Deciphering TV's latest trends

By Ian Hardy Click's North America technology correspondent

Last week we saw just how far portable TV and video has come, and it got us wondering: what's happening to the box, or should that be flat screen, in the living room? Ian Hardy found out at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

CES showed how the way we are watching TV is changing

Acronyms are the trusted language of techies everywhere.

Take SED, which stands for Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display.

What? Let's just say it is a flat screen technology that claims to be better than anything in the shops today.

Scott Ramirez, from the TV Group Toshiba America, says: "There are two types of flat screen: LCD and plasma. Both of these are good, but SED is great."

Unfortunately it will not be seen in shops until the end of 2006, which is why the queues at both the CES stands of Toshiba and Canon, which are partners in the project, were very long.

Cutting-edge tech fans are also excited about a slew of newly announced hi-definition recorder options.

John Taylor, of LG Electronics, was singing the praises of: "the world's first LCD - liquid crystal display - hi-definition television sets, with built-in hi-definition DVRs. These digital video recorders have 160GB drives."

Interaction

But it is not just about picture quality any more, it is the way we are interacting with our TVs that is changing.

IPTV is a bunch of letters you might be seeing a lot of from now on.

Many people in the business have a very simple explanation of Internet Protocol Television, to give it its full name.

That's fundamentally wrong. IPTV is not TV over the internet David Callisch, Ruckus Wireless

At CES, one description given was: "IPTV is watching TV and delivering it over the internet."

And another was: "It's basically TV that runs over the internet."

But while it is a great marketing line, this is not technically correct, argues David Callisch, of Ruckus Wireless.

"That's fundamentally wrong. IPTV is not TV over the internet.

"IPTV is basically taking a TV stream or programme and wrapping it in the same protocol that's used over the internet, so people get confused a little bit.

"There's lots of content companies like CBS, Time Warner, even the BBC, who want to make their content digitally available and there's got to be mechanisms not only to deliver it to the home of the consumer but, once the consumer gets it, to move it around in the home."

Holy grail

So who would have thought - your IP address is suddenly super valuable.

That is why cable and telephone companies around the globe are racing each other to supply you with the fastest broadband or fibre connection they can.

They want to own the pipeline that supplies Video On Demand as well as the holy grail of consumer packages, called "the triple play": VoIP phone service, data service and IPTV in one.

Philip Smith, from Complete Media Systems, says: "What's going to be needed over time is not a PC in your living room but a small piece of consumer equipment, what's called a set-top box, which does what a PC does in your home but looks like something you'd expect to find in your hi-fi cabinet."

Microsoft is also deeply into IPTV, providing software for set-top boxes that are replacing current TV units. Surprisingly, though, the MS name or logo is absent.

The advantage of IPTV is interactivity. It is a two-way communications stream offering thousands of TV channels, shopping services, video games on demand and interactive advertising.

Rex Wong, the CEO of Dave TV, says: "One of the beauties of the Dave.tv system is that we have a self-publishing system so that you can publish your home videos.

"Or maybe you're an independent filmmaker or citizen journalist, and you can publish your content and have other people able to watch it, or sell it to other people."

It is hard to imagine how anyone will be able to live without a broadband connection for much longer, but there is another choice if you just want TV on your laptop: an external satellite receiver that is TSOYF. That means - The Size Of Your Finger!