Ram,
The Internet chip set of ESST is different from "Interative TV"
promoted by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication.
ESST's Internet chip will produce a low cost DVD/VCD/WebTV
set top box with a RISC CPU inside. It probably will play certain
video game and run some application program (if you have someone
who adapts popular applications from other platforms to
the MIPS-X CPU).
Therefore the low cost sub $400 PC will add pressure to Internet
chip set products but the low cost $400 PC can not be a set top
box, can not provide entertainment (such as SuperVCD, etc...),
the market of ESST's Internet chip set shall be very different
from the low cost PC's.
In fact, why hasn't ESS sales force fly to Korea to demo its
Internet chip set to the Ministry of Information and Communication???
Steve
---
From: Cube site
02-02-99 Falling PC prices threatening to scuttle low-cost 'intelligent TV' project
koreaherald.co.kr
By Yu Kun-ha Staff reporter
Ever-falling PC prices are forcing the Ministry of Information and Communication to
review its plan to develop a low-cost
Internet access device dubbed "intelligent TV." Conceived as a cheap and easy-to-use
PC replacement, the intelligent TV
forms the foundation of one of the ministry's two "star" projects launched last June
aimed at accelerating Korea's transition
into an information society.
Ministry officials thought they would be able to kill three birds with the proposed
PC-TV hybrid. First, they hoped the new
Internet access device could help the government address the serious problem of private
tutoring. According to a
government tally, household expenditure for private tutoring amounted to a whopping 17
trillion won in 1997. Ministry
officials theorized that the cost of private tutoring could be lowered when tutoring
programming is offered through the
Internet. For a start, by going online, private tutoring service providers will not have to
sink large sums of money into
buildings. This will offer them room for significant cuts in tutoring fees. Free from
geographical limits, they will also be able
to offer their service to a larger number of students.
Second, ministry planners hoped to gradually expand the new device's applications to
include provisions for civil services,
information services and online shopping. Since the device will be designed as to make it
easy for even computer-illiterate
people to log onto the Internet, it will advance the advent of an information society.
Third, the development of the new
Internet access device will create big business opportunities for Korean TV
manufacturers, since global demand for
easy-to-use PC replacements is huge . This point was especially stressed by Bae
Soon-hoon, former minister of information
and communication who drew up the whole plan. Bae, who earned the tag of "a man
mad about TV" while serving as
chairman of Daewoo Electronics, predicted the end of an era when the PC was the only
Internet access device.
To kill the three birds, the ministry thought that the success of a Web-based tutoring
service was essential. To make
Internet tutoring services attractive to students, programming would be done using
multimedia techniques. This in turn
requires high-speed access services and a user terminal capable of handling graphic-rich
files in real time. To make
high-speed access services available at low costs, the ministry asked Samsung
Electronics to develop a modem for UADSL
(universal asynchronous digital subscriber line) services, which can carry data at speeds
up to 1.5 Mbps. At the same time,
it asked TV manufacturers to design a system that meets all these requirements but still
costs less than 500,000 won per
unit.
Late last year, the three TV manufacturers - Samsung, LG and Daewoo - jointly drew
up specifications for the intelligent
TV as envisaged by the ministry. With the standard set and modem development
progressing as scheduled, the TV
manufacturers are said to be ready to produce a pilot system. But they are reluctant to
go ahead. According to a Samsung
official, production of the intelligent TV poses no serious technical challenge to TV
manufacturers. "We already have the
experience of developing an Internet TV, a TV equipped with a Web browser but no
CPU," said Hwang Ui-hwan, a
Samsung official. "Besides, the intelligent TV can be assembled on existing TV
production lines."
Hwang said the manufacturers are hesitating to commit themselves to the project
because the recent drop in PC prices is
increasingly dimming the outlook for the intelligent TV. Currently systems featuring
300-MHz Celeron CPU are available at
less than one million won. Given the successful launching of sub-$400 systems in the
United States by a Korean PC maker,
prices for entry-level systems are expected to drop further. Manufacturers also point out
the total lack of applications to run
on the intelligent TV. "The chicken-and-egg question can also be applied here," Hwang
said. "Hardware manufacturers
view that the availability of killer applications are the preconditions for success, while
program providers say that application
programs will be available only after a large number of user terminals are distributed."
The problem with intelligent TV - for that matter, any similar TV-based device - is that
applications written for PCs are not
usable for it because PCs and TVs use different scanning methods. "When a program
for PCs runs on the new device,
pictures get blurred and distorted and letters are hard to read," said Ham Jong-min, an
official of Thrunet, one of the nine
companies interested in participating in the ministry's online private tutoring project.
Conversely, when a program written for
the intelligent TV is put on a PC, no such problem occurs. "But since TV resolution is
lower than that of PCs, pictures look
dim," Ham said. "Program providers will not be inclined to write programs in TV format
because there is no incentive at the
moment."
To lure program providers, the ministry tried to pitch the vision that the new device will
emerge as the primary medium for
residential users to obtain information and purchase goods and services online. But
falling PC prices are making this vision
sound void. "Seven months ago, we didn't, in fact we couldn't, expect PC prices would
fall so rapidly. I think we need to
review the plan to develop an intelligent TV," said Hyong Tae-gun, a ministry official. He
added that even when the
ministry decides to pull the plug on the development of a new Internet access device, it
will not discard the idea of
Web-based private tutoring altogether. "If intelligent TV is not a viable device, we will
use PCs instead. But I think it is still
too early to hand down a death warrant to it."
Hyong said developing programming for intelligent TV may not be a profitable business
now but a few years down the
road, it will enjoy high demand from digital TV services. Samsung's Hwang also said the
project is worth pursuing because
the programs developed for intelligent TV can be used for interactive digital TV
services. "When digital TV service is
introduced a couple of years later, programs for interactive services will be in great
demand. Program providers who invest
now in applications for the intelligent TV will be rewarded then," Hwang said.
But program providers, who are planning to offer Internet-based online tutoring service
this year, are not interested in
developing programming in the intelligent TV format. They say that they will offer service
using PCs. Given the dimming
prospects for the new device, their attitude is natural. According to Ham, the expected
demand from digital TV services, a
few years later, isn't actually bait, since companies like Microsoft are developing the
technology capable of reformatting
applications written for PCs to fit TVs. "We are not interested in intelligent TV. We
expect cable TV set-top boxes based
on the reformatting technology to be available within this year. Then, we will launch
cyber tutoring services for subscribers
of our cable TV service," Ham said. |
