TV or Computer?
The issue is flexibility, not convergence
by Nathan Tennies, June 1996
While the Web is cool and may eventually be where
we get all our multimedia content from, it is not
clear that televisions and computers will converge.
Folks have been predicting this for the last five or
six years, and while desktop video may seem to be
another step in this direction, it isn't.
The problem is that the TV set and computer have
different functions and always will. That doesn't
mean that there won't be some connectivity between
the two -- there will be -- but they won't become the
same device, they won't converge. I don't want to
write code on my living room TV, and probably never
will. My wife and I don't want to watch Mad About
You on my desktop computer, and probably never
will.
What we do want is for these two separate,
distinct devices to become more flexible about what
they can do. Right now, I want to have the capability
to watch and record video on my desktop computer, to
catch a breaking news story while I'm working, or to
digitize video from my living room VCR. Right now, I
want to be able to have my living room TV display
information from my computer, such as photos from my
Kodak PhotoCD when friends come over, or a demo of a
software product for a user group meeting. And yes,
eventually I'll probably want to have my living room
TV display video pulled directly off the Internet.
However, this doesn't imply the need for
televisions and computers to become the same device.
What it does imply is the need for TVs and computers
(and VCRs and whatever else) to become networked. TVs
and VCRs will need to become somewhat smarter to
incorporate the networking protocols, to incorporate
appropriate forms of video digitization and
compression/decompression. But they will also be able
to become simpler, because they won't have to provide
any human interface.
The reason they won't have to provide any human
interface is because you will control the TV using
the third device in this trinity: the PDA (Personal
Digital Assistant). Having a keyboard connected to
the living room TV is never going to work well for
most people. Anything similar to the traditional
remote control is never going to work well for
browsing the Web for content. A PDA (with LCD
display, touch-screen, and infrared networking) is
the best interface for controlling a smart
living-room TV, at least in the way the living room
TV has traditionally been used, although naturally
any device on the network should be able to control
the TV.
Oh, there's one other set of devices that needs to
be on this network -- speakers and microphones -- so
that you can communicate with your computer wherever
you might be in your home or office. Speech control
of computers and vocal feedback from computers only
becomes really powerful when you don't have to be
sitting or standing right in front of the thing for
it to work. This may actually allow us to realize
mankind's great dream of a usable program to store
and retrieve recipes.
By the way, it's interesting to look at which
companies have the pieces in place, or are putting
them in place, to deliver this home network. Apple scores
especially well, since they are the leader in
multimedia computers (all the Macs from the 7500 on
up have video input standard), since they are the
leader in the PDA market (a lead that will grow with
the new version of the Newton OS), and since they
introduced the 100 Mbs/sec (eventually 400 Mbs/sec)
Firewire bus.
Nathan Tennies is the President of Time Domain Inc.
