RUEL'S INTERVIEW
OF SET-TOP.COM'S
JAMISON CHING
AND TOM ROMERO

The remote control reviewed on the previous page is made by the folks at SET-TOP.COM. Jamison Ching and Tom Romero are the executives in charge of SET-TOP.COM. Ching refers to himself as the "Head Couch Potato" of the company. Don't let the funny title fool you in thinking that they do not know what they are doing. These two individuals really know all about watching television from not only the consumer viewpoint, but also from the marketing, technological, and senior management viewpoints. The SET-TOP.COM folks could teach a thing or two to all of the computer folks who are getting into interactive television. The SET-TOP.COM folks know how to "Think TV."

The West German-born Jamison Ching grew up in Hawaii, and went to the University of Illinois in Champaign (the home of the first Mosaic web browser). He was offered his first job out of school by Sony's Teruaki Aoki to work on a multimedia project in Japan. Ching eventually decided to work for Sony in San Jose working on multimedia products using the ViSCA technology which allowed PCs to talk with Sony camcorders and television sets. At Sony, Ching also worked with the folks at Apple and Microsoft in launching QuickTime and AVI. Ching taught Digital Video at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Ching received his MBA at the University of Chicago and then became a General Instrument senior marketing manager. Ching played a part in defining General Instrument's digital set-top box technology and General Instrument's first MPEG2 and HDTV products.

Tom Romero attended the University of California at San Diego where he received a BA in Computer Science. While at UCSD, Romero worked at MA/COM Linkabit and General Instrument. And when he got his BA, Romero took a position at General Instrument as a Programmer Analyst. Romero eventually became the Supervisor of the Access Control Center and Manager for Access Control software products at General Instrument. While at General Instrument, Romero developed strong relationships with senior managers at numerous cable, satellite, and programming companies, including connections at HBO, ESPN, and the NFL. With their cross-industry experience in computers, consumer electronics, entertainment, and telecom, along with their numerous industry connections and contacts to cultivate, Ching and Romero started SET-TOP.COM LLC which has been in existence for the last two years. And they developed a nifty remote control that could change the future of how you surf television channels and the internet on your TV set.

RUEL: Let's start with the item that people will want to know about: The SET-TOP.COM remote control. Your remote control seems to look like any other remote control. When I talk to WebTV users, many seem to say that they use the keyboard more often than the remote control. What makes your remote control better than a keyboard?

JAMISON: The remote control concept embodies our approach to Internet TV. It's not a replacement for a PC, but a new entertainment medium. You can probably call up Microsoft WebTV right now and you'll probably get the same answer although it took them so many dollars and years to learn it. Therefore, one shouldn't be expected to have to navigate his or her TV with a keyboard. It's nuts.

TOM: Generally when people watch TV they do it to entertain themselves. And the accepted navigation method for television is the remote control. The keyboard however is better used in a work environment such as sitting at a desk. The navigation method used for TV viewing has traditionally been the remote control. The remote is less intimidating then the keyboard and is a much better fit for the viewer who is relaxing in his or her favorite chair, or is cuddled up on the couch, or relaxing in bed. The additional functionality of the SET-TOP.COM remote control simply allows for better Internet TV navigation and viewing.

RUEL: But you could always surf through all the television channels to see what is on....

JAMISON: Yes, you can do that, but when you get to huge amounts of channels, we saw that traditional channel surfing and program guides won't work. We had a product at General Instrument called 4DTV or digital Big-Dish satellite with over 600 channels and growing. That can be too much to go through using traditional channel surfing. Tom and I came up with the TV HyperCode system as a way to navigate million-channel systems using mnemonics and a specially labeled remote control. TV and internet programmers will like it because it gives them back their branding instead of being known as channel 152 or www.mycompany.com.

RUEL: So, the TV HyperCode system is a mnemonic-numeric system like those 800 and 900 telephone numbers you see on TV commercials like a number like 1-800-CALLATT for calling AT&T. But it's for the internet and television channels.

JAMISON: That's right. We've harnessed the power of the Web to help people sit back, relax, have a beer in one hand, and surf web channels in the other. We expect that people will use the remote 95% of the time to surf and kick back, and only pick up the keyboard to fill out a form. Even then we will be working on user interfaces to eliminate that 5% of the time a keyboard is needed.

RUEL: There are a bunch of companies setting up TV portals and program guides to help viewers watch television shows. It seems like your TV HyperCode system could be better than what others may be doing.

JAMISON: I don't think anybody is doing what we're doing which is focusing exclusively on building internet tools to help navigate TV in a better way. We've been told that by many industry insiders. Most of the TV portals we see aren't even readable or usable over Internet TV. This makes our Made-For-TV database so valuable as a directory to register and view websites that are specifically made for TV viewers.

TOM: Let me add that the SET-TOP.COM remote control incorporates the most powerful functions available to the internet set-top box. This alone is enough to make the SET-TOP.COM remote control a better remote control then those issued by other set-top box manufacturers, but we didn't stop there. Our remote and TV HyperCode -- and to repeat it's a patent pending technology -- will let you easily surf the internet. What really sets it apart is that TV HyperCode easily allows you to channel surf by typing in common words such as ESPN or HBO.

JAMISON: The obvious convenience factor for the WebTV user is being able to effortlessly surf using just the remote is revolutionary. The TV and internet content providers will love the branding opportunity of customers punching in HBO or ESPN to get to their content. Broadband providers and set-top makers will love it because it differentiates their products and makes Internet TV usable for the consumer. It's a win-win-win situation because it opens up the set-top market for products like WebTV, Liberate, and AOL-TV.

TOM: You can even type in a show name such as "Friends" and the TV HyperCode system will find and change the channel for you. Now the user doesn't have to remember or look up the channel number for their favorite programs. Nor do they have to type in long URLs if they want to web surf. This will become especially important, as streaming video will make more programming options available to the TV viewer. At SET-TOP.COM, we believe that a TV viewer shouldn't have to get up or sit up or roll over and beg to change channels. Our remote control does what a remote control was meant to do: It makes watching TV easy .

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