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The info is cut from the OnSale.com web page, for future reference.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: How is Internet TV
different from WebTV?
A: Internet TV is
based on an open architecture design and it does not require any proprietary
software on the server or any proprietary protocol. To connect to the Internet,
Internet TV needs a TCP/IP and PPP connection over a regular telephone
line and a dial-up account. The PAP and CHAP protocols are then used for
authentication. Most ISPs provide this kind of standard connection as well
as routers with dial-up capabilities used in corporate environment.
Q: Can Internet TV connect
to America On Line?
A: No. AOL uses a
proprietary and not public point-to-point protocol instead of the standard
PPP.
Q: How do I know whether
Internet TV would connect to my ISP?
A: First of all you
have to make sure that your ISP uses PAP or CHAP for automatic authentication.
Some providers still have manual login procedures that may require the
use of scripts. At the moment there is no support for scripting in the
dialer but a service mode allows you to initiate a manual login
session and then switch to PPP.
Q: How about proxy support?
A: Internet TV does
not require any proxy support but it can take advantage of a proxy HTTP
server if available.
Q: Does Internet TV support
SSL and SET for secure transactions and payments?
A: At the moment,
Internet TV does not support SSL. We are working on a software upgrade
that incorporates among other things support for SSL and SET. The software
upgrade incorporating the SSL will be available in August 1998. The
set-top box hardware incorporates a ISO compatible smartcard reader. The
new software will be able to make use of the existing smarcard reader for
secure electronic financial transactions.
Q: Is support for Java
or Javascript planned?
A: The new software
upgrade available in August will incorporate Javascript. On the other hand,
Java sacrifices performance for portability, and in the current form it
requires large memory. Full support for Java is not planned in the current
version of Internet TV.
Q: Is it possible to update
the software over the net?
A: Software upgrades
are downloadable over the net whenever they become available. Localized
versions of the software with support for specific Asian or European languages
are also available from download.
Q: Is parental control
supported?
A: Not in the browser
itself but only through the use of a proxy server and filters installed
on the server.
Q: Does Internet TV handle
frames?
A: Yes. The Internet
TV browser version 1.3 fully supports frames.
Q: What languages and
character set encodings are supported?
A: ISO-Latin1 in
all the configuration and a choice of: traditional Chinese (BIG5), simplified
Chinese (GB), Japanese (JIS, S-JIS, EUC) and Korean ( KS-C-5601). Also,
extended ASCII encoding is used for messages, dialogs and input methods,
allowing easy localization for Western European languages of both the browser
and the email. Versions for Italian, French and Spanish are available as
well.
Q: What E-Mail protocols
are supported?
A: SMTP to send email.
POP3 and IMAP4 to receive email. Up to four email accounts information
can be stored in the configuration. Internet TV provides a native front-end
for accessing E-Mail.
Q: How to read Usenet
newsgroup with Internet TV?
A: Unlike E-Mail
there is no native front-end for reading and accessing the Usenet newsgroup.
An HTML service must be used for this. A comprehensive HTML interface to
Usenet is provided by DejaNews at the URL http://www.dejanews.com/
Q: What graphic resolution
is rendered on TV?
A: Internet TV is
generating pages at the TV line resolution, and scaling 640 pixels of horizontal
resolution into the TV resolution. If a page is more that 640 pixels, then
horizontal scrolling is enabled. Generating pages and text at the TV line
resolution, means that artifacts on the text caused from scaling are eliminated.
This is why, Internet TV has a better and crisper image on TV than a PC
with a TV card.
Q: What about writing
and publishing pages for Internet TV?
A: Since the Internet
TV browser is based on standard HTML, there is no need to learn any special
tag to publish content specifically for Internet TV. Internet TV will render
any HTML page in the best possible way, giving the constrains of a TV display.
Even if WebTV is trying to push non-standard tags for creating pages for
TV audience, we do not believe there is such a need. However, some of the
HTML design guidelines indicated by WebTV, apply to displaying content
on a TV and adopting them will result in overall better pages for TV output
on Internet TV. Keep in mind that Internet TV has a better horizontal resolution
and it supports horizontal and vertical scrolling of pages in case thay
do not fit in a single screen.
Q: What about unsupported
HTML tags?
A: Internet TV will
ignore non-standard or unsupported tags.
Q: Does the Internet TV
currently support for RealAudio, RealVideo, MPEG, Shockwave, and other
plugins?
A: A generic interface
for plug-ins is not exposed. Forthcoming software upgrades may incorporate
plugins depending on the customer demand.
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