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Feature: Set-Tops Fight the Battle of the Bulge
What’s in Vogue—Fat or Thin?
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The cable set-top is poised to become a key component of consumer equipment, and the industry is gearing up by tailoring new hardware, software and standards for it.

The cable set-top box of the future is going to be an extremely powerful machine with blazingly fast microprocessors and ever-increasing memory capabilities that will act as the central switching station for virtually all of the consumer’s telecommunications needs.

Or it will be a low-cost, dumbed-down piece of hardware with zero memory and only minimal processing capabilities that allows consumers merely to tap into the headend-based server where all the real network intelligence lies.

Or it will be something in between. Or all of the above. The fact is, no one really knows.

But no matter how the set-top evolves in the coming years, there is little doubt that consumers will be able to tap into an increasingly diverse set of applications through what is now considered to be a glorified channel-changer.

"The concept of numerous types of set-tops out there at the same time is probably accurate," Mark DePietro, senior director of marketing and systems engineering at Motorola, says. "Some will be clearly basic devices that will be used just to watch TV. Others will have more capabilities."

Set-tops bulk up

Today’s current set-top models, most notably Motorola’s DCT-2000 and Scientific-Atlanta’s Explorer 2000, have enough processing power and memory for video-on-demand (VOD), Internet access and other basic applications. But take a look at the specs for the up-and-coming DCT-5000 and Explorer 6000 models (see Table 1), and suddenly you’re vaulted into the realm of full-screen streaming media, online gaming, virtual VCRs and a whole slew of advanced services not even imagined yet.

"We see (set-tops) becoming more sophisticated as time goes by," Martin Gordon, spokesman for Philips Electronics, says. "Watch for more and more technology making its way into the set-top."

Of course, the central question is: Are consumers willing to pay top dollar for the hardware to get these services? The set-top manufacturers are betting they will. But there are others in the cable industry who argue that there is a better and cheaper way.

Clients slim down

By modeling the cable system on a thin-client architecture, in which a relatively simple set-top runs applications resident on a headend server, cable operators will be able to lower the entry cost to new digital subscribers and make more efficient use of the digital network.

"If you look at all the problems with operating systems and chip sets, designing thickness for the purpose of creating a TV browser doesn’t work well at all," says Michael Collette, senior vice president of marketing at ICTV, a developer of interactive television platforms. "The dual-client or headend-based solution allows you to work in a standard environment and define the set-top as predominantly a display device."

This isn’t to say that Collette believes set-top development should be frozen. He says there are plenty of areas in which the set-tops of the future could be improved, such as adding a second moving picture experts group (MPEG) tuner for picture-in-picture and graphic overlay purposes. A built-in cable modem would be a good idea, as well, he notes.

Gorging on gateways

The question as to what future set-tops could or should be is further complicated by the very term ‘set-top.’ Today, an analog set-top is used almost exclusively to switch cable television channels. First-generation digital models introduce interactive services, text and graphics, instantaneous video-on-demand and other services that are still largely coming directly from the cable system. But some designers say the set-top is destined to extend beyond its role as an advanced interactive tool to become a central home networking system through which customers may control other digital devices.

"As things evolve, the set-top will become a gateway that brings the broadband network into the home," Tony Wasilewski, chief scientist at Scientific-Atlanta, says.

Through wired and wireless connections, a customer could surf the Internet for downloadable music files, save them to an MP3 player in the car, forward e-mail to a personal digital assistant (PDA) still in the overcoat pocket and even check to see how the roast is doing in the oven. Talk about your ultimate couch potato.

The skinny on standards

Of course, all of this will take a certain amount of cooperation among leading hardware and software players. Fortunately, the cable industry has a good start with the OpenCable standard. But as in any industry, the continuous march of technological progress will require new standards if the consumer is to have any hope of plug-and-play functionality.

The next level of standardization for the set-top space is middleware, the layer of software on which applications like VOD or streaming media run. CableLabs is due to wrap up a middleware specification called OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform) based around Sun Microsystem’s Java technology. Sun, Microsoft and Liberate Technologies have been selected as lead contributors to the platform.

Another area of standardization involving the set-top is communication with other devices, particularly if the set-top is to become a gateway device. Advanced boxes like the DCT-5000 and Explorer 6000 already are outfitted with universal serial bus (USB) ports and 1394 interfaces, and set-top manufacturers will have to become increasingly involved in the computer peripheral industry if it hopes to keep up with the market.

Wireless interfaces are also becoming a high priority. BlueTooth and HomeRF are two of the leading standards out there and are likely to be incorporated into the OpenCable and Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) specs at some point.

Of course, all of this will be guided by a single overriding factor: consumer demand. Consumers will expect the latest and greatest offerings from their cable company, which will in turn look to the hardware and software manufacturers for the means to provide it.

"Ultimately, the things we build are focused on making new applications or services to generate new revenues," S-A’s Wasilewski says. "If we can ID those (applications), we can figure out what technology is needed to make it run."

Whichever way the industry tacks—toward more sophisticated set-tops or less—it is clear that consumers will be able to pull down an ever-increasing array of services from that little black box on top of the TV. Most people might not realize it yet, but it is the key to the broadband future.

Arthur Cole is a contributing editor to Communications Technology. He may be reached via e-mail at .

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