The Essential Guide to Digital Set-Top Boxes and Interactive TV

Don't let the title mislead you: The Essential Guide to Digital Set-Top Boxes and Interactive TV isn't a primer for using WebTV's enhanced services. This book is for software, programming, and TV professionals looking to capitalize on this paradigm shift in the delivery of information and entertainment. With that in mind, Gerard O'Driscoll has done a masterly job of condensing a complex subject.

The book starts off by briefly explaining the roles of the various international standards groups and taking you through the building blocks of digital TV. O'Driscoll is clearly familiar with digital TV's underlying technology, offering detailed information about competing operating systems, development platforms, and broadband networks.

Less clear are the benefits and drawbacks to all of the factors involved. O'Driscoll occasionally touches upon these--such as when he notes Microsoft's difficulties in cracking the digital set-top business--but too often he fails to provide analysis of why a certain method works better than another, or why one technology has been more successful in gathering momentum. For example, he notes that electronic cash as a potential digital TV application must be safe from counterfeiting and other forms of fraud, but he doesn't mention what initiatives are underway to prevent them. It would also be helpful to have an idea of how viable such applications are in the near future.

Nonetheless, this is a useful, if seriously technical, guide to what the future of TV may hold. For software developers and television executives alike, The Essential Guide to Digital Set-Top Boxes and Interactive TV is just that--essential. --John Frederick Moore

Topics covered: Building blocks of a digital TV system, architecture of a set-top OS, middleware standards, set-top application development, choice of broadband intranet applications, and general principles of designing for a TV environment.