Television and the Web

Lexmark Position Paper

In a rapidly approaching future, data for audio, video, computing, control, and printing will be transported to and through the home over a digital network. The World Wide Web will be one of the means of transporting this data to the home.

What is Television?

Television can be defined and viewed in a number of contexts including:

1. A television is an electronic device that reproduces audio and video for human consumption from an electrical signal received from a terrestrial transmitter, through cable or from a satellite.
2. Television is the broadcasting of audio and video from a terrestrial transmitter, through cable or from a satellite.
3. Television is the content transmitted as described in "b" and received by the device described in "a."

Therefore, it is important as we consider the concept of "Television and the Web" that we think about:

• The device used by people
• The process by which data is transmitted to and received by such a device
• The data or content being transmitted

Television in all three of these contexts, is an important part of the "family room computainment" paradigm. As such, the television set, must be interconnected to the other devices of the home including:

• The Audio/Video system (video, camera, audio, etc.)
• The home security and control systems
• The home’s personal computers
• The home’s connection to the Web (with or without a PC)
• The home’s to terrestrial, cable or satellite broadcasting

In order for the content of television to be useful, the means by which it is transmitted must be in a format that is usable by a wide variety of devices. Use of standard communications protocols and physical interfaces available on personal computers, printers and other devices is necessary.

Formats that can only be decoded, displayed and edited by complex, highly interactive devices are limited in usability unless other representations of the data are available. Where possible video, audio and other dynamic data should contain a static representation or alternative format for the content that can be used by a static device such as a printer. In many cases, this alternative representation can also be used to assist those with disabilities. For example, printable text information accompanying a video presentation could be used by those with hearing impairments

Printing in the Home

In addition to the need to use the television set to view and/or hear, each of these systems has a need to print, which must be considered in any overall system design. For example:

• Printing of programming guides for study and planning
• Printing of Web pages either from the PC
• Printing of pages via a set-top device and a TV
• pages made available "behind the scene" during programming
• printing of advertisements and coupons
• specialty printing (baseball cards, statistics) during sporting events
• Printing of security and control settings or logs
• Printing of still images from a security or other camera
• Shared printing in a home network

Lexmark has conducted a number of user studies to understand how and why people want to print in their homes. These studies indicate that people say they want print from these home devices because they want to share information with their friends and to archive the information for future reference.

Lexmark's Position

There will be a wide variety of business, educational and entertainment material available in a variety of formats (text, audio, video, etc.) in the home in the future. The convergence and global interconnectivity that can be achieved through the proper design of the Web and home networks will drastically increase the average user’s ability to access and use this material. Today’s users are often most comfortable with information presented on paper and therefore to best reach this audience, accommodation to this preference is needed.

Lexmark believes that as new formats for data, new ways to exchange and use them are developed, consideration for how this material may be represented and utilized with paper and other static devices must be considered.