We know WM 9 is geared to sink TV to PC...
Gateway tried it with 'Destination Sytem' but no tv channel carriers to hd/stb with headset multiple channel-video and VOD / Audio. hooked to all's immediated cravings... lol
Media2go
With Equator, our stounch WMA etc record, and Divx ...
and HP, MS could be our OEM -
not a tivo,moxi,replay, mediastation, ... remember samsung called it 'ZapStation'
Zap... as in instant... truecool experience for wireless.
Note bold -
Tipping point
Matthew Miller, Special Projects Editor -- 4/17/2003
CommVerge - mpeg4 the next wave
For years, the owners of the world's phone networks have dreamed of the revenues they could reap by using their copper local loops to deliver an alluring trio of services: telephone, broadband Internet access, and television.
The last item on that wish list is the one that really sets their hearts aflutter. TV service, telco companies reason, would pry couch potatoes—and their fat monthly payments—away from the cable companies, not only enriching the telcos but also impoverishing their archrivals.
But like most dreams, the vision of so-called 'telco TV' has proven difficult to grasp in the harsh light of day. Even the preliminary step, rolling out simple data service via DSL, resulted in well-publicized struggles. And bandwidth-intensive video would seem to present a far stiffer challenge.
Yet sometimes dreams do come true. And today, telco TV seems to be building real momentum.
The number of people who get their TV service from their phone company is small—about 100,000 worldwide—but growing rapidly, according to market researcher In-Stat/MDR (a corporate sibling of CommVerge and EDN). In fact, the number should hit seven figures in 2004 and 16 million in 2006, according to Michelle Abraham, senior analyst.
In an interesting twist, rural residents are enjoying the fruits of this trend before their urban counterparts. Many small, independent phone companies have already found that selling TV service improves their bottom lines. And it's only a matter of time before larger carriers—even the behemoth RBOCs (regional bell operating companies)—become TV suppliers as well (see the sidebar, 'Rural roots').
Getting there
In terms of technology, telco TV is eminently feasible, and emerging equipment promises to make it even more so. Standard ADSL affords ample bandwidth to deliver broadcast-quality TV to a home, says Jeff Schline, manager of digital-TV market relations for VideoTele.com, a division of Tut Systems. Schline's company and others, including Optibase, Minerva Networks, and Harmonic, make video head-ends, which carriers use to stream TV out over their networks.
A video stream in MPEG-2 format, including overhead and audio, consumes between 2.7 and 3.2 Mbits/sec of bandwidth, Schline says. A typical DSL link, even when it's already carrying Internet-access service, can comfortably deliver two such streams concurrently. That's vital because it allows two TVs in the same home to show different programs at the same time. Advocates say the user experience is indistinguishable from television service delivered via a digital cable system.
But of course, many households have more than two TVs. One way to appease such customers is to use a fatter pipe, such as VDSL (very high speed DSL) or fiber-to-the-home. Some companies are taking this approach. However, most carriers favor a second option, better video compression, because it allows them to leverage the investments they've already made in DSL. As a result, a broad transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 is now getting underway.
'I think the industry recognizes that MPEG-4 is the next wave.'
—Mark Carpenter, VideoTele.com/Tut Systems
For example, at the recent NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show (April 5 to 10 in Las Vegas), VideoTele.com debuted an MPEG-4 enabled version of its Astria video head-end. The system can send a broadcast-quality video stream, including overhead and audio, in 2 to 2.5 Mbits/sec of bandwidth. That's a 22 percent reduction compared with MPEG-2, a difference that can translate into delivering three concurrent channels instead of two, Schline says.
The system employs MPEG-4 ASP (Advanced Simple Profile), a standard recently made concrete by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Further ahead, carriers will be able to upgrade the DSP-based Astria system to support another MPEG-4 standard, MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Codec). Also known as H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 10, MPEG-4 AVC delivers even better compression; it promises to crush video to half of its MPEG-2 size.
VideoTele.com's Astria system also transcodes video from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 in real time. This capability is critical because it allows a carrier to grab MPEG-2 streams from a satellite or local feed and immediately send them out to subscribers in MPEG-4 form. The platform also ensures that the outgoing streams conform to a constant bit rate, which helps network engineers sleep at night because they can know with certainty that users won't experience reception hiccups.
At NAB, VideoTele.com demonstrated the Astria system with an MPEG-4 set-top box provided by Kreatel. Other vendors, such as Pace Micro Technology and Samsung, have sworn to provide MPEG-4 customer-premise equipment as well, according to Mark Carpenter, the company's vice president of marketing.
Changing channels
'I think the industry recognizes that MPEG-4 is the next wave,' Carpenter says. It maintains high quality while reducing bandwidth demands. And conserving bandwidth, the argument goes, will become even more critical in the future as video-on-demand, multichannel sound, interactivity, and high-definition programming become more pervasive. :)hiend-e
On the other hand, one shouldn't conclude that MPEG-4 has already been anointed. First of all, much of the market is waiting for equipment based on MPEG-4 AVC to appear before committing. Capital-challenged companies are apparently reasoning that it's better to wait for higher bandwidth efficiency tomorrow than to invest in a half-measure today, according to In-Stat/MDR's Abraham. Secondly, a rather wealthy and influential company in the Seattle area is pushing its Windows Media 9 technology as a compression scheme for TV distribution. And when Microsoft talks, people listen; some equipment suppliers, notably Tandberg Television, are on board to provide Windows Media-based products.
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OK here's wher it get goooood- bold again
Compaq Demonstrates End-to-End Digital Media Solutions for Content Creators, Distributors and Consumers at NAB98 Conference
Compaq Joins with Industry-Leading Software Vendors to Deliver New Class of Integrated, Standards-Based Digital Media Products
LAS VEGAS, April 6, 1998 - Expanding its presence in the digital media market, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) today announced in the U.S. that it will showcase in its first-ever exhibition at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference a new class of high-performance, standards-based, hybrid computing solutions designed to support the creation, distribution and consumption of digital content. Compaq and its digital media allies - including Adobe Systems Inc., Alias/Wavefront, Microsoft Corp., Pinnacle Systems and Softimage, among others - will demonstrate at Compaq booth #S1862 new best-of-breed solutions that significantly reduce the cost of producing, storing, delivering, receiving and viewing digital programming. In addition, Compaq customer Paul Sidlo of ReZ.n8 will give a presentation of the high-end graphics his company created using Compaq Professional Workstations for the recent Winter Olympics.
"As a leading provider of industry-standard consumer and commercial personal computers, servers and Windows NT-based workstations, Compaq is joining forces with key independent software and hardware vendors to develop and deliver a wide range of solutions that meet the flexibility, reliability, low maintenance and investment protection needs of today's media enterprises," said Les Crudele, Vice President and General Manager, Workstation Division, Compaq Computer Corporation. "This full complement of solutions enables our demanding customers in the digital media industry to minimize their dependence on costly proprietary computing systems in favor of easy-to-use, standards-based platforms that provide the power and performance to support the most advanced digital media applications."
The Compaq booth at NAB98 will showcase a comprehensive range of powerful, integrated and standards-based hardware and software solutions designed to provide end-to-end support for creators, distributors and broadcasters and consumers of digital content. Highlights will include previously unreleased animation and nonlinear editing (NLE) solutions running on Compaq's industry-leading Windows NT-based platforms, including Professional Workstations, ProLiant servers and network storage, as well as a demonstration of digital TV technology.
Adobe® Premiere® 5.0 Introduction
Compaq will demonstrate on Compaq Professional Workstations the first public showing of Adobe Premiere 5.0, a powerful new digital video editing tool for video studios, industrial video professionals, event videographers, and multimedia and Web developers. Running on Compaq Professional Workstations, Premiere 5.0 provides advanced professional video editing capabilities including an offline editor, studio-quality audio tools, and support for long-format editing to meet the requirements of the most demanding broadcast video and post-production workflows. In addition to Premiere 5.0, Compaq will also showcase Adobe's Dynamic Media products which have been optimized for its Professional Workstations.
Alias Maya 3D Animation Demonstration
At NAB, the Compaq booth will also include a demonstration of Alias/Wavefront's 3D software, Maya, running on Compaq Professional Workstations. The Windows NT-based version of Maya is the latest development for Alias/Wavefront's next-generation 3D animation software product, Maya. Maya is a dramatically new approach to character animation that also strengthens the company's leadership position in visual effects technology.
"We are extremely pleased to be working with Compaq on this landmark event for the company, our first implementation of Maya on Windows NT," explained Penny Wilson, president of Alias/Wavefront. "We have been working closely with Compaq to maximize performance of Maya running on the Professional Workstation 6000 series. We're looking forward to delivering a powerful solution to our mutual customers in the digital content creation market."
Softimage Announces SOFTIMAGE®/3D Version 3.8
Softimage Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp., today announced version 3.8 of its 3D modeling, animation and rendering software package, SOFTIMAGE/3D, at NAB98. Compaq will demonstrate SOFTIMAGE/3D version 3.8 - the product designed to function as the heart of a powerful animation studio, incorporating all the tools necessary for true end-to-end 3D production - on a Compaq Professional Workstation in the Compaq booth. SOFTIMAGE/3D Version 3.8 extends the current animation toolset - already the industry standard for animation - by providing even faster access to and control of animation data. Version 3.8 also incorporates a host of new games tools, including next-generation polygon reduction, improved color reduction, and a new DirectX-based ASCII file format import/export tool.
Microsoft NetShow Theater Server Demonstration
Also in the Compaq booth, Compaq is demonstrating a new video server solution that offers breakthrough levels of cost-per-stream for broadcast-quality video applications. The solution combines the latest version of Microsoft NetShow Theater Server and high-performance Compaq ProLiant video server systems to deliver broadcast-quality, MPEG video streams through high-bandwidth networks such as switched Ethernet and ATM to standard PC clients and set-top-boxes. NetShow Theater Server is based on NetShow technology and provides a high-performance, fault-tolerant system for delivery of broadcast-quality video on high-speed networks scaling from a few to thousands of streams. This combination of industry-standard, scalable Compaq ProLiant servers and Microsoft's Windows NT-based video-streaming software has been fully tested and optimized to deliver unmatched performance and ease of installation for corporate training and communications, distance learning, video-on-demand, interactive video kiosks and numerous other applications. The Compaq ProLiant servers' Highly Parallel System Architecture offers the ultimate in video-streaming performance as well as flexible configurations ranging from standalone servers for small applications to rack-mounted systems containing terabytes of video content storage. NetShow Theater Server is currently in beta 3.
Pinnacle NLE Solutions
Additionally, Compaq and Pinnacle Systems will demonstrate two NLE solutions on Compaq Professional Workstations. The first is a dual-stream editing solution based on the Compaq Professional Workstation 6000, the Pinnacle ReelTime product, and Adobe Premiere 4.2. This solution will demonstrate the ability to perform 130 real-time transitions with no rendering required. Compaq and Pinnacle will also demonstrate a single-stream editing solution based on the Professional Workstation 6000, Pinnacle's miroVideo DC30 plus and Adobe Premiere 5.0.
Digital TV and Convergence
Also being shown in the Compaq booth is a technology demonstration of a Digital TV-enabled Compaq PC. The demonstration shows a prototype Compaq PC receiving video programs using the new ATSC digital television system and video formats proposed by Compaq, Microsoft, and others.
ReZ.n8 Presentation
In addition, Paul Sidlo, president of innovative graphics company ReZ.n8, will demonstrate how his company used Compaq Professional Workstations to create many of the televised graphics included in the CBS television coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. ReZ.n8, a world leader in conceptualizing, designing and producing state-of-the-art computer graphics, animation and special effects, provided many of the televised graphics and simulations for the CBS Winter Olympics viewers. These simulations included, in the United States coverage, televised animations depicting intricate figure skating technical requirements and 3D simulations of ski races and bobsled runs. END
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Remember CPQ / MS like and use fonix
JUST more to come,... and what the content providers/owners
want... technology such as this is will fulfill.
emit...
AI
