For years now, television has grappled with the issue of identity and has come up with little more than a view of itself as an access device for TV channels. For nearly as many years, Sun Laboratories (Sun Labs) has been working on solutions that will enable television to take a broader view of itself and to become a more resourceful provider of services to its viewers.

A variety of new services become possible with the transition of television from an analog medium to one that is digitized. Among the contenders are interactive services (iTV), which allow for communication among consumers, network operators and advertisers to such uses as tele-polling and tele-voting, instant messaging and teletext. Another on-demand services include video on demand (VOD), gaming channels, network-based video recording services and on-demand guides. And a third, video services -- specialized, customized services -- enable targeting of specific viewers with advertising that appeals directly to them.

Already, more than four million U.S. households are equipped with set-top boxes that enable them to receive VOD and analysts predict that, by the end of 2005, more than half the households in the U.S. will have the technology installed. In Europe, viewers use their mobile phones in combination with iTV services to enjoy game, reality and talent shows. And in Italy, Germany, Finland and South Korea, Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) decoders with integrated modems allow consumers to access more sophisticated iTV functions such as in-depth information about specific talk show topics or to participate in quiz shows in real time. Sun Labs contributed to this technology. The enabling technologies for this revolution in TV services have come in good measure from Sun Labs, where focus on the Gigabit and Fibre Channel interfaces has resulted in computer architectures that can cost-effectively accommodate the throughput requirements of all video delivery projects.

The Java Community ProcessSM (JCPSM) has contributed to the development of industry standards that help resolve the issues of dependence on proprietary solutions. Chief among these is the Java Stream Assembly, an end-to-end, open architecture for media delivery. Another standard to which Sun made contributions is the OpenCable Applications Platform (OCAP), a JavaTM technology-based middleware software specification that enables developers of iTV services and applications to design their products to run on any cable TV system regardless of the set-top box or OS being used.

As part of the Liberty Alliance Project, Sun has addressed the issue of Digital Rights Management (DRM), fostering the development of both the policing and enabling functions of DRM.

The Sun Media Appliance Platform is a key Sun contribution to the area of architecture. It provides a set of channel-ready software/hardware configurations featuring Sun and third-party iForceSM partner solutions, all based on multi-vendor, open interfaces for iTV, VOD and broadband video networking services. The Sun Media Appliance Platform brings the cross-platform benefits of Java technology to media stream multiplexes, providing interoperability, application portability and platform independence.

Vendors can deploy services without concern for becoming locked-in to single-source, proprietary architectures. The result is less expensive deployments and improved focus on product improvement rather than the mechanics of distribution. [...read more...]

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