Little by little, the PC is creeping into the living room � using the TV box as its Trojan horse. At least that's what WebTV Networks appears to be doing when it debuts its second-generation system today.
The new system, dubbed WebTV Plus, has in it some equipment that will be very familiar to PC users - most notably a 1.1 Gbyte hard disk onto which 12 hours of high-quality video can be stored. The set-top box will have a faster processor � a 167 MHz MIPS R4000 � 8 Mbytes of RAM, a 3-in-1 cable-ready tuner, and Rockwell's K56 Flex Technology modem for users to transmit email, chat, and other responses. While invisible to customers, this technology will allow consumers to surf the Web and watch television simultaneously.
"It's about better television and bringing TV qualities to the Net," said Phil Goldman, senior vice president of engineering for WebTV.
The new system, which is expected in stores in time for the Christmas shopping season, is expected to list at US$199. At the same time, the company is giving a facelift to its older system, which it now calls WebTV Classic. The new nips and tucks give customers capabilities including access to IRC chat and VideoFlash, a video compression and play technology akin to Apple's QuickTime technology. Classic WebTV will also carry a smaller price tag thanks to a $100 rebate from the company, making the final price $99.
WebTV Plus includes a lot of bells and whistles that marry the disparate technologies of online TV listings, high-capacity Web access, and a hybrid video compression/transmission technology. For example, viewers surfing through channels can select to call up a programming guide on the screen that describes what is being broadcast on a channel even when it is showing a commercial. That same mode can be used to "jump" out to an online programming guide that will show viewers the programming schedule that corresponds to their communities.
When viewing the Web, a consumer can have a smaller television window that shows the action and runs the audio in real-time too allow one to follow a program while surfing the Net. Users can toggle between the two modes by "flipping a page," a 3-D special effect that makes the changeover appear to users as though they are turning over a piece of paper with the Web on one side and television on the other.
Beyond the graphics and the gadgets, there's a technology that WebTV is reluctant to talk about, though the company said it will be a part of its upcoming Plus system. This technology, called a Video Modem, is the method in which WebTV will get additional bandwidth and speed. Goldman said the technology will deliver digital information � full-motion video or Web-based content developed in conjunction with programming and advertisements � at a rate of 1 Mbps over the video signal.
The technology will be a one-way broadcast to users that allows, for example, digital content to be downloaded overnight. So it would take a full-length movie five to six hours to download. "It is not video-on-demand, and it's not quite real time," explained Goldman, who was tight-lipped about specifics. He would only offer that the company would be giving the technology a coming-out party of sorts after the first of the year � and describe what the technology isn't or what others can't do to it. "It's not using [the vertical blanking interval] and it's not using cable," he added. "And it can't be blocked."
So if it's not an established method, how is WebTV delivering its data signals?
"It's very difficult to say something is impossible," explained Walt Ciciora, a Connecticut-based technology consultant who is a 30-year plus-veteran of television and cable broadcasting technologies.
Advances in television technology � mostly, the switch from vacuum tubes to transistors � has given programmers more room to roam within the broadcast spectrum. The normal television signal, designed around the vacuum tubes, is made up of clusters that are tuned to the harmonics of the horizontal and vertical signals. Because the signal is in clusters, Ciciora said, there are gaps that, while ignored by the television, are detectable to a piece of equipment tuned to the gaps' proper frequencies. This equipment can insert data into the broadcast signal, and a set-top box, with the proper circuitry, can extract it for display on the television screen.
Many efforts are under way to marry data to the broadcast signal as companies see a potential goldmine in the union of the two. Ciciora is consulting for a company that, in the near future, hopes to file a patent on a technology that will transmit data at a rate of 300 Mbps in the broadcast signal. Microsoft also has two patents describing technologies that will insert and extract a data signal from a broadcast signal.
An increasingly popular way to piggyback data onto the broadcast signal is through the VBI, the 21 lines of essentially free airspace that broadcasters use to transmit supplementary material such as teletext. It is also used for closed captioning. WavePhore sees this band as a big avenue for broadcasters � so much so, that it is working with several manufacturers of PC add-in boards that will allow a computer to receive information via the VBI. WavePhore is already working with PBS National Datacast, and it is hoping to get others.
VBI is attractive partly because of the development efforts by companies such as Hauppauge, ADS Technology, IX Micro, and Intel for the add-in cards, but also because of its simplicity � it doesn't require extra processing power, said Patrick Gilbert, vice president of business development for WavePhore. WavePhore does have a second technology that will insert data into the broadcast spectrum, called Inband, but it isn't selling it because of the processing power it demands.
"Not even a Pentium 200 or 300 can run [Inband]," explained Gilbert, who also seemed sure of what Video Modem was not. "It would take 100 of [the 167 MHz MIPS R4000] to decode the signal.... I don't think they are modulating the signal."
