20 Sep 2006 0934H

Digital convergence is here, it’s happening

I was reminded of this recently. . . Aside from Tivo still holding on somehow, first, Steve Jobs unveiled their settop box, iTV, which isn’t even “done” yet, but, just the fact they felt strongly enough about it to show to the public speaks volumes.

That, as I’d said in a previous post, is tied to Apple’s iTunes digital media strategy: iTunes connects your computer to the content — music, television, movies and games — that you want on your computer, but really, to get most of the pie, you want to move watching and listening as a computer-centred activity to the contexts where real people do their “real life” living: the gym, the bedroom, living room, etc. And with broadcast media already transmitting high definition programs through the air and cable, HD material already beginning to be made available via online services, and with the emergence of iTV’s I/O specs, it’s inevitable that iTunes will deliver HD content. Hence the importance of the once-mythical digital convergence box.

I use that term specifically because a few years back someone (rather, many someones) had the intiative to try and create this mythical box using Linux, middleware, and a few off-the-shelf hardware components, and it became the open source project known as MythTV. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy to install for the unwashed masses, which has hobbled its utility a lot, I think, but once it’s installed I think the makings are there. Then, a few nights ago, I ran into some other solutions to the digital convergence box that came out of East Asia, and Korea specifically, where broadband penetration is quite high, electronics and manufacturing resources are common enough to exist at a reasonable price, they have the engineering talent and strategic thinking to make something like this happen, and which shares in the benefits of being in the broader East Asian media piracy sphere. Probably out of these contexts, someone decided to take a HDD enclosure, include the I/O board, electronics and embedded systems for network connectivity and a DVD player, design and machine an enclosure with an LED readout, and bundle the power and other systems together which drive the works. Voila, convergence box.

The part that’s missing here is the mail and web surfing functions, but there’s nothing that tells me in the current state of the web that says people prefer to surf and use email on TV a la WebTV (c. 1996, which was later acquired by Microsoft). What people are doing, as user observation has revealed on a large scale, is watching TV or listening to music while surfing, so there is some kind of informational multitasking going on with little feedback loops among the media channels. Probably some kind of interface layer could be built to make this activity more productive or easier, but more research into what people are actually doing and where it fits into their lives will be necessary. . .

Anyway, going back to Apple’s strategy, it’s quite clear that as broadband and file sharing continue to gain traction, if they haven’t already become a fixture in modern American living, alongside the automobile and cable, the DVD and other storage media like that will become increasingly rare or specialized, like holographic storage or storage for archival purposes, and the distribution channel will move increasingly online. When that happens, and I would argue that there’s evidence for this already — the public response to the non-battle between BluRay and HD-DVD, online shopping becoming commonplace, the prevalence of Apple iTunes movies and television channels, the iTVsettop box, p2p file sharing of video and music, increasingly clamor on the AV fan forums about these types of media jukebox devices — the digital convergence box will take center stage.

At that point, I think there will be a war to control the software that powers the box, which Tivo does pretty well right now, and which Apple has particular strengths in vis-a-vis the UI layer. Interoperability will become a huge issue — data standards, the like — and these types of devices might even be incorporated into media devices themselves: televisions, A/V receivers, cable boxes, so on. . . . central to this is the user experience angle. There will be a need to make all of this transparent and branded and make the experience for the thing as seamless as, say, the experience of using an Apple or say, the Xbox 360.

User experience people should look out for that opportunity starting now.

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Filed under Design, Geekery, Technology, User Experience, Web

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