Intel Becoming 'Must See TV?'

Electronic News, May 3, 1999 by Peter Brown

Intel Corp. and NBC have signed an agreement to collaborate on a multi- year project to create and provide enhanced digital television programming. The programming is expected to be available to viewers in the fall. Intel said the enhanced TV offerings will provide a variety of new experiences for viewers on multiple digital TV platforms including, of course, the PC.

The interactive programming includes electronic program guides, chat rooms, E-mail, interactive quizzes, movie trailers, and video sneak previews. NBC sports events and statistics also will be transmitted on demand. NBC plans to have an average of three hours per week dedicated to enhanced DTV for Teen NBC and NBC sports programming. This will be in addition to the prime time broadcasts. Intel has been pushing the PC/DTV for the last year in an effort to penetrate the consumer electronics space. The company wants to enable digital television viewing through the PC using Pentium-based processors and enabling the rest of the content and decoding through software. This is contrary to other approaches to PC-based DTV, such as dedicated chips in add-in cards from companies such as TeraLogic Inc.