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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
By Craig McCulloch
Las Vegas
27 April 2006
Thousands of broadcasters from around the world converged1 this week in Las Vegas. The annual broadcast-electronics convention gave special attention to new and emerging technologies that may revolutionize how the world watches television.
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Las Vegas at night
In the air-conditioned hum of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the more than 105,000 attendees at this event go through the usual exhibits of the latest innovations in radio, television, journalism2 and engineering.
The more than 1400 broadcast exhibitors included some companies previously3 not seen in this desert gathering4.
They are touting5 new distribution methods for conventional television stations. The February 2009 deadline for conversion6 progression of all American over-the-air TV stations from analog7 to digital and HDTV looms8 on the horizon. However, mobile and IP television are capturing much of the attention, here.
Although these technologies are not new, proponents9 are hoping recent developments will be the breaking point to see their vision to a reality.
One of those is Bob Shallow of cellular10 telephone maker11 Nokia. As the company's director of multimedia12 experiences, he is promoting the new DVBH technology. When initiated13, it is suppose to greatly improve the ability to receive a television station or network on a handheld cellular telephone.
Bob Shallow
He is hoping this will be the development that will make cellular or mobile television a popular reality.
"So, the biggest hurdles14 are quality of service and delivery to the device," said Bob Shallow. "To date, a lot of the services has been using streaming technology which means every new user coming on the network to watch a piece of content puts a greater strain on the network and has the potential to cause the quality of the content to degrade. What DVBH does is provides a broadcast footprint. So everybody, whether its one person or a million people within that footprint get the same quality of service as its guaranteed throughout a broadcast."
To help make this possible, Nokia was displaying their new DVBH-compatible N92 cell phone, which is to go on-sale in Europe later this year and in North America in 2007.
Izzy Abbas
Izzy Abbass is with U Turn, a company that specializes in helping15 television stations move their programming to mobile phones and other devices, like cellular equipped PDAs.
He says that being able to watch television on a mobile device has many advantages.
"It's with you everywhere you go," said Izzy Abbass. "Nobody carries their laptop with them as often. I carry my laptop around, but there's a great analogy. They talk about how television is a lean back technology; where you lean back on the couch, watch what's going on the screen, its very passive. Computer is very lean forward. You're leaned over the keyboard, typing, and you're interacting that way. Mobile phones are great because its lean forward, lean back, get up, walk across the room, go outside, down the street, get a gallon of milk, come back home. So its with you wherever you are."
Mr. Abbass says that, for mobile television to work, stations should adopt an advertiser-based business plan instead of a user-pay system.
Another type of technology sharing floor space with proponents of mobile television is IP TV. This technology lets people watch traditional and streaming video channels over the Internet on a traditional television set.
Marek Kietczewski is with Sentivision, a Polish and Asian-based company that specializes in IP TV and video on demand technology.
Marek Kietczewski
He is confident IP TV will become a big hit if people can watch programming, such as specialized16 streaming media channels, on their home television set .rather than having to sit in front of a computer.
"The amount of programming you can get from the Internet is going to be increasing in the coming months and years," said Marek Kietczewski. "The Internet is an interactive17 medium, so you can have the feedback, you can have interactive programming where you can actually decide what to watch and not as it is thrown at you by the broadcasters. You choose what you want and when you want to view it. But, still, you don't want to move from that couch, you want to sit at that couch and choose the programs you want to watch, not using your pc [personal computer]."
Many other companies at this show, such as software giant Microsoft, are also investing in the concept of IP TV.
Still, a report from Accenture shows that supporters of mobile television and the IP TV concepts still have some work to do.
It found that respondents in five European countries and the United States are not aware of the technology or even the name of IPTV. The report did find that many of the respondents are interested in the technology.
The same report also found that mobile devices, such as cellular phones and video players, like Apple's IPod, were the least favourite devices to watch television.
Dennis Wharton
Still, Dennis Wharton, spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters - the Washington based group that produces this annual gathering -says they want to make the industry aware of new ways to get their signal out to viewers.
"We can go about this in one of two ways," said Dennis Wharton. "We can bury our head in the sand and say were afraid of new technology. And you know what? We would last for a few years and then we would die. Instead we're going to embrace this new technology. We're going to provide new platforms under which our local stations with our network partners will deliver great applications that people haven't even thought of. It sounds trite18; you can either embrace the future or can be afraid of it. We choose to embrace it."
To highlight these new technologies, many of the new mobile and IP TV exhibitors were featured in a special area on the convention floor.
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1
converged
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| v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的过去式 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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2
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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touting
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| v.兜售( tout的现在分词 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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analog
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| n.类似物，模拟 | |
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looms
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| n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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9
proponents
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| n.（某事业、理论等的）支持者，拥护者( proponent的名词复数 ) | |
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cellular
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| adj.移动的；细胞的，由细胞组成的 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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multimedia
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| adj.多种手段的，多媒体的；n.多媒体 | |
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initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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hurdles
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| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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interactive
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| adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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