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Japanese Makers To Forge An Internet TV Standard
An anonymous reader writes "Five Japanese TV manufacturers will form a working group to hammer out technical specifications by October for
digital TVs with Internet access. They will develop a consumer electronics version of Linux to provide functions and performance required for digital products. The resulting source code will be made available through the General Public License procedure."
In France, we have a important internet provider (free.fr) which released in December a settop-box running Linux providing 2mbs internet access , digital TV and 2 phone lines for 30/mo.
pictures and technicals details (in french) on http://free.box.free.fr/ (it's an unofficial site)
8mbps ADSL connections over in Japan are extremely common with 12mbps starting to be introduced.
Hell, you can get free 64K ISDN through one of the many ISDN ISPs over there.
They have the infrastructure to support it. If you were using multicast or something like that, Internet TV could be very usable even at high bitrates.
Remembers Bill gates "Vision" of a pc in every home running his software.. Visions of Windows enabled electronics Spread through the huse as well.. It sure seems that MS is not working the way he invisioned the future.. Linux is breaking more ground and seems to be the "OS" that will be powering all the electronics in the home.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
afaik, Standard digital cable is a mpeg stream anyway. It'd be real nice if TV's and cable boxes all have some sort of standard, and this may open up the way for decent streaming TV or VoD streams.
Right now, companies like AT&T are using the same cable to bring you CableTV, Broadband internet access, and Phone service (trying to break back into the local telco market). It's the same copper infrastructure, but the technology for all of these services on both sides on the wire are all different.
If a standard like this really catches on, and VOIP takes hold, we may see providers like AT&T doing it all over IP, which could really help everyone out, as well as push broadband speeds up a notch.
To get around Sony's patents on Beta, JVC with a few other companies created the VHS standard and made it free to everyone to implement. This is a potential nightmare scenario for Microsoft if the companies quickly reach an agreement and stick to it.
The only threats to this commoditization are the companies involved falling out with each other and Microsoft quickly poisoning the market for this commodity TV/Internet box. I wonder if Microsoft can handle this many threats to its business model (the Office monopoly cracking, the licensing schemes being rejected by its customers, etc.) at the same time?
The other home entertainment companies don't have much to worry about because they make their money from hardware, so they can just adopt this if it ever comes together. The other group to crap its collective pants is the cable industry. They fear the PVR already, and this gives the Baby Bells an easy road in for pay-per-view and other previously cable-only franchises.
If these Japanese companies can get it to market and adopted in Japan, this could be the beginning of something interesting.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I have seen the article in Japanese Newspaper reporting same announcement like, http://www.asahi.com/money/topics/TKY200303290203. html(sorry Japanese only).
Linux is on topic, but in the same time TRON-OS is also mentioned as a candidate of standard. There is another article that API of TRON OS could be merged into Monta Vista's Linux.
Why do people never give up on that idea of internet on the TV? Why would anybody want to surf on a eye straining device that is usually placed in a position inconvenient for work. WHy don't they focus their energies on phasing out TV for good, replacing it by something internet based... Oh well, one company I wouldn't invest my money in.