Conference nyoss1::market_investing

   The biggest hurdles Interactive TV may face are the high costs of
   wiring up your home for use Vs. real or perceived benefits. Regulatory
   wrangling between cable and phone companies may also hold up progress
   for a while. Like all other products of the fourth estate hype machine,
   when the dust settles there will be a much smaller gain that what they
   predicted.

   Remember CAD/CAM, Databases, AI and Neural Networks, all of which would
   be multi-trillion dollar industries that really were smaller than what
   they set us up for?. This is one more such thing. When the dust settled
   we found widespread usage of all these technologies but nowhere near
   the scale they predicted. 

   I think in all this, the biggest winners would not be the hardware peddlers
   but the brains that are thinking about the programming rather than the
   hardware. If Interactive TV doesn't pan out the programming can be made
   available on comparatively-neanderthal hardware such as CD-ROMs :-).

   MediaVision has spun a new company off to produce game programming. 
   I would track news about any company that the San Fransisco-based
   Venture Capital firm, Kleiner-Perkins is involved in. These guys have
   a habit of consistently picking winners (Sun Microsystems, GO corporation,
   etc..). They are starting a new company for interactive programming with
   some hotshots in Hollywood. George Lucas is already heavily in to this.

   Nari

The primary constraint on interactive services (at this time) is a lack of 
available software/programming.  It is estimated that the total amount of 
product out there today would provide only enough for one month on a single 
channel.  Clearly, much more will be required for this to be a success, and 
therein would appear to lie substantial opportunity.

Additionally, there will need to be some standardization amongst the 
various consortia formed to produce set-top hardware; though the Microsoft 
led group has a jump, it's much too early to count anyone out.  I don't 
agree that providing this hardware (and home wiring) is a high cost since 
many cable operators and some telephone operators are already well into 
fiber optic projects, and set-top converter boxes are a high turnover item 
anyway.

I do agree with .1 that the real winners in this area will be the 
developers of the software/programming that becomes popular.  There are 
several corporations already heavily commited to this area.  In contrast, 
it's much more risky on the hardware side since the past would lead us to 
believe that only one system will matter in the end, and nobody has a 
crystal ball.

    I believe it is King World Productions (KWP) that has the license for
    Wheel of Fortune and is licensing a 900-number version that players at
    home can enjoy and have a chance at winning FABULOUS PRIZES (that's
    hype for the hearing-impaired).
    
    Now imagine a channel dedicated to interactivbe Wheel of Fortune, 
    24 hours a day, no commercials, just a small fee to play.  Interviews
    with winners at their Hawaiian vacation hotels break up the games.
    Nice racket if you can get in on the ground floor...
    
      John

    Inter-active TVs (in general) will be big bussiness (in the long term).
    
    No question about it, the question is finding the companies that will
    fly and avoid the ones that will flop.   The providers  .....???????
    (cable companies ...) are a safer bet, no matter wich hardware or 
    programming is used, they are the ones that will deliver the service.
    
    Gil

  Re.4 Cable providers being "the" transport providers...

  ...US West is on an intense effort to try and replace telephone cables
  with fiber-optic cables which are capable of carrying the same capacity
  of digital signals as Cable operators.  This is where there will be an
  intense fight between these huge behemoths.

  As if these weren't enough, there are companies on the horizon that are
  working on high capacity wireless digital channels. 

  So the fight for the transport isn't over by any means yet!

  Nari

	Why go for cable providers?

	What about satelite providers?

	Heather (In a country with lots of satelite and little cable)

    >>>
    Why go for cable providers?

    What about Satellite Providers?
   >>>>


   Problems with technology. Satellite providers apparently cannot provide
   "full interactivity" reliably like Cable providers. On the otherhand
   they have developed technology that can cram as many channels as cable
   operators can. Their interactivity is limited to making say  a whole bunch
   of channels for each pay-per-view channel, so that every half-hour or
   so you can start watching the same movie on a different channel.

   The possibility of having lots of channels in addition to interactivity
   is what fuels transports. Programming for interactivity takes
   time to develop while more channels can be used even now for "passive"
   TV. Telephone and Cable are on a higher plane but cable laying needs to be
   done. Satellite technology is nowhere near that expensive but is limited
   in capability.

   Nari

	But don't the phone companies use satelite for 2-way comms?

	Heather

  Yes. Telephone companies use Satellites for two-way communications. However
  it's really one logical connection which carries a signal in one direction
  at any time. When it detects a signal coming from the other, it switches 
  to the opposite direction. You might notice this especially on 
  trans-continental calls; people tripping all over their own voices. A satellite
  is just one component, just as telephone wires or cables are running to your
  house.

  True Interactivity involves a high-bandwith connection to your home AND
  computing involved based on what actions you perform on your interactive
  device. Interactivity over a telephone is purely in the "minds" of the
  communicators. As I understand it, interactive programming will come from
  huge banks of computers installed in some telephone or cable office located
  near you. Only then will they be able to handle all the different variations
  in signal requests that arise from interactivity.

  While doing "passive" programming, telephone, cable and satellite are all
  on a level playing field. They establish a logical connection between
  the source and the end-user and signals are pumped. The only interactivity
  you can have is switching them on or off.

  Hope I haven't confused you all the more!

  Nari

	Nope, that's fine.


	Does this mean that the new state-of-the-art phones, where you can see
	the people at the other end, won't work over a statelite link?


	Heather

  ..two-way video-phones use the same principle as an ordinary telephone.
  Since images require huge amounts of transmission, they use
  compression and de-compression algorithms on the phone instrument. That's
  why you need the same kind of instrument on either end. For the telephone
  line it still does the same thing - transmit signals in one direction at a 
  time. The telephone connection doesn't see a difference. That may include
  satellite transmission or a trans-atlantic cable all in the same call. It's
  transparent to the user.

  Nari 

	Thanks.

	Heather