Japanese TV makers revisit Internet TV [with MPEG-2]
By Yoshiko Hara
EE Times
(08/19/99, 6:53 p.m. EDT)
TOKYO — Three years after Japan's Internet TV efforts first arose only to
quickly fizzle, a clutch of specialized hardware and software companies is
racing back into the market as the Internet boom catches fire in Japan. And
the country's TV manufacturers, desperate to maintain dominance in global
television markets, appear to be taking a keen interest.
TeleCruz Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) is strongly promoting its
one-chip solution to Japanese TV makers as a low-cost way to make TV
sets — beginning with analog ones — Internet accessible. Meanwhile,
Access Co. Ltd. (Tokyo) has completed embedded browser software for
satellite-based digital broadcasting, scheduled to begin in December 2000 in
Japan.
Though TeleCruz believes it can jump-start the market using analog TV,
Access holds that OEMs would rather incorporate Internet access in digital
sets. But both agree that Japanese consumers are primed for interactivity as
more people go online, and need a cheaper way to tap the Internet than the
notoriously expensive phone lines here.
"Internet TV" was a hot product in Japan a few years ago. Mitsubishi
Electric introduced the first such set in 1996 using a browser chip set
developed by Access. Other major TV makers joined the market, but the
products were expensive and died a quiet death due to lackluster sales.
"Japanese TV manufactures are ready to give it another try. There are
couple of key differences vs. three years ago," said Bill Howe, chief
executive officer and president of TeleCruz. "One is that so much Internet
content is in Japanese. Three years ago, Japanese makers had to explain [to
consumers] what the Internet was. The second is that the cost of Internet
has been dropping with the establishment of the Internet infrastructure."
Howe said the TeleCruz solution plays into the need to keep prices down.
"We have a very low cost implementation," he said. TeleCruz intends to offer
its TC701 chip with Japanese language software in September for $35,
including memories and connectors. Since the device will replace existing TV
control functions worth $10, OEMs can thus add Internet access to their TVs
for $25, the company said.
"Nobody has the same level of integration that we have now at such a low
cost point," Howe said. "We have some Japanese customers [that were]
originally designing internally, but they literally canceled it to move to our
platform. I can't say who they are, but they are big TV manufacturers."
Howe, who was president of Intel Japan for five years in the early 1990s and
then headed Intel's flash-memory business, joined TeleCruz in May "because
I believe in the growth of Internet appliances." In the future, he said, the PC
"is not the only mechanism which will access the Internet. The PC will not go
away, but many other devices in your home, your office or your car will
access the Internet. TV is the next logical step, because you have a big
screen already."
Howe's recent promotional trip to Japan was intended "basically to show
Japanese TV makers our capability [and] to give them confidence that it's
the good thing for [sets designed for] the U.S. market. But what I found
since I've been here, just for one week, is they want to use it also for the
Japanese market."
Design-in phase
TeleCruz has been promoting the chip since last year in the United States,
and is now in the design-in phase with Japanese TV makers preparing U.S.
models for introduction next spring. The company expects to ship 10,000
units in September and more than 100,000 units by the end of this year.
Toshiba Corp. is acting as a foundry for TeleCruz, which is fabless.
TeleCruz's one-chip solution integrates a 32-bit RISC CPU, graphics
processor, memory controller, modem and peripheral control circuitry.
TeleCruz is aiming at analog television first. "What we are offering is the first
step toward interactivity in analog televisions and en route to digital
television," said Howe. "The basic feeling is that the Internet is moving faster
than digital television is." TeleCruz plans to introduce its follow-on TC801,
which adds MPEG-2 decoding to the TC701, next summer as a complete
digital TV solution.
Meanwhile, Japan-based Access, which supplies embedded compact
browsers to Japanese TV-set manufacturers, claims that its browser has an
80 to 90 percent share in Internet appliances here. Indeed, the company's
NetFront product has found its way into more than 40 products in Japan.
Sega Enterprise's Dreamcast game console, which features Internet
accessibility, employs it, as does Casio's Windows CE palm computer sold in
Japan. And NTT Docomo's i-mode cellular phone with Internet access uses
the browser as well.
"TV with Internet accessibility will naturally be a trend," said Tomihisa
Kamada, executive vice president of Access in charge of R&D. "But I don't
think TV manufacturers will dare to try to add Internet accessibility again to
analog TVs. We are expecting that browsers will be implemented in TV sets
for broadcast-satellite digital broadcasting."
Access has already readied its NetFront browser for satellite broadcasting
and demonstrated it at the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) laboratory open
house in May.
Japan's Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB), which
oversees digital TV formats, has hammered out the Broadcast Markup
Language for data broadcasting using XML-based HTML with some other
TV application interfaces. Kamada said Access has been participating in the
ARIB discussions, and can develop a browser based on those specifications.
NetFront 3.0, supporting ARIB's Broadcast Markup Language, is being
readied for launch in the first quarter of 2000.
"In Japan, since telephone communications still costs too much, it is not a
practical consumer application to get all Internet content through the
telephone," Kamada said. "Instead, I believe it will be convenient if Internet
content is delivered by data broadcasting, and only uploading of
communications is done through the telephone line."
Access is now negotiating with Japanese TV makers that use its browser for
their analog TV sets to develop digital versions. The company can provide
Internet software directly to TV manufacturers, who can implement it in their
own chips. If successful, this strategy could narrow TeleCruz's market
chances here.
Kamada, however, said Access and TeleCruz are not necessarily competing.
"NetFront products are not dependent on specific graphics chips," he said.
"With an appropriate driver, it runs on any chip" — potentially, even the
TeleCruz device, if a driver is developed.
Currently, NetFront supports major graphics chips from companies such as
ESS, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IGS, Mitsubishi, National Semiconductor, NEC,
Yamaha and Winbond. |
