Europe seeks new Java subset for digital TVs, set-top boxes
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M'soft, Sun duel hits new turf -- In WinCE end run, Europe seeks new Java subset for digital TVs, set-top boxes
Junko Yoshida
11/23/98
Electronic Engineering Times
Page 1
Copyright 1998 CMP Publications Inc.
Cupertino, Calif. - A high-level delegation from Europe's Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) Project will meet with executives of Sun Microsystems Inc. here this week to present the company with an opportunity to extend Java's reach deeper into the consumer-electronics realm. The group wants to use Java as a key underpinning of its Multimedia Home Platform (MHP), which it hopes will become the basis for a broad array of digital set-top boxes, televisions and other consumer systems sold in Europe.
The potential catch is that it will ask Sun to create a new subset of Java, tuned to the needs of digital broadcasting, and turn over management of the new applications programming interface to a third party or possibly to the DVB Project itself.
The talks could prove a staging ground for a campaign among TV manufacturers, set-top makers and broadcasters "to fight against the monopoly of any software, such as Windows CE, in the consumer-electronics world," said Jean-Francois Jezequel, marketing and sales general manager of Digital-TV technologies at Canal Plus (Paris), Europe's largest digital-video-broadcast service provider, which will have representatives on the DVB Project delegation. That possibility could prove compelling to Sun.
Canal Plus has shipped almost 3 million digital satellite and cable set-tops in Europe that use a "virtual machine" interpreted architecture similar to Java's. "We would like to upgrade to the Java Virtual Machine," Jezequel said.
Those sentiments are shared by other members of the DVB Project. The powerful inter-industry group, based in Geneva and composed of leading broadcasters, service providers and consumer-system vendors, has been the driving force behind Europe's digital-video standards for cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcast.
At this week's MHP negotiations, the group will have two questions for Sun, said Carter Elzroth, chairman of the IPR Module of the DVB Project, who will be a key figure at this week's meeting. "Can we add to, select from and make our own innovations to the Java API? If so, who will be the keeper of the evolving specifications?"
Mum's the word
Sun officials wouldn't comment on the course of any discussions with DVB representatives thus far, nor would they comment on the possibility of licensing a subset of Java to DVB. Sun also declined to confirm whether the DVB delegation has insisted on owning any Java API that may result from the talks.
"We're exploring many avenues of what they want to achieve," said Eric Chu, manager for vertical markets for the Java consumer platform.
Chu also confirmed that Sun is negotiating with the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) on the possibility of a new Java subset for use in U.S. digital-TV receivers and set-tops. Indeed, remarked Chu, the list of Java licensees includes "a lot of the usual suspects that do a lot in the digital-television space."
Sources close to the DVB Project, whose membership overlaps that of the ATSC, confirmed that the two groups are "absolutely aware" of the danger of coming up with separate sets of Java APIs for distinct DTV broadcast systems. "They are building a mechanism in their proposals to harmonize the two eventually," a source said.
Other industry observers echoed concern over the proliferation of Java-class libraries. "We all understand that Java has the best shot at becoming the interpreted language that can be ubiquitously used in a variety of platforms," said Chris Adams, vice president of marketing and systems solutions at C - Cube Microsystems (Milpitas, Calif.). "But there are already so many different versions of Java, and so many more companies have tried to spin more Java."
At the same time, Adams added, "Nobody, so far, has made a Java API set that's adequate and complete enough for digital TV."
In a recent article, Georg Luetteke, chairman of the Multimedia Home Platform Group, noted that despite the commonality of DVB standards for terrestrial, cable and satellite, "the inevitable problem has arisen that applications and set-top boxes using different APIs are incompatible with each other. An end user wanting to have access to all the DVB services available today would have to buy several set-top boxes.
"The full confidence of consumers and the final breakthrough of DVB will only be achieved in a common horizontal market with full competition enabled by clearly defined interfaces between the various layers of the business chain and with a 'standardized' receiver/home terminal (set-top box, integrated TV set, PC) based on a common API."
View from Sun
Sun's interest in the DTV market is twofold. In the cable arena-where TCI has announced its future set-top boxes will use Java-broadcasters would like to query and update customers' set-top boxes remotely. Sun hopes to develop Java APIs to handle remote management.
More important, Sun wants to leverage Java to tap the advertising bonanza promised by digital TV. Part of the technology's allure to industry is the possibility of interactivity with commercials-allowing viewers to download, for example, information about where to purchase a product in their area, Chu said.
Here, Java's advantage would be that it doesn't require a massive pipeline back to the broadcaster; no new infrastructure would need to be built, Chu said. "Even the satellite people can give you interactive advertisements without having to change anything they do today," he added.
European industry sources close to the DVB Project said it's crucial that Sun "play its cards right" at the upcoming meeting. "Sun could lose everything by getting too greedy or win big as a leading technology supplier in the consumer-electronics world," said one senior engineering executive at a major European consumer-electronics company.
The outcome of the negotiations between Sun and the DVB Project could have profound implications for Microsoft Corp., which has been lobbying heavily behind the scenes to discourage the idea of using Java API in digital consumer system standards. The computer software giant is pushing Windows CE into digital consumer platforms and is recommending that service providers and system manufacturers use only JavaScript, when necessary.
But the DVB Project hopes to secure Sun's support in putting a Java-enabled MHP format on the fast track to standardization. Since new services by many commercial entities within the DVB group hinge on the completion of MHP, "[We hope] to get done as quickly as possible," said Peter MacAvock, an official of the DVB Project.
-Additional reporting by Craig Matsumoto.
November 23, 1998
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