There are, however, many other video sources available to be
displayed on a TV. Formats of content delivered through such
media channels as terrestrial, cable, satellite, and internet TV, as well
as DVD titles, games, video camera, etc., are compatible neither
internationally nor even intra-nationally sometimes. Even
more complicated, each service channel has its own
proprietary modem and source coding standards, including
DRM policy. This is a truly complicated situation. It is a
great challenge for TV manufacturers to satisfy not only
various media distribution service channels but also
consumer needs. The needs are excellent multimedia quality,
simple ways to use, with sometimes additional user
convenience functions such as storing and retrieving
multimedia data, all at the lowest possible cost. Optimization
in system design work with low NRE cost is desired, while
manufacturing competitiveness should also be maintained.
This requires multi-generation product and technology
planning for the system designers who have to decide the
hardware, software, and firmware trade-offs. Technology
roadmap and migration paths should be carefully defined
because TV manufacturers have to serve several markets with
different DTV standards within the same business cycle. In
the following sections, we discuss the trend of DTV industry,
how to address the complex and conflicting market needs,
and what should be considered in developing System-on-
Chip (SoC) solutions.