Dr. Dobb's Journal August, 2005
Digital video recorder technology in general and systems such as TiVo in particular have turned the world of television topsy-turvy, not to mention turning proper nouns into verbs. Don't want to stay up to watch the late show? TiVo it. Irritated by an irritating commercial? TiVo it. Can't get enough of Paris Hilton selling hamburgers? TiVo it.
Part of the magic of DVR is that it truly ushers in the concepts of "time-shifting," whereby you determine your viewing schedule, and "space shifting," in which you transfer digital content onto gadgets other than those originally intended. TiVo's Windows-based TiVoToGo program (http://www .tivo.com/4.9.19.asp), for instance, lets you transfer programs from TiVo DVRs directly to portable media players, laptops, and other devices. Other approaches to space shifting include TV on cell phones, like that provided by MobiTV (http://www.mobitv.com/). Reportedly, more than 300,000 subscribers have signed on with MobiTV to watch everything from Congressional hearings on C-SPAN to Larry, Curly, and Moe on the ToonWorld TV Classics channel.
To make this happen, MobiTV has launched its MobiEnabled Developers Program, which provides sample MobiTV applications, product testing, and service preproduction (http://209.132.240.166/ developer/index.html). Assuming that your carrier network and cell phone support MobiTV services, 100-percent pure Java MIDP 2.0 client applications can be running on a cell phone near you real soon now. (For more information on Java MIDP, see http://java.sun.com/products/midp/.)
In fact, as Linden deCarmo pointed out in "The OpenCable Application Platform" (DDJ, June 2004), Java is at the core of most of the emerging digital video technology and APIs. In addition to MobiTV's platform, for instance, there's TiVo's Java-based Home Media Engine SDK (see "Building on TiVo," by Arthur van Hoff and Adam Doppelt; DDJ, March 2005). Likewise, Java is at the heart of the recently updated OpenCable Application Platform Specification for DVRs (http://www.opencable.com/ specifications/), which defines a minimal profile for DVR software for digital cable receivers that have local storage. The OCAP DVR spec includes all required APIs, content and data formats, and protocols, up to the application level. Applications adhering to the OCAP DVR Profile are executed on OpenCable-compliant host devices. The OCAP DVR platform is applicable to a variety of hardware and operating systems, giving consumer electronics manufacturers flexibility in implementation.
Granted, not everyone sees Java as the development platform for space shifting, DVRs, and other TV-related initiatives. It's a safe bet that Microsoft won't be standardizing on Java APIs anytime soon for its Microsoft TV project (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/).
While large corporations such as AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, and others are supporting DVR standards and cranking out toolkits, homebrewers are discovering that DVR isn't that hard. In his Circuit Cellar article "Build a Digital Video Recorder," Miguel Sanchez presents a system built around Linux and a 500-MHz Pentium III computer with 64 MB of RAM and a 120-GB hard disk (http://www.circuitcellar.com/magazine/174toc.htm). Not to be outdone, Ken Sharp's online article "Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR Out of an Old PC" takes you through all the hardware and software necessary for putting together a Windows-based DVR (http://www.makezine.com/extras/4.html).
Still, DVR'ing isn't a free ride, as even industry-leading TiVo (the noun) has had its share of ups and downs. One minute, former Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell calls TiVo "God's machine," and the next thing you know, TiVo's CEO is jumping ship and the company turns to serious cost cutting. Then before you can say "space-shift" three times, TiVo's stock price jumps up on buyout rumors, but plummets when earnings (or the lack thereof) are announced.
In truth, TiVo's problems have nothing to do with technology, market conditions, or competition. What it really comes down to is "content"—you know, all those TV programs we're supposed to be time and space shifting at will. For one thing, space-shifted viewing and mobile devices require a whole new kind of TV programming. Cecil B. DeMille-like productions won't stand a chance on cell phone displays—they're too grandiose and too long for constrained devices. Instead, new types of TV programs called "mobisodes" (short for "mobile episodes") that are uniquely created for the screen and time limitations of cell phones are in the works.
But mobisode producers are going to have to do better than what we're seeing with the current crop of TV shows. Case in point: In a recent rerun of "Law & Order," the editor-in-chief of a computer magazine is brutally murdered (http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/episode_guide/113.html). As if that wasn't shocking enough, ungrateful coworkers of the poor fellow posthumously referred to him as a "pig," among other less than endearing terms. If the Parents Television Council or some other like-minded organization wants to object to what's on TV, forget about Paris Hilton's hamburgers. There's no better place to start than drivel that eliminates editors. TiVo that, Law & Order.