Sony TV will stream video from the Net

By Evan Hansen, Richard Shim and Stefanie Olsen, CNET News, 4 April, 2003 13:41

NEWS

Sony is developing a plasma screen television set that's intended to tune in streaming video from home networks and the Internet as easily as regular TV programmes, according to sources familiar with the plans. The project, code-named Altair, is one of the company's latest efforts to make digital content more accessible on its consumer-electronics devices, and it reinforces Sony's vision of the television as the centrepiece of its strategy for networked digital media. The new Sony TV will include a built-in Internet connection and tuners for receiving broadcasts from cable, satellite and over-the-air transmissions, according to sources. The TV is expected to include a Web browser but is not envisioned as a run at Web TV. The device will be manipulated by a remote control rather than a keyboard and will use the Internet primarily as an alternative way to deliver video to the TV screen. Sony has formed partnerships with several streaming-media companies, including chipmaker Equator, On2 Technologies, RealNetworks and Secure Media, to help deliver that video. "They're really sticking their necks out and betting that streaming to TV is going to be really big," said one source familiar with the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The entertainment and consumer-electronics giant has been working on the project for the last six to eight months, and a device is nearly complete, according to sources. Although the sources said Sony is committed to the project, its plans could change. Before its release, the device under development could evolve beyond its current focus to add features or drop existing ones. In addition, the company could determine that such a project is not commercially feasible because of high production cost or low consumer demand. Although it is considered a manufacturing juggernaut, Sony has placed bad bets in the past. It built an Internet appliance called eVilla in 2001 to capitalise on the Web craze, but pulled the $499 device just weeks after it reached the market. Plans were set to debut an Altair product in Tokyo in June, but that schedule has been pushed back because of technical obstacles. An introduction in the United States would follow if the product sells well in Japan. Earlier this week, Sony said it was working with eight other Japanese companies -- Hitachi, Matsushita Electronics Industrial, Sharp, Toshiba, Sanyo Electric, Victor of Japan, Pioneer and Mitsubishi Electronics -- to develop technical specifications for digital televisions so they can connect to the Internet. Those specifications will be finalised in October and will likely be used in a product based on work from the Altair project, suggesting its launch will come later this year or early next year. The name of the project recalls a key product in computing history. Altair also is the name of a home computer introduced in 1975 that was the first to sell in significant quantities and the first to run Microsoft software. The project comes as rivals are intensifying efforts to make the PC into the central device for the home digital-entertainment hub. Microsoft last year released a specialised version of its flagship operating system, Windows XP Media Center Edition, and a new version of the software is already expected later this year. The new operating system gives the PC some TV-like qualities -- for example, it lets users access multimedia on a computer using a remote control. Although PCs hold advantages over television systems when it comes to creating and organising content such as home videos, they fall far behind when it comes to viewing it. Sony is betting that gap will keep viewers glued to new generations of TV sets that produce much larger images than typical PC screens. A Sony representative declined to discuss the project, but reiterated the company's broader plans regarding television. "Sony is thinking that television will become the centre of a Ubiquitous 'Value' Network," the representative wrote in an email. "We are considering various possibilities to realise this vision. We haven't decided on specifics, but wireless networking is one option." The Altair project builds on a strategy presented by Kunitake Ando, Sony's chief operating officer, earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "The first 50 years of colour television was just the infancy stage," Ando said during a keynote address in early January. "The PC has been a champion in the industry. But now the television is about to be reborn." At the time, Ando said future televisions would be the centre of home entertainment networks and would let consumers access data and services found on other devices connected to the network. One obstacle to the realisation of this networked vision has been the slower-than-expected adoption of broadband access, which is essentially the pipeline to the outside world for connected devices. However, with subscriptions for high-speed Internet access on the rise and with the arrival of easier accessibility to networks through Wi-Fi technology, the company's vision may be getting a boost. "The electronics division has fully embraced that the dominant delivery mechanism this decade will be broadband," said Richard Doherty, a director at research firm The Envisioneering Group.

For the latest home networking product news, plus a full explanation of what home networking is all about, what you need to get started, and how to put it all together, see ZDNet UK's Home Networking Special. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

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