The Brave New World of TV
A mixed bag of recent and new technologies promises you a wealth of TV options. But will they actually arrive?Anush Yegyazarian, PC World
Got a question or comment? Write to Anush Yegyazarian.
I'm a TV kid. Some of my earliest memories are of cheesy television shows blazing their way across the living room set while the family gathered around for a good ole time. (Dukes of Hazzard or Battlestar Galactica, anyone?) As I've grown up, so has television--at least as far as what the technology can offer, if not always the quality of its programming.
Today, we can do more than simply watch a handful of channels. We can order on-demand movies and games, flip through detailed program guides, get 40-plus hours of content we pick stored locally to watch when we want, or even access the Web as we watch to supplement viewing with, say, argument-settling details. (Who won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1968? What was Barry Bonds's slugging percentage in 1993?)
That interactivity is our children's birthright, so to speak. Getting to the next level--where you can truly have your MTV or your Must See TV with the high-def shows you want when you want them and over any device you want--shouldn't be so tough, but roadblocks keep cropping up. There are technical hurdles, of course, but in most instances, the technology is the least of the problems. The most significant impediments range from companies who only grudgingly consider playing together, to entrenched industries who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a new path, to, yes, inconsistent government action.
Go Go Digital
Since the late nineties, the U.S. government's been pushing for a switch to digital broadcast away from analog. It's set rules and a timetable: Begin digital television broadcasts in 2002; convert to all-digital by end of 2006 or by the time 85 percent of homes in an area can watch digital TV. It's poked and prodded companies to come out with digital TV sets; encouraged HDTV technologies; and waded through drag-down fights over content between broadcasters, cable companies, and studios. It's tried to set standards for content protection via the broadcast flag, which adds copying rules to all digital broadcasts.
At the same time, however, some governmental minimum standards have fallen woefully short of the mark. The broadcast flag itself is controversial, with content owners claiming it doesn't go far enough to protect content and consumer advocates arguing in court that it will harm consumer rights. CableCards, recently available on the market, are another not-so-fine example.
One-Way Only
CableCards, like set-top boxes, store subscriber info and secure the content so that every user gets what they pay for, and no more. The cards were supposed to replace the cable company's set-top box: one less rectangle to stack by your TV, so you could have cheaper equipment and a slightly better picture (due to fewer conversions from signal to output). The cards are part of the Federal Communications Commission's Plug-and-Play digital television initiative. You're supposed to be able to slip them into slots in compatible new TV sets or digital video recorders, then attach your cable directly to the device.
Originally, the FCC ruled that cable companies should offer set-top boxes with such removable cards by the start of this year. But now cable companies have until July 2006 to comply, and they're pushing for another extension or a reversal of the order requiring that all set-top boxes have CableCard slots or similar removable devices.
Worse, cable companies and consumer electronics makers (satellite providers weren't included) have just agreed on the specification for one-way cards, which are the only ones available. That means no interactive guides, no pay-per-view via remote, and, in many cases, no digital video recorder functionality.
This is progress?
DVR pioneer TiVo is working on a model that will be compatible with CableCards. Also, government-aided talks are underway for bidirectional cards, this time with satellite providers, broadcasters, and content owners involved. Content owners especially have a number of issues relating to how such cards will handle copying of expanded video-on-demand services, which probably means we'll still be waiting for years to come for a resolution.
In the meantime, of course, companies such as Latens Systems and Widevine Technologies are vying for the market with software-based methods to perform or go beyond the CableCard's basic function of making secure, conditional access to content independent of the set-top box. Also, cable companies have formed the Next Generation Network Architecture project to discuss and perhaps even settle on technology to accomplish this and much more; the project is supposed to be in the hands of the cable industry's research consortium, CableLabs, though there's scant information about it on its site right now.
That's not the only battle that's brewing: Traditional telecom companies are getting into the TV game via the Internet.
TV Over IP
Cable and satellite providers now offer telephone service and Internet access. So why shouldn't telecommunications and Internet providers offer TV services? That's more or less the premise of Internet-based TV.
Microsoft first showed its interface for IPTV in 2003. Last November, SBC ponied up some licensing cash to Microsoft. By year's end it plans to offer a version of IPTV, which it demonstrated at January's Consumer Electronics Show. The new services depend on a wide, fiber-optics pipe that can handle up to 20 to 25 megabits per second, which SBC is building over the next several years so it can offer multiple standard-definition streams and at least one HDTV signal, along with broadband Internet access and telephony services.
The CES demo was impressive, showing the potential to deliver exactly the kind of personal features I'd be interested in: huge video-on-demand selection (pick any episode of CSI, at any time); more-customized channel selection that may lead to fewer channels, but more of the channels I'm interested in; games on demand; super-interactive program guides with multiple picture-in-picture views of other channels; multiple, simultaneous angles on sports or movies; and more. Moreover, it'll all be connected to my networked home and my networked entertainment system so I can shuttle content around from one room to the next, and listen, view, and enjoy it wherever I want. That sounds good to me.
The question then becomes: How will this service be regulated? Will Congress and the FCC treat it like an Internet service, or like a cable/satellite service? The FCC has consistently treated an arguably comparable technology, Voice over IP, as an Internet rather than telecom service, thereby sparing those who provide VOIP services much of the regulatory mess that telecoms must deal with. If the FCC continues in this mindset under a new chairperson, we could see relatively timely deployment. If not, we'll be stuck in a holding pattern again.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not keen on all the regulations that telecoms, broadcasters, or cable/satellite companies must follow. Departing Chairman Michael Powell said during a CES panel discussion that he could see a day when he'd look at companies like Comcast or Time Warner and see no difference between them and SBC. He also reiterated his less-is-more attitude towards regulations in general.
I agree on both points: These companies all offer now or will offer similar services in the near future; and we should reexamine the regulations that apply to them and keep only the ones that truly act in the best interests of this country and its people.
Staging a Government Intervention
That said, there is one area in which, perhaps, it's time for the government to step in--provided it keeps firmly in mind that it should be acting in the best interests of its citizens. That area is content protection.
Content protection and the related issue of device interoperability are, in my opinion, the two biggest roadblocks to the digital transition the government claims to be in favor of. So why don't the feds do something about it?
No, I'm not asking for a government-mandated copy scheme. If you've read any of my past discussions on the topic, such as last March's Tech.gov, you'll know I'm certainly not advocating another rotten apple like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. What I do advocate are real deadlines for interindustry agreements on deployment of copy-protection technologies to reasonably safeguard content while allowing me the freedom to enjoy what I've paid for, in a variety of contexts.
We've seen that our government can't set technical specs well: The books are littered with outdated minimums that then become the norm because that's all the law requires. But deadlines--and significant fines to, ahem, encourage that those deadlines be met--the government can do. And should.
My patience is running out.