Is the PC in control? Will the PC be the key display device?
Huw Price-Stephens, Amino
It depends on the home. For younger people it might already have achieved that status. They increasingly see the PC screen as their primary device for all kinds of interaction. For most older users, there is still a split where the PC is used for on set of applications and the TV is used for entertainment. In other words there's no hard and fast rule. We have all mentioned at various points during these discussions about multiple play and numerous devices in the home and how different users can consume what they want, where they want. But in this model, the TV has no special role, the TV is just one of the devices that we use for consuming and depending on the individual it may be the best device or the PC screen may be the best device.
Paul Entwistle, Pace
I think the PC is unlikely to be directly connected to the TV. There are many great technologies recently which have emerged and allow a PC to communicate to something that looks like a lightweight STB that's attached to the TV and it might be an X-Box or a console or a digital media adaptor. In other words you can still watch that PC on your main TV screen without actually having it alongside.
Chris Forrester
Is there not a role for PC-type functionality within a Set-Top Box, for example delivering today's YouTube to the TV set?
Paul Entwistle, Pace
Yes, and you can project that from a PC to a STB and make them available on the screen or you can incorporate access to that content directly from the Set-Top Box out into the wider world and what I think is interesting is the emergence of companies that provide hosted services that a STB could talk to directly. They make it suitable for viewing on a TV screen.
Ian Valentine, Miniweb
It's what we do. Years ago the early Apple TV boxes were more or less a Mac in the home. And I believe the future for TV sets is in communicating out of the home onto the internet and acquiring content directly. Will the PC be the primary viewing screen in the home? No. Definitely not. Entertainment equipment is fundamentally different in every way to a PC. The interesting thing is the way people have responded this year to ‘catch up' TV on their PCs. This has caused some people to suggest that the PC will take over. From a broadcast point of view, this is just a transient phase. A broadcaster wins an audience to a channel that sells advertising on it and the last thing they want is for a viewer to turn the TV off, throw the remote control onto the couch, switch the lights off so that he can download some Flash-enabled DRM maybe to search for Doctor Who-related material so that it can be viewed from a swivel chair tomorrow. I am confident it will come back to the living room, where broadcasters deploy their ‘catch up' TV services directly to consumers' devices and they are not going to be PCs.
José Luis Vázquez, Mirada
The point is that advertisers get 30 seconds or a minute and so can maintain the viewer in an active status, active not passive, but you cannot relax in this active way unless perhaps you are a fourteen-year old. At the end of the day, you are looking to relax on the sofa. And even though you may not say this is a games centre and is active, we are still consuming content. In my view you can work with a mouse or a remote control and for YouTube it is one minute or three minutes but not for true relaxation. And while YouTube might end up on the TV, for me it will be just a gadget. It is not the way for consuming video. The TV set is for relaxation and having fun. So, will we have the TV set connected somehow to the internet? Absolutely. But not by using YouTube, but by connecting to the BBC or another trusted broadcaster.
Huw Price-Stephens, Amino
Re-purposing is an important point. All TV sites have low level programming interfaces with a search facility but do not require you to view in the same way as it would on a PC. So some sort of portal which is empathetic with people's expectations of a TV viewing experience is something that we absolutely see as a major element of the IPTV offering. Today, if a Telco can only offer the same channels as everyone else, this is not enough. The IP connectivity over a broadband connection brings elements from the web and extends the proposition to differentiate that service in some way and is becoming a growing trend. The only other point I would like to make is about the PC connecting into the TV. The PC screen, I believe, will be used in its own right and will be used the way TV is used today. I have two children in university, neither of whom has a TV set in their room. They both use laptops and they are getting all of the entertainment they need from those computers.
Ian Valentine, Miniweb
Is television a state of mind? This is where we have got to. Television means we will sit on a couch holding a remote control and saying ‘entertain me'. A PC requires you to hold a mouse and do some work. It is a very different state of mind. The user interface is also phenomenally different. The difference between a remote control and a Windows mouse is huge.
