Interactivity: Is the technology up to speed?

Part 2 of 6 – Read part 1 here.

Paramount to bringing interactivity through the power of the Internet to the television is the understanding that operators can’t just slap a Web page on the TV. The two screens and consumption models are inherently different. For this reason, applications, widgets and other interactive features have to be designed ground-up for the TV. That is no small task for the set-top box (STB) manufacturers and software companies looking to power this burgeoning space.

There is dissension on whether today’s legacy STBs have the capability to support advanced interactivity beyond video on-demand. Kevin Wirick, vice president of marketing for the Motorola’s IP video solutions group, believes the answer is yes. Motorola’s STBs currently have 400 million instructions per second (MIPS) of central processing unit (CPU) power compared to its first generation STBs, which only had a few MIPS. This tremendous growth in processing power and software sophistication means that electronic programming guides can be designed for responsiveness, and layers of software can run Java script to provide flexible app development.

“In the set-top box, you now have the power that you did in your desktop six or seven years ago,” Wirick said. “What we are shipping today is several hundred times more capable than what we originally rolled out digital TV with.”

That being said, the average STB is still 32 times slower than the PC or, put another way, about 20 STBs are equivalent to one basic laptop, said Andrew Burke, chief executive officer of STB manufacturer Amino, noting that any STB manufacturer claiming to have sufficient horsepower for full-blown interactivity in their legacy STBs has been grossly overcharging for that box. To keep costs down, STB power is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Manufacturers typically only put in the capability and horsepower that their operator customers require at the present time, and STBs therefore run the risk of slowing significantly as they interpret and deliver interactive TV. Much like a mobile phone’s operating system is written to prioritize making and receiving calls, the TV STB is optimized for displaying the picture on the screen. After the linear TV or VOD feed is working, the remaining horsepower is used to run any interactive apps beyond that, Burke said.