As far as technology developments are concerned 1996 was certainly the year of the Internet. Not only have there been vast improvements to the Internet infrastructure, there have also been big improvements to design and searching facilities of the World Wide Web. These can only get better.
The EC Information Society Trends review of 1996 recently commented that "it is a striking fact is that with some 60 million users in 160 countries, doubling each year, the Internet is no longer a marginal phenomenon concerning only scientists, academics and a handful of computer freaks, particularly in Europe."
Now it appears that 1997 is emerging as the year for Digital TV. For example, the German pay-TV channel Premiere is launching a pilot digital TV service available via cable and satellite to 30,000 homes in Germany via Mediabox, the TV decoding technology of the French pay-TV group Canal+. In Italy, RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) are about to launch their digital satellite service and are looking at ways to offer learning services. In Spain, two rival digital satellite broadcasting (DSB) groups have been formed, and plan to launch digital TV services in the course of 1997. One is led by the Spanish telecoms operator Telefonica and brings together the Mexican TV group Grupo Televisa, the Spanish broadcasters Television Espanola (TVE) and Antenna 3 as well as smaller Spanish media groups.
As for the UK, TV group BSkyB, a subsidiary of the US media giant News Corp., has unveiled plans to offer high-speed access via the TV set-top box to the Internet’s most popular sites to subscribers of its digital satellite TV service. In addition two consortia have recently submitted tenders to the UK Independent Television Commission (ITC) for terrestrial digital TV channels - one of which includes plans for an education and training channel - The Knowledge Network.
If the bid is successful Digital Television Network (DTN) will launch "The Knowledge Network" in the spring of 1998 and will become the UK’s first ever interactive television service devoted exclusively to education. The service will be developed in partnership with a number of educational bodies and it is proposed to include a distributed university network developed in conjunction with leading universities and colleges. Content will also come from general adult education and vocational education providers. It is also planned to offer services for schools education and a daily pre-school service.
In the United States competition for the Hughes own 150 channel DirecTV digital service has started to emerge in the form of the US media giant News Corp. which has purchased 50% of the US digital satellite broadcasting (DSB) group EchoStar Communications and merge it with its DSB subsidiary American Sky Broadcasting (ASkyB). The merged company renamed Sky will launch a 500-channel DSB service in early 1998, and also offer Internet services as well as regional programming.
Whereas in Japan, PerfecTV, first digital TV service, has been launched by the Japanese trading companies Mitsui, Itochu, Sumitomo and Nissho Iwai offering about 60 channels. The US media giant News Corp. and the Japanese software Softbank have also formally created JSkyB, a digital satellite broadcasting (DSB) venture which would launch 12 channels in Autumn 1997 and up to 150 channels by April 1998. To provide content for their DSB platform, the two partners plan to take a 10% stake each in 12 Japanese programme producers. DirecTV Japan (DTVJ), a100-channel DSB services will also be launched by Hughes Communications in the Autumn 1997.
In addition a number of global interactive multimedia projects have also been launched. It is unlikely that they will become commercial services until the 21st century but the satellite infrastructures are currently being put into place. For example in the United States, the telecoms group Motorola has launched M-Star - a global interactive multimedia satellite project. In Europe Alcatel Espace, the satellite subsidiary of the French telecoms equipment giant Alcatel has unveiled plans to launch by 2001 a $3.5 billion worth global interactive multimedia system - Skybridge - that would be based on 64 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites.
Skybridge is the first ambitious plan by a European company to set up a high-speed global satellite infrastructure. However it will compete with five similar US-sponsored systems, including Motorola’s M-Star, Lockheed Martin’s Astrolink, AT&T‘s Voicestar, Hughes‘s Spaceway and Bill Gates and Graig O. McCaw’s Teledesic.
Intel, the world’s leader in PC microprocessors, and Société Européenne des Satellites (SES), the private European satellite group, have also agreed to set up a joint venture, European Satellite Multimedia (ESM), to provide direct-to-PC high-speed multimedia transmissions. If provided at a reasonable cost, ESM’s service could become a serious competitor for Europe’s telecoms operators in the provision of high-speed Internet access. ESM would rely on SES’ Astra fleet of six satellites covering the whole of Europe.
In addition to all these satellite and terrestrial broadcasting multimedia developments land-line based high speed networks in the form of ATM and fibre-optic cable networks are continuing to develop across the world in areas where there is a higher concentration of population. And the existing telephone network for higher speed access is still attracting attention with the yet to be commercialised services utilising ADSL technologies. For example, the Austrian operator Austria Telecom has recently announced plans to offer interactive multimedia services based on the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a technology that provides high-speed communications over regular telecoms lines.
To counter the National Information Infrastructure (NII) in the United States, the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecoms (MPT) has unveiled plans to develop by mid-1998 a Regional Multimedia Highway building upon Japan’s cable TV infrastructure to provide low-cost, high-speed Internet access to consumers and schools.
All these developments seem to suggest that 1998 could emerge as the year for digital integration of the telecom, broadcasting media and IT worlds. A wide variety of digital distribution channels are starting to become available and so long as they all adopt the same standards for digital multimedia it won’t matter what network is used as long as it will give widespread access to the target audience.
Further evidence of digital integration is beginning to emerge with Microsoft along with other major IT providers’ recent announcements. Microsoft has proposed an open industry specification for delivering data via television broadcast networks, allowing the Internet and television networks to be connected. The combination of Internet content and television programming will allow producers to create new interactive and enhanced programs that will enable audiences to interact with a programme, other viewers and the content producers.
Microsoft’s proposal defines the use of the television vertical blanking interval (VBI), which is used by teletext services, to send data to PCs and other digital devices such as television set-top boxes attached to broadcast networks. If accepted as a standard it will enable new types of enhanced television programming, allowing programming that can contain data and video. It can also take advantage of the rich variety of existing Internet content tools to create enhanced television programming. Internet data and software can be broadcast to the home with information displayed on PCs or television set-top boxes, encouraging those who are not online now to enter into the digital world.
Microsoft’s digital broadcasting strategy is aimed at enabling new forms of video and web-based content and services accessible to a broad range of consumers, via multiple devices which will offer consumers a range of price/performance options for digital broadcast receivers. This announcement was made at the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Multimedia World Conference in Las Vegas on the 7 April. As part of this strategy they also announced the acquisition of WebTV Networks who provide users with easy-to-use access to the Internet via television.
In addition future versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system will incorporate "Broadcast Architecture for Windows", as well as Microsoft NetShow™ network multimedia streaming software. These technologies will enable PC users to view traditional television programs, enhanced television programmes and Internet broadcasts, and access innovative new services such as personalised news delivery on Windows-based PCs.
In order to stimulate developments of common standards Compaq, Microsoft and Intel also announced their intention to work co-operatively with the broadcasting and cable television industries to realise the full potential of digital television (DTV) across a range of PCs, hybrid PC/TVs and digital appliances.
This all follows on from the announcement in February by Progressive Networks, creators of "RealAudio", of their version one release of "RealVideo", enabling video to be streamed to a PC over the Internet with their freely available "RealPlayer" software obtainable from: http://www.real.com.
Recorded video can be downloaded from a remote Internet site along with stereo quality sound using a dial up modem at 28.8 kbs. The quality of the video is almost as good as video-conferencing over an ISDN, but it is best seen in a small picture size format. The now enhanced sound quality certainly makes the facilities good enough for distance learning. As in the case of video-conferencing learners will put up with poorer quality pictures if the sound is of good quality.
In addition "RealVideo" can also broadcast over the Internet live video TV programmes from the other side of the world. Progressive Networks claim that "RealVideo" has been optimised for today’s ‘real world’ bandwidth capacities. It delivers ‘newscast’-quality video over 28.8 kbps modems, full-motion-quality video using V.56 (56 kbps) and ISDN (56/64 kbps) modems, and near TV broadcast quality video at LAN rates or ‘broadband’ speeds (100 kbps and above).
On the client-side, RealVideo delivers easy-to-use interactive features, such as video seeking and scanning, clickable video regions, and ‘buffered play’ for greater video quality using slower 28.8 kbps modems.
On the server back-end, RealVideo aims to deliver the most scaleable, cost-effective media server solutions, allowing webcasting companies to deploy from several hundred to several thousand simultaneous video streams.
Currently, for dial up users, the variable speeds of the access along the Internet let this technology down for live broadcasts, but with the development of quality controllable Intranets and other developments like DirecPC enabling high speed delivery content via satellite to the PC should these problems should be overcome.
So the digital distribution channels now coming into place may take a number of different formats. In the USA the dominant delivery mechanism may be via multimedia satellite. In Japan the focus appears to be on broadband developments of the Internet, whereas in Europe a number of different alternative network infrastructures are emerging.
This could give Europe a competitive advantage if there is experience a wide range of infrastructure developments which could be utilised world-wide. Although within Europe this may be a disadvantage as extra effort would have to be devoted to the interconnection of the different systems.
Alternatively the technology used for offering learning services could be standalone with Digital Video Discs (DVDs). However, it would all be digital and given that common digital standards emerge for all delivery systems it won’t matter how it is delivered.
So the big question then becomes - Who will provide the content?