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Title: The Essential Guide to Digital Set-Top Boxes and Interactive TV by Gerard O'Driscoll ISBN: 0-13-017360-6 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 19 November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.39 (18 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A good introduction to a complicated subject
Comment: A lot of the information contained in THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO SET-TOP BOXES AND INTERACTIVE TV is specialized and arcane. Of course, this shouldn't be that great of a surprise, given the relatively small size of this particular field at the moment. The material covered in this book should give the newcomer to the field a lot of the valuable and fundamental information that they'll need to know. Unfortunately, some of the data is out of date, and there are several new things that have come about since the publication of this book. It's useful for someone who is just getting started, but I'd like to see a new edition written some time soon that takes the material mentioned here and goes farther with it.
There is quite a lot of information that's been packed into this book. In fact, at times it almost appears too compressed and some topics could have used much more elaboration. In particular, the chapter that deals primarily with the possible Internet applications only brushes the surface of what could be discussed. The topics that are touched on include: Digital TV (an overview), enhanced TV, set-top hardware architecture, set-top server architecture, set-top operating systems, set-top middleware, set-top platforms, set-top application development (Intranet, Internet and otherwise), electronic program guides, and set-top smart cards. As you can no doubt tell, this is a staggering amount of material to get through in only about three hundred pages. Obviously the level of detail is not going to be terribly high, but it is worth it to get an introduction to so many different topics.
For the programmers out there, think of this ESSENTIAL GUIDE as a breadth first search. It covers a wide range of areas, but it does so superficially. As something you read once to get a feel for the terminology and the particulars, this book is quite good. But it's not very effective as a resource or a reference, because the in-depth material one would need simply isn't present. A good introduction only.
Rating: 1
Summary: Overhyped title, poor content
Comment: I bought this book about 2 years ago however I never finished it, lately I picked it up again looking for some reference information and then I knew why I never finished it in the first place.
Aside from what other readers have pointed out about bad organization, cut and paste manufacturers' white papers and wishlists, I found the inconsistency in presenting the information in this book to be the prevalent pattern. Within the same section the reader is presented with sub-sections with completely different layouts : one technology is explained with graphs, the other with bullets, another one with a short paragraph etc...
Some information is explained extensively without merit, example : a set-top web browser uses HTML for displaying internet content (duh) and then he goes for about 2+ pages on how HTML works with explanation about HTML tags and the Back and Forward buttons etc...
A major technology like MPEG-2 didn't get the coverage it deserved.
Finally this author took advantage of the fact that not many books cover this specific area about interactive TV and with a misleading title like the "essential" guide he's under delivering big time. I highly don't recommend this book.
Rating: 1
Summary: A Disappointing Hodge-Podge of Information
Comment: I purchased this book about 6 months ago (I write this review in March 2001). I have, on several occassions since attempted to derive some value from it. Unfortunately, it is a hodge-podge of unordered facts. It was substantially out of date even at the time of my purchase. Several of the companies and products discussed no longer exist. There seems to have been little thought as to the overall organization of information. I agree with the other reviewer who stated it seemed like this was a cut-and paste from information provided from the various manufacturers.
While you can learn somewhat out-dated information about the set-top box industry if you work at it - and believe me you have to work to make sense out of this information - there is very little here that cannot be learned by spending a few hours surfing the net. Even if it wasn't substantially out of date, it would be extremely difficult to recommend this book to anyone other than someone who MUST have access to this specific information and they can't find it anywhere else.
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Title: Digital Television: MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and Principles of the DVB System, Second Edition by Herve Benoit ISBN: 0240516958 Publisher: Focal Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Interactive Television Demystified by Jerry Whitaker ISBN: 0071363254 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: TV dot Com: The Future of Interactive Television by Phillip Swan ISBN: 1575001772 Publisher: TV Books Inc Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Multimedia and Interactive Digital TV: Managing the Opportunities Created by Digital Convergence by Margherita Pagani ISBN: 1931777381 Publisher: Idea Group Publishing Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: Modern Cable Television Technology: Video, Voice, & Data Communications by Walter Ciciora, James Farmer, David Large ISBN: 1558604162 Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Pub. Date: 15 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $89.95 |
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