Rating: 
Summary: Exciting subject area
Review: I read O'Driscoll's guide to home networking and decided to also buy his second book on set-top boxes. Although some of the product specific information is a little dated since 1999, the remaining generic content will stay relevant for many years to come. Excellent source for engineers and technical marketeers who want to take advantage of the many opportunities that are beginning to emerge from digital and interactive television
Rating:
Summary: Great Interactive TV Synopsis
Review: I recommend this book to anyone wanting an overall review of the current (11/99) state of Interactive Television industry. This is a straight forward, non-techno-geek look at a revolution in the making. After purchasing 2 initial copies, several copies were purchased for our applications engineers, QA Dept. and our Engineering library. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great Interactive TV Synopsis
Review: I recommend this book to anyone wanting an overall review of the current (11/99) state of Interactive Television industry. This is a straight forward, non-techno-geek look at a revolution in the making. After purchasing 2 initial copies, several copies were purchased for our applications engineers, QA Dept. and our Engineering library. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful for referencing
Review: I thought this book was a good general overview of the digital set-top business. The book is relatively easy reading, and gave me a great understanding of the vocabulary and the concepts involved with broadband technologies. The author expressed himself well and explained many of the topics clearly. It is a great book for people in the IT industry who want to understand the software systems that are used to operate these PC like devices.On the negative side, O'Driscoll did not develop alot of content on areas like voice activation and MPEG-4.
Rating:
Summary: Overall an outstanding technical resource and well written
Review: Just commenced work in the world of digital television and purchased this book to learn the architecture of end to end systems. My general impression of the book is that it suceeded in explaining to me about digital set-top boxes and their practical applications in the future.In addition to the standard high level stuff on this subject the author delves deep into to how these new technologies work. It is a must to buy and provides a platform for a raft of more books on this huge subject in the coming years!
Rating:
Summary: Learned a lot
Review: My job has required me to catch up on the interactive TV situation. I also found handy having the book "The Interactive Television Dictionary & Business Index" as "The Essential Guide..." doesn't have a glossary and can use more technical jargon than I sometimes understand. "The Interactive Television Dictionary & Business Index" is also information packed, though perhaps easier to read.
Rating:
Summary: Good cohesive survey
Review: not a deeply technical reference, but serves very well as a hype-free survey of the ITV and digital entertainment services arena as a whole + he provides valuable source references for those seeking core technical information.
Rating: 
Summary: World's first book on set-top boxes and Interactive TV
Review: The boundaries between the IT world, Internet systems and broadcast television technologies have blurred. The result of this blurring effect has been the development of a new computing paradigm that is focussed on the home entertainment market. The evolution of this new paradigm in tandem with a demand for new interactive TV applications has created the need for a special interface or gateway device that can be used to pass digital content between high-speed broadband networks and millions of homes across the world. A low cost consumer electronics device called a digital set-top box is poised and ready take centre stage in this new digital world we are about to enter. Many companies, including Microsoft, PowerTV, PlanetWeb, OpenTV, Liberate Technologies, Canal + and Sun Microsystems are vying to gain an early lead in defining the features of digital set-top boxes, as well as the lucrative interactive TV services that go along with them. This book presents you with a detailed description of the set-top products that are available from these companies. Additionally we help you understand the confusing array of computer technologies that has become synonymous with the world of digital set-top boxes - middleware, ECMAScript, JavaTV, HTML, TVPAK, JavaScript, DirectX, Windows 2000, XML, personalization, voice activation, electronic program guides, smart cards, server technologies and much more. Enjoy the book and keep an eye on the set-tops.com portal site.
Rating: 
Summary: A very basic primer...
Review: The cliche "a mile wide and an inch deep" comes to mind in describing this book. The book is probably only useful to those with very little exposure to technology and with no exposure to broadcast technology. Be warned, the book takes on every topic from relevant to the mundane, and offers a definition. Much of the content is simply generic content applicable to any type of new electronic system. For example, if you have no idea what HTML is, or the basic (i.e, two sentence) difference between Personal JAVA and a full JAVA implementation, then you may wish to purchase this book. Do not look here for a detailed explanation of any one topic. And, be prepared to wade through wordy explanations of simple topics. An example from page 48: "Electrical power is available in two forms: alternating current (AC) and direct currect (DC)."Technical errors aside, this book is NOT an essential guide to digital STB and interactive tv. It is a primer to the concepts and terms used generically (and hence, inaccurately), in the industry.
Rating:
Summary: A very basic primer...
Review: The cliche "a mile wide and an inch deep" comes to mind in describing this book. The book is probably only useful to those with very little exposure to technology and with no exposure to broadcast technology. Be warned, the book takes on every topic from relevant to the mundane, and offers a definition. Much of the content is simply generic content applicable to any type of new electronic system. For example, if you have no idea what HTML is, or the basic (i.e, two sentence) difference between Personal JAVA and a full JAVA implementation, then you may wish to purchase this book. Do not look here for a detailed explanation of any one topic. And, be prepared to wade through wordy explanations of simple topics. An example from page 48: "Electrical power is available in two forms: alternating current (AC) and direct currect (DC)." Technical errors aside, this book is NOT an essential guide to digital STB and interactive tv. It is a primer to the concepts and terms used generically (and hence, inaccurately), in the industry.
|
