Box Talk
Angles abound for future entertainment devices
By Karen Brown
from the June 18, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
The future for the entertainment box in the broadband home is far from square these days. With a proliferation of devices all claiming to be an entertainment box, there's little agreement as to what the home scene will be 10 years from now--there may be an uber box that does everything, or an assortment of devices tied to a brainy network. And in some cases, there may not be boxes at all.
These options will be center stage for hardware and software developers at the Digital Entertainment Box Forum, part of next week's Streaming Media West confab.
An Uber Box?
The idea of an all-in-one digital set-top or other type of box able to field complex games, deliver e-mail, process video and surf the Internet may seem logical as a way to sell the most function to the most users. But not so fast, experts say.
For a middleware provider such Canal Plus Technologies, knowing what applications have to be herded on a digital entertainment box is crucial in building the interface with the operating system. While it may be possible to create a multi-function uber box, it may not be practical, according to Arthur Orduna, vice president of marketing for Canal Plus Technologies.
To begin with, box functions have to keep the bottom line in mind. Adding big-time processing power and graphics for advanced gaming, for example, will add to the price tag. That's one of the key road blocks AT&T Broadband encountered over the past two years as it explored whether to deploy feature- and cost-heavy DCT-5000 set-tops from Motorola Inc., and later determined it was better off adding low- and medium-range boxes to the mix.
"If you want integrate more advanced game box functionality into a cable television set-top box, you are going to have to justify that with a business model--typically either subscription or pay-per-play that'll offset the cost of putting a pretty expensive chipset and advanced-graphic functionality into the set-top box, as well as providing the network capability," Orduna says. "I could see it happening on a limited basis in a subscription model, and only if you brought in the game programmer as a partner willing to offset part of that initial risk."
Indeed, cost is key for the cable operators in choosing what entertainment boxes they offer customers. Even adding a $100 hard drive is no small factor for a cabler when there are an average of about three TV sets per cable household.
"Remember, today, fewer than 50 percent of U.S. households have a box from a cable operator," says Lynne Elander, vice president of video product management at Cox Communications Inc. "So there is a huge competitive advantage to us as an industry to continue to offer a very robust product that does not require incremental equipment on a set-top."
In fielding the latest trendsetting personal video recorder, TiVo Inc. also is not putting any bets behind a universal entertainment box.
"A single, do-everything box is very unlikely," says Howard Look, vice president of TiVo Studios, the unit charged with developing interactive services. "If nothing more, look at gaming technology where pretty much every other Christmas the teenagers is going to want whatever the newest, hottest gaming device is, whereas mom and dad may be perfectly satisfied with a box that lets them time-shift their favorite TV shows or lets them play all of their favorite music from a music jukebox. And that is not necessarily something you need to replace every couple of years the way the game machine might want to be."
Still, the idea of boxes able to do many things is finding some traction. Motorola Inc. is putting plenty of features on upcoming versions of its premier DTC-5000, including a hard drive, personal video recorder functions, input/output ports to connect with home video cameras and ports to connect with home networking systems.
Sal Macera, manager of the DCT-5000 product line, says entertainment may be the center of the DCT-5000's operations, but its position at the head of the coax cable broadband pipe (and its cable modem) gives it a greater potential.
"We see our products positioned more for the living room in a nutshell," Macera says. "But at the same time they are the broadband pipeline to the home, and you can really expand beyond that. So if you really look far out you can think about attaching appliances, be it wireless or HPNA wiring going back to your broadband pipeline."
Stick to Peripherals?
Indeed, another scenario follows the tried-and-true consumer-driven world, where users buy separate devices piecemeal and central box devices remain relatively simple.
"Look at the entertainment center today. How many companies try to sell an integrated TV and VCR or an integrated stereo system? People like to buy different components," says analyst Michael Harris, president of Kinetic Strategies. "They like to have the flexibility to integrate solutions that meet their specific needs and requirements."
Orduna, too, envisions a set-top box more as a router where cablers don't have to worry about a PC-like obsolescence cycle.
"Why not just hook a PlayStation through the set-top box?" Orduna asks. "Start thinking of the set-top box as a hub, a gateway, a router, so that you don't have to necessarily keep increasing the CPU power of the box and the graphics capability of the box so you can play advanced games. Why not just make sure that you can download those advanced games or route them through the set-top box to the appropriate game box that you already have in your house?"
But while creating a system using a relatively simple box may appeal, there could be problems with driving a system toward too many peripherals, Elander points out.
"Then you wonder, how can I ensure the consistency of delivery of the service if I don't have control of all of the devices that are going to help deliver that consumer experience?" she notes. "So there are some tradeoffs that we are going to have to make. There are lots of devices in consumer homes, and we probably need to figure out a way to serve multiples in each home."
The Brainy Network Option
Another version is a multiple service offering that puts the brains in the network, not a fancy box in the user's home or office. That possibility gains more strength given the huge number of older, less sophisticated digital boxes cable operators already have deployed.
"If the operators actually could do that on their networks, there really is no box," notes Harris. "I'm one that tends to think in terms of applications and services, that there is a law of gravity. Developers and service providers are going to develop or deploy against the install base with the most mass. So do you start writing all of these applications for a DCT-5000-class box and then start and one sub, two sub, three sub, or do you go for 20 million?"
While nothing has been decided as yet, Cox's Elander also finds favor in a network scheme that puts functions including hard drive storage in the cable headend. Not only does that allow more use of the existing, older boxes already in the field, "it also matches, probably what consumers want," Elander says. "Customers don't want us to be traipsing through their house every couple of years to switch out the equipment. And we certainly don't want to incur the expense to have to do it. So isn't a thin-client-type solution really what we should be marching towards?"
What Consumers Want
And what the customer wants also plays into the equation. There is ample evidence Cox customers want tools to control the video programming they have with electronic programming guides to help them sort through some 170 TV channels and video-on-demand functions to view programs when they want. But beyond that it gets a lot fuzzier.
"We're all in the same position right now trying to figure out what are the applications consumers want first and how much they are willing to pay for it." Elander says.
TiVo also is looking at expanding its offerings, as long as they maintain the company's simple-to-use mantra.
Broadband connections to a majority of households will bring greater opportunities. That doesn't necessarily mean they will be surfing the Web on TV, "but using the Internet as yet another delivery device for interesting and cool content is," Look says. "So if you can deliver movie trailers or even movies to a TiVo box in your living room, where they can get stored for future viewing, that's cool. If you can deliver music where it can be previewed and listened to later, that's cool. But in order to do all of that you don't have to do Web on your television. The broadband connection at that point is just another delivery vehicle to the box."
No One Winner
So will it be a fancy multi-use box, no box or a plethora of separate devices?
"I think the answer is all of the above--which has always been the case," Harris says. "I think everybody likes to look for the answer or the killer app and that kind of nonsense. You will certainly see a patchwork of solutions out there."
Elander, too, thinks there will be some distribution of high-end boxes that perform more functions, but there will also be customers who don't want all of the service bells and whistles. Customers may prefer to keep e-mail on their computers, or won't want the time-shifting features of a PVR box.
"One of things we've got to remember is that just because we can do it doesn't necessarily mean our customer wants it," Elander says. "We need to make it as absolutely easy as possible for the customers who are perfectly happy in their more passive viewing environment. You can't force people to interact with their television set."
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