Where Shall We Go Next? - A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression - page 637

Table 39-1 Compression-Related Technology Timeline (Continued)

Year Milestone

Mobile video in handheld devices increases in popularity.
Home media centres start to become important. All manner of computer/video
hybrid consumer devices interoperate to build distributed media solutions for the
home. Some call this the Digital Living Room. Alternative solutions that compete
with and potentially improve on the TiVo model appear.
Consumer video editing systems now capable of editing HD content (iMovie for
example).
Holographic storage devices from Optware and InPhase technologies become
available. Potential for 30 GBytes on a postage stamp sized card. Even bigger
capacities in the pipeline up to 1.6 TBytes per device.
Projected delivery of 30-Mbps Internet connection to domestic users has been
suggested by digital TV cable providers in France.

2006 The MPEG-4 Spatial Audio Coding (ASC) specification is expected to be

completed during this year. This is planned to deliver 5.1 surround sound at 21
Kbps per channel within a total of 128 Kbps.
DTT-based HDTV services should start to be rolled out in Europe.
BSkyB is expected to launch HD services on satellite in the United Kingdom.
Ultrawideband wireless devices will start to be sold to consumers. Ultrawideband
is aiming to deliver 100 Mbps although Intel is pushing for 500 Mbps. It is known
as World Wide Spectrum Efficiency (WWiSE) and IEEE 802.11n.
U.S. broadcasters are expected to begin giving up parts of the analog spectrum if
things go according to plan with the transition to digital TV.

2007 Marketing projections are expecting to see 100 million DVB-H-compatible

handsets in use.
TV operators are expected to start handing their analog TV spectrum back to the
US Federal Government.

2008 It is predicted that 1.4 million European homes will have deployed HDTV in time

for the Beijing Olympics.
Some predictions are as high as 24 million HD-ready consumers.
DTT HDTV services should increase as capacity is freed up by analog switch-off.
Providers of D-cable services should start to roll out European HDTV by this time.
Consumer-oriented VDSL carriage of IPTV services start to become more widely
available and profitable.

2009 The DVB-H standards are expected to be deployed to 300 million mobile users

by now.
Current speculation suggests that analog TV is completely turned off in the
United States by now. That may be too optimistic.
European viewers are predicted to have access to 500 HDTV channels at this
point.

Continued