Internet connectivity. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said
the set-tops leverage WebTV's technologies, run a version of Windows CE
and also support a subset of Java, with support for HD-0 DTV for DTV
video.
Which CPU?
According to Beddow, TCI's advanced digital set-top will have a 6-MHz
tuner for MPEG transport; a cable-industry-standard Docsis tuner; and either
Docsis return or an E1-based, two-way RF modem for telephone return, for
areas where the cable operator's headend does not support a two-way
infrastructure. The minimum memory configuration is expected to be 4
Mbytes of ROM, 8 Mbytes of flash and 8 Mbytes of RAM.
The box will come with a connector for a hard-disk drive (enabling instant
replay) and a CPU to run a version of Windows CE tailored for a cable
set-top. It will pack graphics/video-processing technologies similar to those
implemented as an ASIC in the latest WebTV Plus box.
TCI will settle on a microprocessor for the set-tops "shortly," said chairman
and chief executive John Malone. In theory, the box could run on any of the
microprocessors to which Windows CE is ported; those include the SH,
MIPS, ARM and X86 architectures.
Malone said TCI chose the Windows CE/WebTV design "because we felt
that it is further along in terms of convergence of the TV set and the Internet,
particularly with the WebTV technologies." But the platform, which has yet to
be publicly demonstrated, is hardly the only prospect in the emerging market
and may not be the furthest along in terms of development.
Time Warner Cable is claiming the development lead for its Pegasus set-top.
Codeveloped by Scientific-Atlanta, Toshiba Corp. and Pioneer, Pegasus
runs the PowerTV real-time operating system on a hardware system
comprising a 54-Mips 32-bit Microsparc II core and an SGS-Thomson
graphics ASIC, with HTML-engine and JavaScript support.
"We feel that our advanced digital cable set-top is at least 12 to 18 months
ahead of our competitors' set-tops," said Bob Van Orden, director of
marketing for digital video systems at Scientific-Atlanta. He listed Time
Warner and Comcast as customers and said more orders will be announced
soon.
Few developers of real-time operating systems for two-way cable were
surprised to learn of the TCI/Microsoft deal. "We were [saying] at our
executive meeting just last month, 'Let's not kid ourselves that Microsoft
won't come into this market,' " said Bill Aspromonte, vice president of
software development at PowerTV. "We've known all along that Microsoft
wants to be the Web solution in TVs."
But Windows CE has some catching up to do, particularly in its support for
set-top "push" technologies. CE's developers must add direct support for
MPEG streams, Digital Audio Visual Council (Davic) and Digital Storage
Media Control Command (DMS-CC) formats, QAM transmission of
MPEG system information, and TV-management and data-carousel
functions, among other technologies.
TCI executives claim the company doesn't expect its OS and CPU choices
to dictate those of its competitors. Noting that the primary goal of the
OpenCable initiative is OS- and CPU-independent set-tops, Beddow said
it's "more likely that the rest of the cable industry [will] choose other real-time
operating systems for their set-tops--such as those running on PowerTV,
OpenTV, OS-9, etc.--while supporting Java."
Asked to clarify the role Personal Java and Windows CE may play in the
OpenCable effort's Cable API definitions, Don Dulchinos, OpenCable
project leader for the CableLabs R&D consortium, declined to comment.
"We can't talk about it, because we haven't written those APIs yet for the
OpenCable specs."
The Microsoft deal specifies that every set-top TCI purchases will
incorporate Windows CE. Because of memory constraints, however, not
every box is expected to include a Java Virtual Machine. That could mitigate
Personal Java's influence on the Cable API. But most observers said the
OpenCable specs will likely mandate basic support for HTML and
JavaScript.
There's thus a question as to how many mainstream cable applications may
need to be written in Java, rather than JavaScript. A full Personal Java
implementation would require full support for Personal Java's class libraries
and would thus require integration of the full JVM. But Curtis Sasaki, group
manager of product marketing at JavaSoft, cautioned that "it's too early in the
game to tell exactly what TCI wants to do."
Since Windows CE supports a Java subset, designing both Personal Java
and CE into the same set-top would result in redundant functions that would
needlessly devour memory. Sasaki suggested that for their lower-end boxes,
some cable operators may opt to combine a non-CE RTOS with Personal
Java.
But TCI has committed to using CE in all of it set-tops. Why, then, sign on
with Sun for Personal Java and Embedded Java?
"Because they have realized that there is already a large developers'
community and a variety of tools available for Java," Sasaki responded.
Support for a core set of classes defined in Personal Java will allow newly
developed applets to be downloaded and executed on a variety of set-tops
integrated with JVM.
Further, Sasaki said, cable operators have expressed interest in working with
Sun to define TV-specific APIs using Personal Java. The TV APIs would sit
on top of Java APIs, and applets written to the TV-centric programming
interfaces could run on any JVM-enabled set-top. Windows CE APIs, in
theory, would be only relevant to applications that would require them to
make hardware-specific calls, such as to I/O, memory management and
platform drivers. High-speed game applications, for example, would likely be
platform-specific and written to the OS in C or C++.
Video victory
In a coup for Microsoft, TCI's advanced set-top will incorporate a
standalone MPEG-2 video-decoder IC that supports the HD-0 formats
backed by the PC industry's DTV Team. It eliminates the heavy memory and
processing burden imposed by the 1080i interlaced spec.
As currently specified, the set-top will lack sufficient memory to receive and
decode all 18 ATSC-approved video formats. Depending on how the
Federal Communications Commission structures its "must carry" rules for
cable, Beddow said, TCI could add a SIMM strip to allow sufficient memory
for 1080i. The box's MPEG-2 video-decoder chip would also need an
upgrade, to MPEG-2 Main Profile@High Level.
In her keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show, FCC commissioner Susan
Ness said the must-carry rules should apply to cable operators. The FCC
will examine the issue further next month, she said.
Yet in opting to support only a subset of the approved video formats, TCI
may be betting that the FCC's ruling could fall in the cable-industry's favor.
Terrestrial broadcasters are hoping the FCC will mandate that cable
operators carry broadcast HDTV and multicasting programs in unadulterated
form. But TCI's Beddow said the cable-industry position "has always been
that 1080i broadcasting is wasteful from a bandwidth standpoint."
Asked if the OpenCable specification will also support HD-0, Dulchinos of
CableLabs said that "without knowing what video formats broadcasters will
use, we don't know what we need to support yet." |
