TV convergence: It's happening in Japan

CHIBA, Japan--Remember convergence? The idea that the TV and conventional technologies would merge? It came out about the same time as that series ER and has aged about as well in North America.

A TV phone in action.

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

In Japan, it's another story. Watching TV on your PC is actually quite common. A huge number of desktops and notebooks come with TV tuners and people actually use them, according to several residents.

"There are a lot of ads for TV PCs," he said Yasutoshi Magara, managing director of Microsoft Japan. Sharp Electronics, he noted, just came out with a PC-TV combo with a 42-inch screen.

Part of the surge here relies on local factors. There isn't a lot of spare space in most cities in Japan. As I type, the chair I sit upon is butting up against a suitcase on the floor, for instance. Combining the TV and the PC screen into one slim package makes sense.

TV on cell phones has also become big. Japan started offering 1Seg, a service that lets you get free digital TV channels on your phone, in April 2006, according to Sharp's Myuki Nakayama. Ten million TV phones from all manufacturers have been bought by consumers since then, she added.

[aka_tripleB]

It's not really that people in the US don't won't it

I think it's more that people don't know about it. I'm a vender inside of a Wal-Mart, and when I tell them that they can get a TV tuner for there PC, or even use most of the LCD TVs for a computer monitor, they are usually very surprised and very intrigued. But when it comes to using a TV as a monitor, most people don't want to do it because it's just not in their budget.