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MTV on Your PC and More: Intel and Microsoft Aren%squott Waiting for Digital TVs

PC companies get a head start on providing the content and transport standards for the digital TV revolution.

By Mike Hogan, PCWorld   

At the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas today, MTV announced that it will use Intel%squots Intercast software for downloading HTML pages off the Web over the invisible Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) that is part of all TV transmissions. MTV joins more than a half-dozen broadcast companies that provide, or have announced plans to offer, Intercast services.

At the same press conference, Gateway 2000, one of the largest direct marketers of PCs, announced that on April 28 it will begin selling the TV tuner board needed to display MTV and other channels on its desktop computers.

The optional board costs $129 and comes with Intel Intercast, which includes a Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 browser so that the viewer can immediately log onto the Web by clicking a hyperlink. STB Systems and Hauppage Computer already sell similar add-on boards at similar retail prices.

Four other broadcasters--The Weather Channel, Lifetime Television, Home & Garden Television, and ESPN Sports--also promised to provide Intercast content before year-end. Already, CNN, QVC Home Shopping Network, and NBC Sports simultaneously download Web pages to Intercast-enabled PCs during their broadcasts.

In a separate press conference at NAB, Microsoft announced that it too has big plans for VBI, proposing an even wider ranging protocol for delivering a variety of rich content--including audio and video--from the Web to TV-capable PCs and digital TVs. Called Multicast IP, the push technology is a set of low-level transport services that will be included in Memphis, the successor to Windows 95.

Application providers like Intel can use them as the transport layer for the protocols they build for their broadcast customers. Intel and Microsoft executives stressed that their individual standards are non-competitive and can coexist without extensive recoding of one or the other.

%dquotThere are 21 different scans available within VBI--of which ten are available to broadcasters at any given time,%dquot observed Microsoft Windows Product Manager Alec Saunders. Intel should adopt Multicast IP, he added, because it will enable the transport of more data types and make TV more interactive.

%dquotWe have no problem with Multicast IP whatsoever,%dquot agreed Intel Intercast Product Manager Mike Richmond. %dquotIf there are more capabilities in Memphis that%squots good for me because I can enhance my product.%dquot

Microsoft and Intel share big plans for the days when the only thing that distinguishes a PC from a TV is the room of the house in which each is viewed.

In a joint announcement, the pair outlined their preferences for the way data will be delivered and displayed on digital TVs, and pledged to work with media and entertainment industries%squot Advanced Television Systems Committee to hammer out the necessary protocols.

They also are intent on getting a head start on delivering marketable products. There are already 250 hours a week worth of Intercast programming available on various stations, reports Intel%squots Richmond.

%dquotWhen TV stations start their ten-year migration to digital,%dquot he said, %dquotthey will have content available that is already going to PC users and that they can move onto digital TVs.%dquot

Intel estimates that, by the second half of 1998, millions of new PCs will be equipped to receive digital TV signals.