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Nokia and Intel to make Linux-based Set-Top Box
hkon writes "Nokia and Intel are apparently going to make a set-top box that "integrates the internet and digital TV" Intel claims it'll "change the nature of television". Does that mean I can't watch silly american sitcoms on sunday mornings anymore? =)"
Talks about internet TV delivery, which I'm a big fan of. But something tells me that'll be awhile.
the whole European market may be poised to fall to Linux,
The Register: Intel scores Nokia Linux set-top box deal .
So with digital TV the TV company pumps pages and other neat-o data along with the rest of the transmission. Then you interact upstream maybe via a modem or some other gizmo (something wireless perhaps?).
It sounds nice. Maybe it will become a "standard ordnance" of future homes. I mean, most people can do without a computer. Some people probably don't want a computer, but have nothing against things such as realtime sports results and movies-on-demand.
Also, a simple and easy to use access to the web for the masses is imperative, if we are ever to experiment things such as digital voting.
....Television Will Change The Internet
The internet will not change television, all the dreams of choice in programming are going to fall on deaf ears for one reason, ADVERTISEMENTS.
Television is just ads with some shows in between, no one cares about choice or programming, they just care about the revenues. This is why WFXT trims 10 seconds off syndicated episodes of The Simpsons, they want more time to show ads, and care nothing about the viewers.
Cable companies are very hostile when it comes to channel lineups. Requesting channels is often pointless because everything is driven by market research (It's sad to think there's enough perverts in my town to justify the Playboy channel and Adult Pay-Per-View-B). Advertising drives this too, channels with larger audiences generate more ad-revenue and therefor are cheaper and more profitable to have.
Network television has even discovered the dead air that occurs when credits run. Credits are squeezed to make room for even more advertisements in an ever increasing industry.
How will the network's soul-less quest for advertising and cable companies' lust for these network when internet television gets here?
Well, for starters the internet will be a changed place once televison hits the routers. Expect cable companies to be more restrictive abou their cablemodem services. Now more of this "here's your IP, there's your modem, knock yourself out". Set top boxes will be king, because in order to control advertising and content cable companies will have to make this new medium as much like the old one as they can. Anyone with a real computer will be tossed aside as services like WebTV rein supreme.
Second is the internet will become even more commercialised. Some parts of the web will continue their degeneration into "channels" as companies continue to take away the freedom in favor of a more controlled environment. Networks will emerge, and everything will be a cesspool much like the current America On-Line.
Advertisers will eventually catch on to those of us who use software like Squid to screen them out. Expect laws to be made about altering content as it is being delivered, even to one's self. Ads will no longer be restricted to banners, and everything will become just like television.
The point is, that amidst all these hopes of choice and video-on-demand, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Internet TV will set up the big companies as almost the only voice on the Internet if it is enriched to be a tastefully interactive format (and not just passive TV). Think about it, all of the broadband providers out there have a nice big "NO SERVERS OF ANY KIND FOR ANY REASON" clause in their acceptable use policy. That means that instead of having an open forum as we have now we'll have a forum regulated and filtered through by the big corporations that can afford the broadband feeds that do not prohibit serving content. Esperandi esperandi@hotmail.com
Having been involved with digital interactive cable TV for a couple of years I can say that its happening right now with hardware and server from Scientific Atlanta, Set top box Operating system from PowerTV and in conjunction with many cable operators, including Time Warner Cable. I think the number of installed devices in several hundred thousand and increasing at about 27000 per week. This system operates completely over the cable--that is NO telephone return path. Email is available and in beta test. True video on demand is also in beta test.
WOW! imagine a bitchin Beowulf cluster of these!!
...on TV. At least in Sweden around 18:00 in the evenings on one of the government controlled channels.
Trying to popularize the Penguin-OS by indoctrination of the children.
So they started by promoting him to doctorhood and now this. What next?
(Check the link to see the actor Tux playing Pingu)
http://www.cookienet.demon.co.uk/fr ackles1.html
> While I agree with your statements, they are almost a direct plagiarism from Steve Jobs.
/. too. ;-)
You didn't know? Steve reads
Funny, didn't Apple make a similar announcment just a few weeks ago? Hmmmmm.
I saw one of these devices at a meeting with Nokia, apparently they are being put in a limited number of new Volkswagons and also some deal is done with IKEA. The general feeling at the meeting was they had a cool product but absolutely no idea what to do with it...
vivo is expensive as hell, linux user and vivo users are mutrul exclusive :)
One major advantage of ViVo is the commercial skin botton that cut the crap out of your favorite show. This featue is now available to your VCR!!!! Thanks to the great tv rating system (TV-pg, TV-15 and what not) Now the VCR can tell what is commercial and what is real context!!!! and automatically fast forward accordingly. It's only available in the RCA VCR though, rush out to pick one one IMMEDIATEDLY. Grandly it's not random access like harddisk vcr, but it can use a blus screen to cover the fast-forwarding commercials.
YOu have no idea how much my tv life has improved after this VCR.
I wonder if they'll make the browser part of the interface, or the interface part of the browser. I'd prefer the first, but I can see that running everything through a nice themeable browser would be very attractive for a comsumer device.
Doing my Arthur C Clark bit, I'd expect this to be actually on sale mid 2000, and given that intel and nokia are pushing it, it may be sucessful.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
I love the idea of internet over television, and integration between the two, but is this going to be a cable settop box, or is this going to be a stand-alone telephone based product like WebTV?
It's such a great idea, Internet on TV, but I don't see how they'll get this in a settop box at a price that cable companies will like, which would relegate it to the job of being a computer which happens to display on a digital TV, which doesn't really impress me at all.
While I agree with your statements, they are almost a direct plagiarism from Steve Jobs.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The project is doomed. ;)
Hmm... by TV quality I assume that we are talking about 24 frames / sec and maybe 640x480... just to make math easy... Without some sort of compression (which would have to be lossy) you are streaming 7.4 million pixels a second. That is a lot... even if you have one frame a second, you have 300 thousand pixels. I assume that you want more than b/w but even with that, with no gray, we are talking 300k bits. Won't make it on a 56k line. And then we need audio... it will never happen. If we cut the image in half, we have a quarter of the pixels... so we still have 75k pixels at 320 x 240.
You would need some fancy lossy compresion for it to look tv quality and still get through in time...
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Although the closed settop box is a concept that is wasted on a home PC builder like myself, this project is more exciting to me than others if just for the fact that Nokia is involved. I've come to like their products, both for computer monitors and their portable phones. Alas, so far I've found one thing lacking, namely Linux support.
Initially, I wasn't real pleased to have to carry a phone around but I really fell in love with my 6110. It goes a long way towards a PDA with its built in SMS email, faxing, calendar, calculator and even some games. You can also hack it for some fun. Anyhow, I never figured portable phones for a geek thing, but it's been fun to play with.
Then a problem had to come up. One feature of the phone that appealed to me is the ability to link it with a PC or a laptop through cable or infrared link and then use the phone as a modem. But the modem function is software, and of course that software (Nokia Data Suite) is only available for Windows. It also costs an arm and a leg, which I don't care to invest in a legacy platform.
So I realise this is my mistake for not investigating the purchase closely enough and figuring the infrared function would be a normal IRDA compliant device and the modem would be hardware. I guess I should've bought a 8110 or an Ericsson instead. Still it leaves me wondering if there are other 61xx owners that use Linux and are bugged by this. Any software modem projects underway perhaps?
Michiel
A program or channel is truly good, and not hyped up advertised good, when you're willing to set aside web browsing to watch it. Occasionally , even something on a non-PBS channel meets this criteria. The amount of junk in TV land is so overwhelming that you might just be turned off it.
I'm really looking forward to seeing more stuff like this... we have the internet... Only big problems with stuff like this is the latency and badwidth issues. I just need a oc48 or so to my house... =(
Shadus
(when is someone going to make a set top box based on FreeBSD, huh?)
--
Everything I know in life I learnt from
Cool, it says that they are going to use the mozilla browser in addition to using linux. Does anyone from the mozilla project know more about this?
Its worth reading the article in depth. The solution that Intel and Nokia are pushing on appears to be a settop box that will bring in Digital Video bitstreams, while decoding data brought in over the digital signal.
i.e. In the U.S., with HiDef signals coming soon, you can insert data into the signal, and extract it at the customer end and show it to users.
This shouldn't be confused with delivering something like Digital Video over the internet. Its a fine line, and the article doesn't seem clear about that difference. I would guess that any true 'internet browser' in the box, would still have to use some existing land line for regular browsing. (For more information check out www.mpeg.org, and search for ATSC)
Byron
P.S. Having worked in the broadcast industry, let me tell you that if they do expect to deliver 'web like content' over DVB, they'll still have to get stations equiped with the right equipment, which also takes a lot of time.
You make a very good point about the difference in states of mind a person is in when watching TV vs. using a computer, be it for gaming, surfing, serious work, or whatever.
:-))
However, I think your conclusion is wrong.
When I want to watch DVD (on a laptop in an airplane, or on my TV), I use my computer's DVD player to do so. When I want to listen to music (perhaps when I'm reading, or just vegging) I use my computer to play random songs from a rather large collection of MP3's (all legally copied from my own, purchased collection, of course).
The most serious drawback I see to settop boxes right now is the horrible resolution of today's televisions. Replace them with an HDTV set, or a large flastscreen monitor with good resolution, and that problem goes away. At that point, combining the two appliances (computer and tv) into one makes a great deal of sense.
Add to that the desirability to click on an icon to watch you're favorite TV show "on-demand" (rather than remembering to tape it or making sure to be at home at such and such a time), and you have the potential for a very, very appealing product. Of course, for this to succeed, they need:
- much more bandwidth, capable of delivering on-demand video and audio
- much higher resolution TVs or monitors
- a stronger emphesis on open "internet-like" standards, rather than closed and copy-protected "consumer electronic" standards such as DVD
- competitive pricing for hardware, net access, and video-on-demand offerings. (Downloading a movie shouldn't cost more than renting it at the store, for example.)
I would argue a "pay-per-view TV shows sans commercials" option would be, while not a requirement, the kind of "killer feature" that would attract many potential customers. I'd willingly pay $3.00 an episode to watch my favorite TV show without commercial interruptions. For shows I'm less fond of (or not interested in taping for my own archive) I'd be willing to watch the commercial in exchange for a free viewing.
I do think computers will "combine" (or replace) most consumer home entertainment electronics. Attempts at crippling the home entertainment product's capabilities (remember DAT?) will only accelerate this trend. Which side the "set-top" boxes find themselves on will go along way toward determining whether they represent a unique step forward, or an obscure curiosity ignored by consumers in favor of other, more capable products (like a PC with a DVD drive, a big hard disk, and a long S-Video cable
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
is that like.. a porn version of Tron? ;-)
:o)
best $19.95 I'll ever spend..
--------------------------------
Let's hope that Nokia will start contributing to Mozilla development in a big way. It might actually happen, set-tob-boxes are embedded things, and stability *really* matters at that market. Due to their size and complexity, building a browser that never crashes is pretty much impossible, unless of cource you have a huge army of nerds working on stabilty.
Read more at The Register, CNet.
"What's on television then?"
"Looks like a penguin."
Sorry to burst your bubble Intel, but you just don't get it.
When people sit down in front of thier TV, they want to turn their brain *off*. When you use a computer, you have to use your brain, and *do* stuff... you have to think.
On the surface, TV and Internet might seem similar, but because they require entirely different mindsets to use, they will never be effectively combined.
Think about where you sit to watch TV... on your couch (usually) about 6 feet from the screen. Your computer is usually on a desk, in an office environment (even at home, its probably the same desk where you did your taxes before you got a computer). For years companies have been trying to cash in on this market that doesn't exist. Note the failure of WebTV (granted: there were other reasons that bombed).
*Turning my brain off now*
CokeBear, UWO
Reality has a liberal bias
Yeah, yeah. Great stuff. If only we hadn't heard it all a thousand times before...
Okay, no more cynicism. I sorta believe it this time, for one reason; they're talking about rollout in the second half of 2000. That's less than a year away, and I doubt they'd make such a forecast unless things were well and truly underway.
Of course, it does say it'll use mozilla; so that date may get pushed back a bit.
see above.
Blar.
If they actually leverage the power of Linux well, this could be very cool;
everyone reading this remembers the Coke machine in MIT that had its own IP, yes?
Imagine setting up your TV to automatically record the news IF AND ONLY IF you are not already at home...
Imagine being able to steal ALL the HBO movies into mpg files... (this would prob require some programming, but hey, thats why we are (most of us) CS majors
Imagine, sitting 100 miles away and checking the channel that your kids are watching...
The ultimate user-configured Vchip is inherent, and before all the 12-14 year olds on this board demoderate me, keep in mind that this IS a useful feature for the public at large
it will allow for EFFECTIVE programable functions (ie all those record-this-show-every-week)
and the best part of all this is, you do not inherently need to use those annoying on-TV menus, but can ssh (telnet) in or use some networked GUI app to do all this...
Since this is all opensource (alledgedly) we can probably work around any of the safe-guards they create to prevent mass copying, commercial exclusion, etc.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
Grrr. my nick is "Forward the Light Brigade"...
PixStream has really cool equipment for MPEG2 video over IP. If you're lucky enough to live in New Brunswick or any of a handful of places with telcos using PixStream gear you can watch full quality video over your xDSL or similar link.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Internet TV would make instant TV ratings
possible.
MPEG-2 is fancy compression. :-)
Actually, a full broadcast-quality MPEG-2 video stream is only 4Mbps. You actually don't even need broadband spectrum to do full-quality TV delivery if you're OK with the idea of having your "tuner" live in the network back at the head-end/CO/etc. Some of the xDSL guys are starting to realize this (Newbridge and others showed this at N+I.) The only downside is a slightly longer than normal delay when switching channels, but then people with DSS boxes have already been conditioned to think this is normal.
Note that this means even wireless can be a real competitor to cable and especially telco copper in the future. A 6 Mbps LMDS derivative or Wideband CDMA could easily provide enough pipe to deliver a movie at full MPEG-2 resolution (even without VBR), a half dozen phone/voice/control connections, and still leave more than a T-1 available for surfing the net.
There's really very little you can do in the foreseeable future that would require more bandwidth than that, and 6Mbps bidirectional may well prove to offer a customer experience superior to a lopsided cable-like system with choked down upstream bandwidth. In the end, latency and bandwidth availability are more important than bandwidth per se. The ability to provide high bandwidth availability through a switched infrastructure is the only thing that keeps me from writing off the RBOCs entirely - now if they can just figure out how to pay for the switch upgrades as a regulated utility...
In short, a good set-top can provide serious TV quality in a reasonable amount of bandwidth. It's not going to happen with a 56K modem, though. (Has anyone ever gotten a 56K connection with one of those things? I never have...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
than their press release server, since I can't read the story. Must be running NT.
I think if you review your Information Theory 101 notes you'll realize there are some serious limits to this. Better wait for broadband. *commercial plug mode on* There IS a company that HAS TV, POTS, and data service over VDSL today - Next Level Communications, a subsidiary of General Instrument, who is soon to be bought by Motorola. US West is deploying the service now. *commercial plug mode off*
Start Open Source TV.
You know, get a decent web cam that is close to broadcast television quality.
Get a decent AV computer, that lets you do streaming video in addition to live stuff.
Get a fat pipe.
Start your own TV station.
Take requests from audience members interactively.
Maybe charge $19.95 a month for a special members only channel.
Oops, I just described 90% of the pron sites.
George
It'll run Mozilla too:
e =850
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?articl
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I can't be the only one. I work for a hi-tech company, I love gadgetry, I'm entranced by the latest "thing", but I simply don't watch television. When I do use the TV, it's for movies. I don't even know what channels I receive.
:) doesn't gel with me.
Spending my entire day in front of one monitor merely to go home to another (in lower res at that
Maybe TV is a dying medium. Once you've been exposed to the stimulus of interactive content - of actual people responding to your assertions and replying with their own - sitting in front of a glowing CRT that feeds you laugh tracks just can't kick the endorphins back to their former highs.
Set-tops are betting on the addiction of people to their televisions. The manufacturers fancy that Joe Smith, who watches the typical eight hours a day, can be eased into a new dependency, this time on their "content" services like chat and news. But isn't that sort of thing anathema to Joe Smith's entire way of life? If he wanted stimulation, he could find it in a book or in a bar. He doesn't want it. He wants to be deadened for a few hours before bedtime.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Come home.
Go to sleep.
Why would he allow thought and stress, both of which are prevalent on the internet, to encroach upon his mental down time?
OTOH, I could be wrong. Could be that with their combination of flair and verbal communication, set-tops will spark a slow return to literacy and a new appreciation for personal expression. That would be an excellent thing, although I'm a little dubious at this point.
We'll see.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I have been waiting for this to come out so that i can more easily create a commercial zapper program. It would be similar to Adzapper, for all of you that have used that, but essentially it would play something else on TV while the commercials were playing, and then switch back to the normal program when the commercials were over. Thus avoiding those brain-washing commercials totally. I now the only problem is finding a way into the internals of their device. maybe they could leave me a telnet port open or something :) that would be nice, but then i suppose that i could more easily steal cable also.
This is not an origional concept. At all.
Every major communications company has been working on something like this for years. One of the major problems being the infrastructure to support it. That's one of the reasons you might not have heard about it. Lack of infrastructre to install the box doesn't mean you can't have the box working in the lab waiting for the day when the bandwidth is available.
Why do you think Motorola bought General Instruments? The company states that "Motorola has a Global Commitment to broadband multimedia/communications solutions." Which is true.
Only only advantage is that Nokia might have the communications connections to actually sell the thing. Then again GI has a install base of over 15 million.
Intel and Nokia now see how much money they'll be missing in the upcoming broadband revolution and want a piece. This is also why Sony is selling the Playstation2 as a "home gateway" unit.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
Sorry, this got posted by mistake during editing.
Ignore this one and read the other "take a number" which was posted by me.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
This is not an origional concept. At all.
"By taking the lead and creating products that..."
Excuse me, but no.
Every major communications company has been working on something like this for years. One of the major problems being the infrastructure to support it. That's one of the reasons you might not have heard about it. Lack of infrastructre to install the box doesn't mean you can't have the box working in the lab waiting for the day when the bandwidth is available.
Why do you think Motorola bought General Instruments? The company states that "Motorola has a Global Commitment to broadband multimedia/communications solutions." Which is true.
Only only advantage to the deal is that Nokia might have the communications connections to actually sell the thing. Then again GI has a install base of over 15 million.
Intel and Nokia now see how much money they'll be missing in the upcoming broadband revolution and want a piece. This is also why Sony is selling the Playstation2 as a "home gateway" unit.
They aren't taking the lead, they're already behind.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
Isn't a lot of this being done by TiVo?
If you're looking for the future of TV, wait until they are able to squeeze TV-quality video and audio (full screen) down a 56k line. Or else wait until everyone has broadband When they are able to achieve either one of these cases, accompanied by a set-top box, not only will everyone be able to surf the net from a TV, but they will also be able to watch every single television channel in the world, no longer hampered by local tv regulations, over-the-air and cable size limitations.
that is what i look forward to.
> I mean it's mostly reading and thinking.
... Jini and the like and the idea that if it has a digital pulse, we'll network it someday. Then think about the fact that there are already hundreds of millions of set-top-box/TV combos out there. Which non-computer devices do you think will really be the first ones to go en masse onto the Web?
Thinking? On the Internet?
No way, this will be huge. Think about how many people have talked about putting their car or fridge on the Web
Besides, this isn't about getting people a way to cheaply look at their cousin's Web page, it's about marketing and that's IT. That's what pays for it, because it will be dirt cheap to the consumer, if not free. A lot of people don't "explore" the Web. They'll get on there and buy from the stores that Intel/Nokia/partners push at them and get their stock quotes, plan their retirement, do their banking the same way. They won't be able to live without it after a while. How will I do my banking or order my groceries without it? A huge market, too. For every American on the Web right now there's one that isn't. Those people really want this, because they're scared and confused by all the www.foo.com billboards and they hate it when people ask for their email address and they don't have one. They're ready to online shop. I mean, online shopping is pretty good, but doesn't it sound a whole lot better when you don't have a clue what it is? All those ads Intel shows where the Web looks like the Metaverse or something (if you have a PIII, I guess) can't be hurting, either.
As usual, I am seeing the negative downside to this type of project. Anytime corporations do anything,
I notice they didn't explain what they meant by interactive content. I imagine this as watching Monday Night Football and being able to pull up stats on the players of the teams playing, etc. Well, hopefully it would go beyond that.
Anyway, I think corporations view this as just an e-commerce vehicle. Think about it...you're sitting there on your couch, you see a commecial for the product of the week, and on your screen you see a window that says "push button x on your remote to purchase". The company you purchase this "interactive service" from already has your credit card number and address, similar to setting up one-click purchasing on amazon.com. Think about it: THIS IS THE ULTIMATE IMPUSLE BUYING SYSTEM! YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR COUCH TO WASTE YOUR MONEY! I'm sure marketers at corporations around the globe are sitting there in their little Dilbert style work cubes having orgasms just thinking about this. Same goes for credit card company executives as well.
I hope I'm wrong about this, but this country is built on greed and materialism, so this seems like the natural progression of this product.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
This article talked nothing about delivering TV channels via the Internet. Can you imagine the bandwidth that would take? Cable systems have at most the bandwidth to carry 100-200 traditional channels. At least 100 of these would be taken up with traditional channels. The rest are available for services such as voice over IP and broadband Internet. Remember that broadband cable Internet works by assigning a group of households a cable channel to communicate over so share the bandwidth that a channel provides. What this means is that there is nowhere near the bandwidth available for TV on demand which would require an entire channel per viewer. For TV on demand to work there would have to be the bandwidth of an equivalent of 5,000 channels available (assuming 5% of a city of 100,000 want to watch on demand TV). Cable will never have this kind of bandwidth.
Sig goes here
What do you think?