Julian Clover makes the annual pilgrimage to Amsterdam
When you wander from stand to stand through the floors of the RAI there’s a regular question that comes your way. What have you seen? The answer this year was almost something that wasn’t present. 3D. While James Cameron put in an appearance, his part in the proceedings had as much to do with IBC’s heritage of digital cinema than the way television will look in the future.
In Hall 1, where arguably most of the action is for Broadband TV News readers, there was not a 3D screen visible. In its place last year’s new kid in town, the companion screen, had taken hold. Staff on the Irdeto stand were even using iPads to pull up explanatory diagrams of how their technology worked – as well as using them as part of an overall television ecosystem – yes we have a new word.
The ecosystem is a bi-product of the new multiscreen platforms being introduced by operators and well supported by the technology manufacturers around the halls. In one way or another iPads and Android devices were being used to control screens or be the screen itself. Personalisation was the key to the devices that distract us all from the main screen.
As part of this ecosystem a new type of set-top box has appeared, or set-back box as Technicolor called it, in some cases doubling as a router these boxes are aimed at the second set and can pull in content over IP or simply from the regular cable network. Examples were also found with EchoStar and Pace, the latter building its own ecosystem as part of an ever-expanding product portfolio.
The Technicolor box was actually found on the Nagra stand, where the security through user interface company has been working on concept designs for set-tops and remotes. There is a feeling, also shared by Ruwido, that set-top boxes have for far too long looked like lumps of moulded plastic and while Apple is the poster boy for the UIs, few have embraced the look of their casings.
The ecosystem thing manifested itself in an eight-tuner cable box on the Motorola stand. The eight tuners serve not just TVs, but all those companion devices, and at least in the home getting around the lack of availability of all the usual channels over IP. Sixteen tuners are, according to Motorola, not too far away.
But my show pick must surely be Surfaces, the NDS concept that takes six LCD screens firmly attached to the wall, and then displays either one large screen or a handful of smaller ones according to the circumstances. So a movie would take up the whole of surface, while breakfast viewing would bring up news and travel relative to the main screen, controlled of course by an iPad.
