Long promised, and long delayed, interactive TV may finally be ready for a picture screen near you.
Long considered a pipe dream, interactive TV looked more a reality at this year's Western Cable Show in Los Angeles, with actual systems and hardware now available. It may even be in homes by late 1999.
All consumers actually need to receive digital TV are a digitally capable set-top boxes and a link to a cable provider's digital network. But getting this has not been so simple before.
"At a technology level, we are ready," said Steve Guggenheimer, product manager at Microsoft's digital TV group.
The digital opportunity
In fact, the building blocks have arrived.
Set-top box giant Scientific-Atlanta has announced that U.S. two cable companies -- Adelphia and Marcus Cable -- are deploying its next-generation set-top box, the Explorer 2000. And another 12 cable operators have signed on with SA to use the digital set-top box, the company said earlier this week.
"Consumers can [access] digital picture and sound -- and very soon, Internet capabilities, instant video-on-demand, e-commerce and a host of other new services," said Jim McDonald, president and CEO of SA, in a statement. Other services that the Explorer 2000 offers include e-mail, cable-modem access for PCs, and, thanks to digital compression, many more channels than standard analog television.
In addition, the new box complies with the industry's developing standard, OpenCable. By taking part in the OpenCable consortium, Scientific Atlanta has essentially "future-proofed" its set-top solution.
"Companies that want to offer interactive services can do so without physically upgrading all the boxes," said Randy Brasche, a spokesman at interactive TV software maker Network Computer, which teamed with Scientific Atlanta to show off an "enhanced TV" solution at the Western Cable Show.
Out-of-box experience
The focus on open standards has paid off for the industry, as well.
"The cable industry has set down some guidelines, and they are going to hold people's feet to the fire to make sure they comply," said Greg Blatnik, an analyst at Internet watcher Zona Research.
Microsoft, for one, has felt the heat.
On Wednesday, the MS announced that its WebTV service would be moving away from its proprietary box. Instead, the WebTV service and software will in the future work with OpenCable-compliant set-top boxes, such as Explorer 2000.
"We can offer a stand-alone service, or the software underpinnings without the service," said Microsoft's Guggenheimer. WebTV's service now has 500,000 subscribers, triple the number of subscribers it had at the end of 1997.
The move removes many blocks that made cable companies wary of Microsoft and WebTV. Before this week's move, cable companies that decided on WebTV's service would have been delivering their viewers directly to Microsoft's content, not their own.
"Cable companies by nature want to own the customer; they want to own the service," said NCI's Brasche. NCI's DTV Navigator, a WebTV competitor, is not tied to any content.
Microsoft's cable software system will include its WebTV software and the Microsoft Commercial Internet System running on, of course, Windows NT servers.
Phoning for the home
Services are set to go farther as well. PC technology giant Intel announced that its Intel Video Phone software would now work over cable modems. While the technology is currently focused on PCs, a day when set-top boxes get video dial tone is not too far off.
"Video phone will absolutely be a big thing," said Duane Canfield, a product marketing manager at Intel's Architecture Labs. "In the future, set-top boxes will be able to connect with our PCs through today's standards."
"The technology is there -- it's just a matter of getting people to sign up," said NCI's Brasche.
Whether they will, however, remains to be seen.
The video phone is an idea that has repeatedly failed in the market. Interactive TV has also failed repeatedly. But they certainly look closer to moving beyond mere science fiction.
