Large scale multimedia and interactive television

Summary form only given, as follows. The confluence of social and technological readiness signals that the widespread use of a new technology is coming. New developments, both technical and business, regarding the digital highway, networked multimedia and interactive TV are reported everyday. This field is both a large driver and consumer of technology. Large scale multimedia and interactive TV will provide personal interactive access to vast quantities of information in video and multimedia forms. The end user will have available many exciting applications for use in entertainment, education, and business. End to end systems comprised of electronic repositories, high speed networks, TVs, PCs, and other personal devices will be integrated. These systems depend on a variety of new technologies that are just now emerging. The author focuses on applications, end to end systems and the various new technologies. In particular he discusses the following applications; video on demand, near video on demand, home shopping, education in school and home, training, manufacturing, and marketing. The following technologies are also discussed; large, scalable servers, ATM networking, RF modem technologies (QAM and VSB), ADSL, MPEG compression and transport