Keeping the U.S. Computer and Communications Industry Competitive Convergence of Computing, Communications, and Entertainment (1995) / Chapter Skim
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2 Trends and Directions
2 Trends and Directions
Pages 15-39
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From page 15... ...
Not intended to be comprehensive, this chapter aims to depict the fluidity of the technologies and the uncertainty of the trends they are motivating. THE OUTLOOK FOR MULTIMEDIA GOODS AND SERVICES Enabling interactive multimedia to flourish are rapid advances in computer hardware, driving changes in telecommunications and other industries.
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From page 16... ...
But while the problems of designing and testing of massively complex chips representing the very fastest hardware systems may begin to slow progress by the end of the decade, it certainly will be possible to create systems with the computing performance of today's fastest chips and all that is needed to put a complete computer on a single chip by the end of this decade. These general-purpose computing systems-complemented by more limited purpose logic for performing tasks such as high-speed compression, decompression, and even recognition of audio signals will enable engineers to build digital systems with the overall computing power of today's supercomputers in products priced like commodity consumer electronics.
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From page 17... ...
As discussed in Chapter 1, multimedia computing has enjoyed a rapid ascendancy in the marketplace, since images and sounds can in many situations be more efficient than text for transmitting information to humans. Today, multimedia PCs outsell by a wide and growing margin personal computers without the ability to manipulate sound and video.
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From page 18... ...
In this category will be found digital television and other products that have been described as digital information appliances. Key to the commercial success of such products is the achievement of manufacturing costs in the range of those for other kinds of appliances roughly a factor of 10 less than the costs associated with today's personal computer products.
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From page 19... ...
While PCs may come to play a greater role within the household, computers may proliferate within the household without looking like computers- they may be increasingly embedded into consumer electronics.5 What may continue to differentiate appliances called computers is their general-purpose nature, including their expected use with a wide range of software, while more specialized appliances may run more specialized software. One product that has been widely discussed is the consumer product associated with interactive television systems, a digital version of the so-called set-top box (STB)
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From page 20... ...
The platform-independent principle should be incorporated into the national information infrastructure, Nagel said, because it would invite broad participation and innovation, which would hasten the evolution of the system. Software development tools for cross-platform systems are immature (Millison and LaGrow, 1993~.
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From page 21... ...
They won't just be able to sing and play the guitar; they'll be able to do that in both a visual sense like with music videos, and then also in an interactive sense. You're going to see musical presentations that are almost like mini-operas, where a CD isn't just for sound, it's also pictures and motion pictures, etc., and all under the control of the listener." At present, the nascent market means that job opportunities are small in number.8 But colloquium participants emphasized the need for skills and insight, particularly the need for prospective authors who are bright, curious, and motivated.
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(Nagel suggested that this number will approach 100 percent by the end of the decade.) Improving upon and integrating various networks, advanced information infrastructure can provide a delivery vehicle, user interfaces, and interfaces among the components that make up interactive multimedia systems.
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Each network has its strengths and weaknesses; to date, none constitutes a complete national information infrastructure, but collectively they are fragments of the foundation. Telephone companies, limited today by the existence of vast networks of twisted copper pair wiring in the local subscriber loops, are seeking ways of upgrading these low-bandwidth analog delivery systems to support digital transmission of information at rates required for display and transmission of high-resolution imagery and sound to and from-digital STBs.
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Expanding Bandwidth: Is There Enough? A fundamental issue in digital convergence is how to assure sufficient bandwidth to transmit huge volumes of digital bits very rapidly, over a wide area.
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"It isn't at all clear to me that one all-singing, all-dancing infrastructure can provide that diversity at the moment, or whether it should provide that diversity." Borrus' reservations foreshadowed the debates that have emerged subsequently over the federal initiative to advance the nation's information infrastructure. Those debates revolve around the issue of what it means to have "a" national information infrastructure, especially if such an entity is not monolithic or homogeneous and is not financed or controlled by a single entity.
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From page 26... ...
Standards A standard is a set of technical specifications followed by manufacturers or service providers, either tacitly or as a result of a formal agreement. Standards have emerged as a theme in CSTB's series of competitiveness -- colloquia, but digital convergence magnifies the challenge as well as the opportunity associated with standards setting in individual technology areas or industries.
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From page 27... ...
As Borrus noted, the fastest-growing products in today's electronics systems marketswhether computers, telecommunications equipment, or consumer electronicsare developed around proprietary standards that evolve rapidly in the marketplace through competition. Game companies are competing to invent the next unique platform, which, if it becomes the dominant standard, would bring its creator substantial rewards, Nagel said.20 The reconciliation of "open" standards with proprietary technology is debated among executives and scholars.2i Different players in the digital convergence arena have different experiences and traditions when it comes to standard setting.
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From page 28... ...
, and the cable industry makes use of MPEG-2 chip sets, anticipating economies of scale and interoperation with other digital coding applications, as in consumer electronics devices (NCTA, 1993c) .23 Some standards for digital convergence are being developed through forums involving all three industries-computer, telecommunications, and entertainment.
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ENTERTAINMENT AND THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY If entertainment and creative content are what differentiate digital convergence from the narrower merging of computing and communications, the entertainment industry becomes a central player. The approximately $6 billion U.S.
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For example, many of the technologies most heavily discussed in the context of digital convergence have to do with new methods (e.g., optical fiber cable to the home) of distributing existing products but will not make major changes in the type of product that is distributed.
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From page 31... ...
Developments in interactive storytelling concepts alongside advances in computer software and hardware are evolutionary corollaries of present systems.28 Although the actual "workers" in interactive media may be at secondary levels of the industry, it is clear that all major entertainment companies at their top levels have made a commitment to exploring ways that the digital convergence can interface with their products. Virtually every major Hollywood studio has established a subsidiary to create interactive products, typically computer adventures games based on movies.
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U.S. film producers spend some four to ten times the budgets of European counterparts, resulting in pioneering special effects (embodying digital convergence)
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For example, film industry financing changed with the introduction of sound in motion pictures.
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This medium gains particular relevance in the way it reflects aspects of the "virtual communities" emerging from the computer networks (Rheingold, 1993~. Thus, while the popular and business press tout prospective impacts from greater bandwidth in communications capacity, applications of virtual reality from CD-ROMs and other new devices, and other digital convergence components and products, it remains premature to determine what difference individual developments may make.
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From page 35... ...
The simple fact is, we don't understand the issue of entertainment very well. In looking for and predicting the impact of digital convergence, it may be useful to consider the potential of existing information goods and services as
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From page 36... ...
The Pentium processor, though not fast enough to handle Joint Photographic Experts Group- and Motion Pictures Expert Group-type compression, will be able to compress and manipulate audio signals. This means that recorded speech can be slowed down or sped up ....
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for a discussion of technical and design issues for STBs that could support interactive television. Hodge asserts that an STB consistent with open architecture is "a remote control unit for the video server, to which it connects through an ATM network.
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21. The intersection of standards setting and intellectual property rights management has been tracked in the annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference series and in a 1994 workshop on standards setting for information infrastructure sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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The U.S. film industry had a positive trade balance of approximately $1 billion in 1985, even though foreign earnings are reduced significantly by a number of trade barriers, as well as by piracy (Wildman and Siwek, 19881.
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