Early digital TV companies get foot in door
By Robert Lemos, ZDNN
November 9, 1998 3:29 PM PT
Despite forecasts of slow growth in the digital TV market, companies are announcing products in attempts to grab early market share.
Announcements today included specialized chips that allow digital TV signals and interactive content to be picked up on personal computers and set-top boxes.
Semiconductor newcomer TeraLogic Inc. and old hand Panasonic Industrial Co. separately unveiled plans Monday for products that will merge digital TV technology with that of the PC.
$7,000 for an HDTV -- and nothing to watch.
The trend is expected to continue, said Richard Doherty, director of market research for new-media technology researcher The Envisioneering Group. "We expect that there will be far more people receiving digital TV signals through their PCs rather than digital devices, like an HDTV," he said.
Cougar on terra firma?
TeraLogic, a startup formed in 1996, has placed a lot of PC technology in its prototype chips to merge PC interactivity with the TV. The "reference platform" highlights the company's TL850 graphics processor, code-named Cougar, that can handle not only all 18 new digital TV formats, but interactive content as well.
Set-top boxes based on the platform could display e-mail, electronic program guides, Java-based content, and of course, Web pages.
Monday's announcements follow a similar one by startup Broadcom Corp.
The reference platform gives interested set-top box manufacturers a head start in creating their own products using TeraLogic's chip, while supporting the OpenCable initiative, an alliance of cable companies that ensures that next-generation digital cable architectures work with each other.
"TeraLogic's open architecture strategy is in line with that of the Open Cable project," said Laurie Schwartz, vice president of advanced platforms and services for the industry association in a statement.
But while TeraLogic has the support of computer industry giant Sun Microsystems Inc., set-top box maker General Instruments Inc. and interactive software maker PlanetWeb, no final contracts have emerged, pointed out Doherty.
"They are a serious contender," he said, "but there is a very tough thing in this industry about having concrete orders."
The Cougar chip is TeraLogic's second entry into the set-top box market, following its TL750, which will ship "millions" of units this year, said Kishore Manghnani, TeraLogic's vice president or marketing.
Digital TV in the PC
Panasonic Industrial, meantime, has gone the other way, looking to display the TV on PCs. The Japanese company announced its own digital TV entry -- a dual-board option for displaying digital signals on the PC. The two boards can receive all 18 formats approved by the Federal Communications Commission as well as today's standard analog NTSC format. The product was developed in conjunction with Compaq Computer Corp. and will initially be sold directly to PC manufacturers.
"We expect to accelerate high-definition and digital TV in [the U.S.]," said Ash Chabra, group manager for Panasonic Industrial, in a statement.
Envisioneering's Doherty believes TV-on-PC technologies such as Panasonic's will initially dominate the digital TV market, shipping more than 100,000 units in the first year -- as compared with about 12,000 digital TVs.
"These announcements are only the first," he said. "There are a handful or two more in the works." |
