CES Countdown #8: Can smart HDTVs bypass the 'media PC' altogether?

Could Tru2way be the "one way" for interactive content?

Last July, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow signaled a huge turnaround in his company's strategy, telling TWICE Magazine that a Tru2way-enabled Bravia-brand TV could effectively "get rid of the cable box and have uniformity across the country," providing interactive content including the all-important channel-changing programming guide, as well as IPTV connectivity. That's what Blu-ray players were at one time supposed to do, but Glasgow's vision now appears to have Blu-ray as one of the many components connected to the HDTV as a hub, with Tru2way as its ticket to the outside world.

Then in September, Tru2way backer Samsung's leading UK representative for CE devices Andy Griffiths told Pocket-Lint that, although demand for his company's Blu-ray consoles was comfortably high, he gave the format about five more years of viable life in the market.

While Griffith's comments were widely repeated in the press, and while many responded that five years would be a pretty good lifespan, overall -- especially if some other, higher-capacity, even-higher-resolution HD disc format were to come along -- the deeper meaning that even analysts missed was this: Blu-ray won't be the connectivity gateway for interactive, on-demand programming. CE makers want a gateway and a network today that will be around five years from now. It's a safe bet that both digital cable and the Internet, each in one form or another, will be around in five years' time.

Tru2way

Scott M. Fulton, III

You've heard of the applications platform for Tru2way. It's called Java; and for the same reasons that content producers were attracted to Java when they adopted it for the BD-J interactivity platform in Blu-ray, CE manufacturers are attracted to Java for the interactivity layer in Tru2way for digital cable.

The first Tru2way applications look a little basic -- the ability to vote on one's favorite news story on CNN as it happens, for example, and the obvious "killer app:" the interactive program guide. But a key element of these applications -- something that even their architects forget or fail to demonstrate -- is that they have context. For example, an app can be "bound" to the channel that delivers it. That makes sense, because "favorite news story" voting may only be specific to, and perhaps utilizable by, CNN. That context makes it possible for the delivery mechanism to effectively own the application, and if this is done right, that could make it technically non-feasible for a third-party to spoof interactive content from a bound provider. "Unbound" applications, therefore, are functions that are intrinsic not to the channel providing the content, but to the TV itself. This way, Sony can have its branded Bravia apps, Panasonic its Viera apps, and conceivably LG its Scarlet apps should it extend Tru2way functionality to that brand. Tru2way backers will be out in force throughout CES 2009, but the organization plans to make its collective statement on Saturday morning, January 10.

This means the CE makers' notion of the content gateway is moving from components directly to the HDTV set, bypassing Blu-ray, TiVo, Netflix...and, last and perhaps least, the media PC.

"Television screens are beginning to sprout Ethernet and USB ports, wireless connectivity, media card slots and other PC-like capabilities. It's a good start, because it reinforces that the media center of tomorrow will be based on a television and not on a PC," Carmi Levy told BetaNews. "But the market still lacks commonly accepted standards to take these new hardware capabilities and turn them into comprehensive, easily implemented solutions for average consumers."

Right now, the PC's gateway to the greater library of outside content is the Internet. That's not bad, but it's not great either. It's not yet an effective delivery mechanism for true 1080p HD content for millions of simultaneous customers that's not somehow compressed or otherwise altered, in a lossy sort of way, to fit through the IP pipeline. What's more, there's so much choice available through the Web that it's practically impossible for any one service provider or content provider to restrict or control customers' access to content. If a manufacturer opens its gateway to the entire Web, it may mean less to have exclusive content deals or "channels" with YouTube or Hulu or anyone else. Besides, how will Hulu look and work five years from now, and can it guarantee its compatibility with IPTV-supporting HDTVs produced today?

Five years, from that perspective, is a pretty short period of time.

And for a network comprised of more publicly available standards than you can safely shake a stick at, there's no one way yet to "do" IPTV. If CableLabs -- the CATV industry's research arm -- comes up with one way to do interactive programming that the CE manufacturers can appreciate, it may not even have to be all that good to be virtually universally adopted.

Next: Is no PC the best PC?