Digital Hubbub – IEEE Spectrum
Microsoft’s proprietary audio and video compression formats, along with digital rights management software to prevent unlicensed copying, would help create an apparently seamless package of Microsoft-controlled hardware and software. Microsoft’s attempts to dominate the digital-entertainment arena have so far fallen short. Its proposed standard for an operating system for a next-generation set-top box was rejected in favor of a Java-based specification by both U.S. and European industry groups. And its Ultimate TV personal video recorder has made minimal inroads in the market (albeit total PVR unit sales worldwide reportedly still total less than three million, compared to more than 100 million VCRs in U.S. households alone).
Apple, for its part, has so far disavowed plans for a home entertainment gateway. Its “Rip, Mix, Burn” slogan for Macintoshes capable of writing CDs and DVDs, combined with audio, video, and photo editing software, appears aimed at people who create digital content, rather than those who simply enjoy it at home. Apple’s iMovie lets people edit digital video and burn the resulting sequences on CD or DVD; iPhoto arranges digital photographs; and iTunes arranges music files for CDs or the company’s iPod portable jukebox.
Yet another group of competitors is taking a software-only approach, relying on the computing power of present-day PCs. Companies like SnapStream Media Inc. (Houston) and Home Media Networks Ltd. (Edinburgh, Scotland) already sell programs, such as Home Media’s ShowShifter, to turn a networked PC into a PVR and multimedia jukebox—essentially indistinguishable from a factory-built digital hub.
Concentrating on chips
Further down the manufacturing chain are the companies supplying chips. For example, in April, Conexant Systems Inc. (Newport Beach, Calif., formerly Rockwell Semiconductor Systems) announced a chip that combines digital TV reception with a cable modem. It lets cable operators sell broadband interactive services in a low-cost package that includes 100-plus TV channels.
In another effort, Cirrus Logic Inc. (Austin, Texas) has among its chips a combined DVD and digital-video chipset that powers Samsung’s PVR. And on the computercentric side, there’s Linksys Group Inc. (Irvine, Calif.). Best known for its pocket routers (units that connect small home or office networks to the Internet), it has a new chip that combines routing circuitry with a cable modem and a wireless network access point. Such a chip could be built into a stand-alone digital hub or slotted into a PC acting as a home server.
Software companies that produce middleware are offering development kits and pre-configured user interfaces for set-top hardware produced by a variety of manufacturers. Middleware is utility software that mediates between set-top applications, such as program guides or database browsers, and the underlying operating systems and hardware. Software from Mediabolic Inc. (San Francisco), for example, runs on IBM’s set-top box chipset as well as on Pioneer’s Digital Library.
As companies focus on putting together set-top boxes from chipsets, standards developed in the past year or two should make that job easier. Both the Multimedia Home Platform standard in Europe and the OpenCable Application Platform in the United States offer specs that enable any manufacturer to build hardware and compatible software, knowing that compliant programs will be able to run on them.
As a result, says Fran Helms, director of device and infrastructure partnerships for middleware maker Liberate Technologies (San Carlos, Calif.), manufacturers can farm out software development to different companies for different parts of their boxes—a user interface, for instance, or a new driver for printers attached through a USB port. What’s more, with a broadband data connection, upgrading machines in the field becomes simple: the 50 kB or so of Java code required to implement a new user interface, for instance, could be downloaded to a digital hub in the time it takes to change channels.