Introduction to Video and Broadcast Components

In 1998, video and broadcast television will become integral elements of PC usage, whether for a Consumer, Office, or Entertainment PC. For PC 98, important design issues include:

• Increased quality of video capture and playback, regardless of price point. This includes increased image resolution and increased frame rates.
  
  
• Low-latency video delivery, displaying video from both internal and external video devices.
  
  
• Easy connectivity and installation for the end user. This requires a reduction in complexity of installation by decreasing the number of components such as power supplies and add-on cards and decreasing the number of user responses required to install a device.
  
  
• Implementation of a graphics adapter video port for use by one or more video sources.

DirectShow for Video Support. No functionality will be added to Video for Windows (VfW) in any future version of the Windows and Windows NT operating systems. Support for video playback is provided only under Microsoft DirectShow (formerly ActiveMovie).

New technologies that will make PCs more compelling by integrating them with television are also becoming available. These technologies consist of broadcast components that allow PCs to receive television programming, data services, and new forms of entertainment that blend the two, plus user-interface elements appropriate for use on large-screen display devices such as a progressively scanned display or a television monitor. The new technologies will enable new applications, such as the following:

• By combining the PC, the television, and the Internet, content companies can create new types of programming.
  
  
• By using broadcast technology to push multimedia-rich Internet content to consumers, broadcast networks can deliver and store data locally on the PC, reducing the Internet bandwidth bottleneck while improving the consumer’s overall experience.
  
  
• By delivering a new set of secure, billable, and scalable data services—such as subscription services for software, electronic news, and entertainment delivery—broadcast services will encourage the creation of new business models.

These technologies, which will be built into the Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0 operating systems, are based on industry standards such as MPEG-2, Win32, ActiveX, and DirectX. These technologies are also built on current and emerging standards for broadcast networks and Internet protocols, and they enable multicasting as a point-to-many networking standard for network traffic. Broadcast network capabilities provide a transmission infrastructure that can support automatic software and file updates as well as other services.

Consumer Electronics and PCs. The convergence of consumer electronics and personal computing offers new revenue opportunities for participating manufacturers. It also offers the chance for companies from different industries to collaborate on production of new products and services. Companies developing technologies and services that use these components span every industry involved in technology convergence. The related requirements for the elements of broadcast-enabled television are defined in this chapter.