IPv6 and the Convergence Box
Sunday, July 02, 2006
I remember the days of channel-surfing TV. The classic scene from Toy Story 2 comes to mind, where the Pig is flipping channels, passed the one he wanted, and said it's too late and he had to go round again. You could flip channels as fast as you hit a button.
What happened? Well, that was the old-fashioned days of analog cable. Now, we have digital cable and channel guides. The slow channel-flip seems to be connected to the MPEG stream decoding process. I'm not entirely sure about this, but my understanding is that the video stream is encoded for size AND that only one-in-10 (or so) frames carries the full image required to "tune in". Therefore, you've got processing time factors AND time interval "quantization". You can't instantly tune in a channel.
While channel guides are great for getting an overview of what's on TV that appeals to a certain part of your brain, it just doesn't appeal to whatever animal instincts that liked channel surfing. I miss it. There's just something about visually SEEING what's on in a rapid sequential overview that ensures you're not missing what you REALLY want to be watching.
I'm sure that this will be fixed in time. And people are aware of the problem. I bought the HDWonder card for my PC from ATI, and after doing some research about why the interface was terrible, I discovered that they intended to do an "automated" channel surf, and present you a thumbnail of everything that was on, but gave it up because of performance issues. But none-the-less, if graphic cards folks are thinking this way, we can only hope that Motorola, Microsoft, Scientific Atlanta and Sony are thinking this way too.
I feel the digital convergence coming--at least in the home. The desire for one wireless box that does it all is so strong you can walk on it. And I don't think it's only me. I see the XBox 360, PS3 or something from Motorola wrapping in the HD tuner, the gaming console, and a rudimentary computer for email, word processing and the like. The days of the TV not being suitable as a PC monitor are over. Pull up a chair, and fire up Word!
Everything old is new again, and the way the Commodore 64 was so massively popular in its day, coming virtually from out of nowhere, so will this convergence box. It simplifies our lives by making you not need to be a genius to wire up your home system or have a PhD to operate the universal remote. Better yet, it will be built into the monitor as a plug-in console, so it's truly wireless. No need for an extra box sitting somewhere! Bluetooth or something like it will connect it to your controllers and speakers.
Another seldom discussed point, which is amazing considering all the point-to-point broadband video services popping up, is how significant IPv6 is going to be. The next generation Internet supports something that is exactly akin to broadcasting over the airwaves, called IP-multicast. This is significant, because it is the last remaining piece forcibly preventing convergence. Let me explain.
Broadcasting is called broadcasting because you're blasting the same signal out to everyone with a tuner that can receive it. It's a very efficient way of communicating, because one outbound datastream can be tuned in by millions. But everything starts and stops at the same time. On any given channel, everyone is essentially watching the same thing. There is no variation. Today, TiVo and PVR fixes that. But it's fixing a problem we shouldn't have in the first place. Why can't you just ask for any program you want at any moment you want?
And that gets to the way things work on today's Internet that doesn't support broadcast. If you were to send out TV programming the way it is now, you need a separate discreet datastream for everybody who is watching. So, if 1000 people are watching at the same time, it's 1000 times more data than with the broadcasting model. But you can start, stop and pause whenever you like. Everyone's datastream is different, and there is a high degree of customization possible.
And that takes us to how things are going to radically change once the next generation Internet is widely deployed. It will take a whole bunch of Cisco routers being upgraded, but once it's done, broadcasting similar to today's dish networks or public broadcast TV will be brought to PCs... or tuners... or convergence boxes--whatever they're going to be called.
And instead of having to watch the SAME broadcast as everyone else, there will be TiVo-like features built into this box, displacing time as you like. And instead of one broadcast per day of your favorite program (or 5 per day of many cable channels), hot programs will be broadcast hundreds of times per day. Coupled with the TiVo-like features, you will effectively get the experience of true on-demand TV of anything that's "released". The concept of the TV Channel Guide goes away entirely, and all that remains is what moment new episodes are made available. And if the whole world rushes to the latest Lost episode, there is hardly any more strain on the system than if it were one person tuning it in. And there will be different viewing profiles for different family members, because data storage will be virtually unlimited in your home system.
Add to this the fact that "pod" technology like whatever Apple's iPod evolves into will "peel off" a portable copy of whatever is on your home system, so viewing in multiple rooms of your house, or on the go will never be a problem. The pod will be able to update itself with ad hoc Internet connections that it can acquire on the go. And it will have the resolution of ePaper, so it will also be your college text books, your newspaper, and your paperback novels. Voice recognition will be improving all the while, so the need for a keyboard constantly drops. And if Sony has their way, it may even be able to liquefy and be folded up and stuck in your pocket when not in use, only to seamlessly unfold to rigid 8.5 x 11 when flicked on.
All this rambling from missing Channel Surfing! Well, in my lifetime it will be nice just to see some form of the convergence box arrive, so we won't need Electrical Engineering degrees and a weekend put aside to hook up our media centers.Labels: Apple, Microsoft, Motorola
posted by Mike Levin
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