TaskZ.com | ViewPointz by Henry Lichstein



	The Elusive Convergence Box The Holy Grail of the consumer electronics business today is the entertainment Convergence Box, one single piece of equipment that combines the functions of the TV, the PC, the HiFi, and the Game Console. Many manufacturers have set out to claim to the prize but I predict none will succeed. The devices they promote share common components and attributes: they all have powerful microprocessors and large hard disc drives; they will all harness the Internet; they use standards for content storage and communication such as XML, WiFi, MP3, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4; and they all claim a monopoly on understanding the needs of the consumer. However, they each approach convergence from a different point of view and hence the convergence box they promote takes a different form Those trying to provide an entertainment Convergence Box include: Consumer electronic manufacturers -- Sony, Pioneer, Thomson TV cable set top box makers -- Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Sony again, Microsoft PC makers -- Dell, Gateway, Microsoft again, and Sony again Game box makers -- Sony yet again, Microsoft yet again New niche players -- OpenGlobe, Simple Devices, Moxie Digital, etc. The notion advanced in this essay is that convergence will occur not as an accumulation of many functions in one piece of hardware but in the appearance of a common set of functions in many. Consumers want their entertainment functions to be "everywhere" but they do not expect that to occur in a single piece of hardware. No single device will combine and embody all the entertainment functions consumers want. Consumers want the functions, not the device. They want what the device does, not the device itself. Convergence will come from the commonality of functions as expressed in software and hardware. The entertainment Convergence Box is but one of many groups of devices undergoing change as technology advances. In a similar evolution, the cell phone and the personal digital assistant devices are converging, as are voice and data communications networks. Convergence of Function Convergence will arrive when common functions supporting entertainment are available in many boxes designed for specific applications, some connected to one another and some connected to the Internet. There will be common elements of software, a high degree of interoperability, well-designed communications protocols, and superb user interface design. The consumer wants functionality that is plug-and-play interconnect able and easy to use, and the functions cannot take days to learn, hours to program, and minutes to boot up each time they are needed (like the PC). People want appliances to satisfy specific needs. Just like a toaster provides toast with the push of a lever, an MP3 player provides music with the push of a button. Mass use devices cannot have functions buried three levels down in menus. The blinking "12:00" on VCRs is testament to that. When convergence in entertainment arrives, consumers will use many devices but they will expect common functions from each one. They want: The power to get access to voice, video and music, and data ("content") on the Internet, and to organize and store it. The ability to use the content anywhere in their home, at their office, and when they travel or exercise. The ability to share content with their friends (like they share text today) The ability to create their own music or video, view them wherever they want, and share them with their friends and relatives. In a similar manner, consumers have been dealing with convergence of function in telephones since the 1960s, when they took control of the instrument from the telephone company. The function of the telephone appear in a variety of appliances -- multi-set consoles, portable telephones, cell phones, answering machines, caller IDs, etc. -- and consumers learned how to use them all. Telephony was really a plug-and-play world, and the devices were successful because they were easy to use and inexpensive. Now, the elements are in place for convergence in entertainment consumer electronics, for the following reasons: Devices are being connected to each other. Consumers are installing structured cable (CAT5) and wireless LANs in their homes to connect Modems, set top boxes, PVRs, HiFi's, and PCs. Soon, all high-end consumer electronic equipment will have a LAN jack. Most major consumer devices in the home will be WiFi enabled (WiFi is the brand name for the most popular wireless technology). The devices will talk among themselves and connect to the Web. Users will interact with their friends and colleagues at a distance, using voice and video as well as text. Convergence comes from interconnection. Devices are becoming Web-enabled. They depend on services on the Internet for information about content they deliver. Panasonic has a device that stores thousands of music tracks and goes to the Web to display data about them as they are played. Some DVD players download information about movies being played and display it for the user. Content distribution is going from analogue to digital. MPEG-2 encoding and decoding made possible Direct Broadcast Satellite, digital television, and DVDs. MP3 encoding will cause digital to displace analogue as the way to distribute and store music. MP3 tracks will be downloaded, stored and organized in PCs, and moved to HiFis for playing now, and to flash memory and CDs for portability. (MP3 is many times more efficient than analog in terms of bits required to store a track.) Convergence occurs in the common use of compression formats by all the devices, and from the dramatically more efficient storage of content. This is the threat and opportunity faced by the content distribution industry. The viewer, not the networks, will control watching TV. TiVo and Replay started a revolution by offering Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) that combine a TV tuner, an MPEG-2 encoder/decoder, and a large hard disk drive. TV watching can be arranged to suit viewer schedules and interests, allowing a virtual personal TV network. Viewers time shift at will, and disintermediate the advertiser. Satellite and cable services include PVR functions in their new set top boxes, and Sony and others may soon embody them in TV sets. Convergence comes from personal control of content. The sale of content is moving from the physical to the digital world. Content creators fear loss of control through uncontrolled replication, but a Digital Rights Management (DRM) infrastructure can be created to allow owners to sell content for a fair price, protect it from theft or unfair use, and expand markets. A DRM infrastructure can be built which balances risk of loss of control and the value of dramatically lower costs. Access to the Internet will allow confirmation of who owns what, who has the right to play or transfer what, and for settlement of financial obligations among the participants. An adequate DRM solution will allow growth of Internet-based content distribution, allowing convergence of distribution and use. (The shop-buy-use paradigm will be augmented by a shop-use-buy paradigm.) The problem is not to find a technically unbreakable protection scheme -- there is no such thing. What is needed is a practical balance between protection, value, and convenience, to encourage honest people to participate. Peer-to-peer computing will expand dramatically to speed delivery and reduce streaming costs. Content storage will be pushed to the user for streaming content and Video On Demand (VOD) on the Internet and on Cable. Convergence will come from the merging of the user and the provider functions. Importance of User Interface There is today no common user interface (UI) for converged consumer electronic functions. However, the Internet Browser (less than a decade old!) is an indication of how a new function can be embodied by a new UI and spread throughout the globe. The convergence of Internet delivery of video and music and its use on consumer devices will involve new user interfaces with an impact similar to the Internet Browser. They will borrow from the browser, and will be intimately tied to the Internet, but it will involve a new metaphor of use. This common UI will be a pacing item in convergence. A well-designed set of functionalities embodied in vocabulary for use, screen design, hardware design, etc., is needed to facilitate convergence. The Internet browser is again instructive: access to the World Wide Web is made possible by a new paradigm of user interaction. No small amount of TiVo's success was due to the attention paid to the design of its remote control and overall user interface. Technology A number of elements of software, communication protocol, and interface hardware have emerged that will form the basis for convergence (and more will be added). Ethernet and IP protocols are well established and have driven communication costs down and dramatically improved interconnection among computer-based devices The 802.11b standard (WiFi) is widely accepted and is the basis for within home and short distance wireless communication. (Extensions to the 802.11 suite of standards may provide higher bandwidth, some with upward compatibility.) Internet-based services will be used to distribute voice, music, video, and data. MPEG-2, MP3, and MPEG-4 standards allow the exchange and inexpensive delivery of digital content. XML will allow for automated exchange of variable data. USB will be used to interconnect low speed (serial) devices, and FireWire (IEEE 1394) will connect high-speed devices. Full Audio, PressPlay, or MusicNet will be the platform for Digital Rights Management. PayPal or CommerceTV (or something similar) will drive the commerce involved. Standards for Peer-to-Peer services will emerge The technology obsolescence cycles of PCs, operating systems, disk drives, flash memory, TVs, and wireless protocols differ greatly - PCs change fast, TVs change slowly. If too many are combined in a single device, the functions each supports would grow obsolete at a difference rate and soon the device would not make technological sense. Thousands of high end set top boxes today languish in warehouses, PC-TVs failed as a product, as did Internet appliances. Summary and Conclusions The quest for a single piece of hardware combining all the functions required for home entertainment and voice, video, and data access will fail. No one hardware device will possibly combine all the entertainment technology needs in the home of the future. Separate devices will continue to exist but the functions they perform will begin to converge. The user will combine the functions without being conscious of convergence. The devices will converge because they will be connected to each other and to the Internet. On the Web, they will have access to vast arrays of content. Distributed Digital Rights Management functions will allow intellectual property to be protected and therefore to be distributed digitally at low cost. Content will accessible from many sources, it will be shared, and payment will be made "automatically" to owners based on commonly accepted business rules. User interfaces to the devices will be coordinated, giving the user the illusion of single access to the individual functions, but making this user interface appear seamless and easy to execute will take a great amount of work. Technology is not the limiting factor. Internet-based protocols are inherently convergent. The ubiquity of wired and wireless LAN standards makes interconnection easy, and bandwidth is doubling every few years. Application sharing standards are emerging quickly. The ability to protect intellectual property assets exists, and the distribution companies are beginning to change their distribution mode. The limiting factors will include: The ability to inform, educate, train, and motivate consumers to use the available technology The ability of businesses to create a business model that survives in the interconnected world The design of user interfaces that make all functions appliance-like in character while complex integration Integrated Digital Rights Management and trusted payment schemes Integrated secure identity and trusted Internet access. The opportunities are tremendous and the journey will be exciting. There will be winners and losers across the spectrum from pure hardware to pure ideas. The surprises are likely to come from firms with "killer" (i.e., intuitive) user interfaces that hide rather than make explicit the convergence they embody. Henry Lichstein Biography November 30, 2001 Email the editor with any questions or comments.