While the HDTV medium would become the common-denominator for the shared outdoor experience, the PC would continue to evolve as a professional and individual work tool, says Mohan Tambe

The HDTV is today poised to displace the SDTV, just as the color TV had displaced the B/W TV, or the TV itself had displaced the radio. No media, as such fades away, but the spotlight moves on, and there is no going back for the audience.

The HDTV revolution is going to be different in many ways. The change is not just increasing the resolution of the display, but in the entire human interface. The HDTV will no longer be utilized for channel zapping, akin to the SDTV, but will be used as a human interface for the Next Generation Video Internet.

The Video Internet will represent convergence of channels, VOD, Internet, and video conferencing. The HDTV human interface, will have such clarity, that it will immerse the user in the medium, the way he feels in a cinema theatre. With the HDTV quality video conferencing becoming common, the need for commuting will decrease, and distances will melt. In the immediate future we will even see 3-D HDTV sets, which will bring about tele-presence.

Emergence of the Convergent Device

HDTV will enable a "True HDTV- based convergent media for channels, VOD, Internet and communications". Now a single convergent device can cater to the needs of HD video player, digital video recorder, music system, Internet, VOIP telephony, media server, video conferencing and even content authoring.

The convergent device, will also provide for convergence for all the languages of the world, and eliminate the language barrier. It will provide a user-friendly human interface in all the major languages of the world. It will provide on-screen transliteration between groups of related languages. It will also support typing of the languages through a convergent remote.

It would be possible to use multiple convergent remotes simultaneously for real-time voting during a TV show. The convergent remotes can also be used in educational applications, to give real-time feedback to a teacher at the TV studio.

The convergent device also would become the front-end for a wide variety of back-end networks such as Ethernet, ADSL, DTH, cable TV and terrestrial. This adaptation would become possible through a variety of attachments/interfaces for digital video, tuners, Hard-disks, and Telephony.

Convergent devices would store the fetched contents in their internal hard-disk or semiconductor memories. The devices will be able to fetch the contents directly from the hard-disk of any other convergent device in the world. Next Generation Video Internet Protocols will provide guarantee of real-time HDTV quality video delivery, unaffected by congestions.

Since the content heritage of the world will always be on-line, a user wouldn't have to buy contents anymore. Every user can now have a Smart Card, by which he can log-in to his terabyte account (for personal videos) from anywhere, and even make secure payments.

The Next Generation Video Internet will become ubiquitous through the HDTV. Convergent devices, will provide the ability for streaming HDTV quality videos from anywhere to anywhere. They will also liberate TV Channels, by bringing about the "Anytime Any Programme" capability for the end-users.

Steady state in convergence

Convergence revolution has been in the making for quite some time. As in any revolution, the rules of the game are getting constantly re-written. A series of incremental changes all over the world, finally give way to a disruptive change which nobody had visualized before. Such has been the power of the earlier disruptive changes brought about by Radio, Telephony, B/W TV, Color TV, Satellites and Internet. Let us now be prepared for the ultimate disruptive change created by convergence of all the earlier changes. The Next Generation Video Internet will have properties going far beyond its constituents. It will be a true paradigm shift.

In tomorrow's world the limitation is no longer going to be of bandwidth, connectivity, processing power and affordability - possible due to mass production economies. The weakest link is going to be that entity which cannot evolve at the pace of the electronics technology: the human mind. Just like yesterday, the mechanical tools were made with human hand in mind, today the convergent media has to be shaped according to the needs of the human mind.

Human mind has got limited storage capacity for raw undigested data. In the world of information-inundation the mind ends up discarding most of the information it is receiving everyday. It ends up discarding almost all the knowledge, which doesn't get used and consolidated.

Human mind can best absorb information through the most evolved sensory organs: the eyes and the ears. Mind can readily absorb and understand details in real-time from high-resolution videos, in contrast to the same conveyed through a textual medium. This accounts for the tremendous, almost hypnotic, pull of the TV medium, in contrast to that of print and internet.

Spread of HDTV thus is inevitable, for allowing every mind to absorb more in the same time - with clarity exceeding that of direct viewing of the event.

Internet has made people aware of the power and convenience of on-demand contents. No longer do people have to contend with fixed broadcast oriented programming on which they have no control. Now through video players, such as YouTube, they can catch on any video they want to see, albeit at an insufficient resolution.

In steady-state the power of the Next Generation Video Internet will be witnessed through each HDTV set. One will be able to choose at anytime any programme with the remote itself. The ocean of quality contents will become really vast, when the language barrier disappears with subtitles/dubbing available in various languages.

With choice of billions of contents, filtration will become increasingly vital. People will not be able to find time for anything but the best of the contents, necessary for growth in the areas of their interest. This is analogous to the steady state in the world of nourishment for the body, where the choice is dictated by what one can digest, rather than what is available. People will realize that contents which they cannot digest, make them scatter-minded and these contents work like a slow poison. People will learn to focus only on the wholesome contents which will nourish their minds.

Change in the nature of channels

There will be thus a shake-out in channels, with fewer HDTV channels remaining, compared to the plethora of the SDTV channels at present. These HDTV channels will concentrate on the live and news events. The live events, such as debates, sports, and music programmes will now be influenced by the feedback of the audience in front of the HDTV. The audience will be able to give real-time feedback to the judges using their remotes. These "participative channels" will have a bigger impact on the audience, than their presence in the auditorium or stadium itself.

TV channels will no longer be required for dishing out canned programmes. People would like to have the freedom of selecting any serial/episode at any time. The broadcast medium will be used as an efficient content delivery mechanism, to video-players with hard-disk storage: giving people the freedom to view them at any time.

HDTV set will thus no longer be used for the traditional scatter-minded channel surfing. There will be a powerful Human Interface, which will allow all the contents of the world to be accessed through the Convergent remote. Infact, each person in front of a TV can simultaneously use their Convergent remotes for participating in the live programme. This, of course, will also generate an online TRP rating of the audience viewing the programme at any time.

Going a step further, steady-state will allow private HDTV channels to emerge even from homes, offices and public places. It would thus be possible for people to witness/participate in any private event (for which they have been invited) from their HDTV sets themselves. Studio-quality video-conferencing will become as ubiquitous as existing land telephony. This will finally, decongest the streets themselves.

In the world of convergence the role of TV and PC would be well delineated. While the HDTV medium would become the common-denominator for the shared outdoor experience, the PC would continue to evolve as a professional and individual work tool. The HDTV becomes a part of lean back, audio-visual experience, while PC becomes a tool for lean forward logical experience.

The steady-state will bring about a single-pipe for allowing connection of HDTV Convergent devices and PCs in each home and office. Infact, the Ethernet points, for connection of these devices, will become as ubiquitous as the electrical points themselves, and will be co-located. With this the homes will also transform to the Next Generation Smart Homes.