Waging a "war for eyeballs," the PC will push deeper into TV territory next year, propelled by new interface software from Microsoft Corp. and a number of combo PC/TV systems.

As many as five top PC makers are expected to launch the hybrid PC/TV systems in 1997, leveraging the Microsoft software as well as new PC cards and services that piggyback on satellite and over-the-air broadcast TV.

Intel chief executive officer Andy Grove, employing the war metaphor in his Comdex keynote here last week, urged PC makers to coax people into spending more time with their PCs than TVs by extending the computer's video and 3-D entertainment capabilities.

"The real challenge is finding new features," Grove said. "We have an economic mandate to grow the number of users."

Microsoft has been working on a so-called distance user interface (DUI) for more than a year. The software, which is expected to ship by midyear, will replace the Windows desktop with a more-TV-oriented control metaphor and may employ new TV-like remote-control input devices as well as new font and graphics technologies for showing computer-generated text and images on a television screen.

With a living-room PC, "there are some interesting distance UI and distance input-device questions that represent opportunities," said Carl Stork, Microsoft's director of Windows hardware programs. "We have work in the lab we aren't prepared to talk about."

Meanwhile, graphics-card makers are reaching out to bring new TV applications to the PC. STB Systems Inc. (Richardson, Texas) announced a partnership with ComStream Corp. (San Diego) to deliver two PCI cards that could bring direct- broadcast satellite TV to computers. The cards could ship in the middle of next year, just when Microsoft and Hughes Electronics are expected to launch new PC data services via DirecTV satellite.

At $500 for the two cards, such satellite-TV computers will be expensive initially and sell in limited numbers. But STB and ComStream are already at work on a single-card version of the product that could use the on-board MPEG-2 decoder to play both satellite TV and digital-video disks. "We know this card has to quickly get down to a cost of no more than a couple of hundred dollars to the OEM," said Jim Hopkins, vice president of strategic marketing for STB.

ATI Technologies Inc. (Thornhill, Ontario) also plans to offer add-on cards next year that decode satellite-TV signals and provide software support for decoding DVD titles. ATI has developed a TV-player utility for big-screen PCs but said it will be reworked for the new Microsoft-interface software. "We are pushing the concept of the smart TV," said ATI marketing vice president Henry Quan.

Though the PC/TV products being prepared for next year are not expected to be big sellers at first, they are seen as strategic products as PCs evolve into better entertainment devices. "The winner in the war for eyeballs will be determined by what we can do to endow these platforms with interactive and life- like experiences," Grove said at a news conference following his Comdex keynote. "The sufficient condition for success is interactivity and two-way communications, and I think that the PC architecture is just better suited to that than the TV."

Expanding the user base is key for Grove, who expects a new fab to cost as much as $10 billion by 2000. "My fear is someday the growth and investment cycle will sputter," he said. "New users will not come to the platform, and key investments will not be made and the whole microprocessor cycle that has spun up for 25 years will spin backward."

The rise of satellite-TV services such as DirecTV could be a dark horse in the PC's attempt to expand into entertainment. Talks between the consumer- electronics-oriented Grand Alliance and PC companies are stalled as they seek a compromise U.S. spec for over-the-air broadcast digital television. A public debate between the two sides staged on the Sunday before Comdex made clear the extent of acrimony between the camps.

"They are afraid of our hardware spec," said one Grand Alliance member after the debates. "They want to do it all in software, so they can sell TV Windows 99."

David Siddell, a legal adviser to FCC commissioner Susan Ness, said the FCC may decide in December to finalize the digital-TV specification itself if industry groups cannot agree on a compromise. "There's a strong feeling that the time is now," said Siddell.

Source: Electronic Engineering Times