HARDWARE PROVIDERS


Set-Top Boxes:
Several technologies for ITV service delivery are being developed, but all systems follow a similar scheme: signals from the ITV broadcaster are sent to a box connected to the consumer's television set, and the consumer uses a remote control device to respond to information. This box, commonly called a set-top box, which effectively is a PC using the TV as its display. A set-top box connected to a TV has one or two differences from a normal PC. In particular, it has an interface to the communications network and some specialized hardware to carry out decompression and decryption. Although the name set-top hardly conjures a high-tech image, these boxes are the equivalent of a high-end graphics workstation, with the user using a sophisticated remote control device instead of the conventional keyboard or mouse. Basic digital-cable set-top boxes are not expected to arrive until 1996, and fully interactive boxes may not arrive until the year 2000. The set-top market is already becoming a highly competitive battleground for hardware suppliers because of its massive potential. Listed are some of the players in this highly competitive marketplace.














3DO
600 Galveston Drive
Redwood City, CA 94063
415.261.3000
415.261.3231 fax

3-DO's set-top boxes house graphics chips, digital and analog tuners, compression/decompression algorithms and a user-interface stored in read only memory

Apple Computer
ITV Business Development
One Infinite Loop,
Cupertino, CA 95014
408.974.8552
408.974.6472 fax

Apple's Interactive TV set-top solution provides the computing power behind an ITV system. Derived from Macintosh technology, it features a 68040 microprocessor and 4 Mbytes of RAM Video decompression is handled by C-Cube's CL450 MPEG-1 Video Decoder, which allows Apple's ITV set-top solution to support both PAL and NYSC video formats. For network interface, the ITV set-top supports E1 and T1 telephone protocols. As a Macintosh-like platform, the ITV set-top sports a subset of the MacOS modified to support MPEG1 and the network interface. The operating system includes Apple's QuickTime multimedia software QuickDraw, Apple's 32-bit graphics software. This unique combination of multimedia and graphics software provides a familiar development environment for the thousands of Macintosh developers worldwide, and it allows users to experience the high-quality video, music, text, animation and other dynamic information that they have come to expect from the world's leading multimedia platform: the Macintosh.

AT&T
295 North Maple Ave, Room 114OK2
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
980.221.2485
908.221.8484 fax

AT&T is developing a set-top box for interactive television as part of its TV Information Center product family. The set-top box is being developed under the code-name Project Sage and will be the first commercial offering to utilize AT&T's Plan 9 operating system. The box incorporates an AMD embedded RISC processor, an AT&T digital signal processor chip, audio RAM, flash memory, a Brooktree video chip and downloaded software. The box will display information on a TV screen via plain old telephone service (POTS) lines. Users will be able to select and retrieve information via remote control. Accessible data includes phone messages, sports scores, news and flash memory, a Brooktree video chip and downloaded software.

DiviCom
580 Cottonwood Dr
Milpitas, CA 95035
408.944.6723
408.944.6705 fax

DiviCom has a range of set-top decoders for Satellite, Switched Digital Video, Wireless and Cable applications. Some models include high-end features to support interactive applications and others are designed for economic delivery of digital video entertainment. DiviComšs MPEG 2 and DVB compliant ASICs, coupled with SAGEšs high volume set-top manufacturing capabilities, insure cost effective products. DiviCom is a licensed supplier of Macrovision and DAVID based decoders. In addition to set-top decoders, DiviCom provides real-time MPEG 2 encoders or broadcast and business TV applications.

General Instruments
181 West Madison Ave
Chicago, IL 60602

General Instruments is a leading producer of equipment for the compression and decompression of digital television signals for transmission via cable and satellite.

Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover St.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
415.857.1501
415.857.7299 fax

Open TV
2250 Garcia Ave, MS MTV10-137
Mountain View, CA 94043-1100
415.336.4979
415.3364242 fax

The Open TV jointly developed by Sun Microsystems Inc. and ROM, the box provides an overlay of an MTV-style logo and a simple icon at the bottom corner of a TV screen, alerting viewers to the presence of Open TV interactivity. Instead of a long menu list, it offers a few basic interactive functions that include home shopping, requesting information (from advertisers) and VOD.

Scientific-Atlanta
One Technology Pkwy. South
Atlanta, GA 30092-2967
404.903.5000
404.903.4617 fax

Silicon Graphics
2011 North Shoreline Blvd., PO Box 7311
Mountain View, CA 94039-7311
415.960.1980
415.961.0595

Thompson Consumer Electronics
600 N Meridian Dr
Indianapolis, IN 46290
317-267-3000

Headquartered in Paris, Thompson Multimedia is the world leader in digital television both for professional and consumer applications. With the introduction of the RCA brand DSS in the US Thompson became the first consumer electronics company to develop and implement an all digital delivery system for video reception in the home.

Toshiba Corp
1010 Johnson Dr
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
708.541.9400

Zenith Electronics Corporation
1000 Milwaukee Ave
Glenview, IL 60025
708.391.7000
708.391.8569 fax


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