Following NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s success in turning cellular phones into gateways to the Internet, Japanese electronics makers are putting their efforts into making TV sets the next doorway to cyberspace.

Earlier this month, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. announced a joint project to create a platform for electronic commerce and other new services via an advanced digital TV tuner with interactive functions. Hitachi, Ltd., another major electronics maker, is expected to join the team to create what they call an "e-platform."

The move reflects the bright future foreseen for digital broadcasting services.

In addition to offerings available via communications satellites, digital broadcasting services via broadcasting satellites will begin on a trial basis in September, with a full-scale launch in December.

Viewers need separate tuners to receive both CS and BS services, but a single tuner that can handle both is expected as early as next year.

After that, terrestrial digital broadcasting will begin and gradually spread through the whole nation by the end of 2006.

A greater variety of TV programs with upgraded audio and visual quality are not all that will come with digital broadcasting services.

"Now, TVs are only for watching. But various functions (based on TVs) will soon become possible," Matsushita spokesman Kenichi Tsumura said.

Since digital broadcasting allows the interactive transmission of large volumes of data, digital TV sets are seen becoming terminals for e-commerce, home banking and other services.

When that becomes reality, the number of Internet users is expected to rise, generating huge demand for digital TVs and tuners.

Although computers and cellular phones are the main mode of Internet access for most people, greater potential is predicted for TV sets, which are more widespread than computers and have superior audiovisual features to cellular phones.

But electronics makers will not stop there. They are counting on digital TVs to become a driving force behind the so-called digital home network, where digital products from cellular phones and video cameras to home electronic appliances will all be linked together.

"Some digital products (other than TV sets) are already on the market. But none of them have been (powerful enough) to change people's lives," said Masanobu Sakaguchi, a spokesman for Sony.

A series of new digital TVs and tuners compliant with digital broadcasting will soon hit the domestic market to cash in on the upcoming Sydney Olympic Games, when people are expected to upgrade their TV sets.

The Electronic Industries Association of Japan estimates that demand for BS digital TVs will reach 430,000 units in fiscal 2000, and grow to 5.1 million units in fiscal 2005.

The digital TV trend will also be a boon to semiconductor manufacturers, who produce the key devices for such products.

Although home electronics makers initially develop semiconductors for new products on their own, they tend to outsource when the products get popular, said Shinpei Hirata of Fujitsu Ltd.'s electronics device department.

Sakaguchi, meanwhile, said that digital TVs may mean new profits for electronics makers.

For instance, the e-platform project by Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba will enable them to charge other companies wanting to provide the digital service for use of the platform.

"By making good use (of digital TVs), we can probably offer a broader range of functions than those available (with conventional TVs)," Sakaguchi said.

Manufacturers have high expectations. But will consumers readily enter the era of digital home networks as devised by those companies?

Not necessarily, as there remain a series of hurdles that need to be cleared to make digital TVs as popular as conventional ones.

One is price. At the moment, many digital TVs are priced at around 400,000 yen, and a tuner compliant with BS digital broadcasting costs around 100,000 yen.

Manufacturers say those prices will eventually come down with the spread of digital TVs. But to have them find their way into more households in the first place, they need to first lower prices, said Fumiaki Sato, analyst at Deutsche Securities Ltd.

Additional costs consumers are willing to pay for digital functions would be around 10 percent of what they pay for conventional TVs, he said.

Another concern is to what extent makers can simplify the usage of digital TVs and tuners for providing a wide range of functions.

Some people, especially senior citizens, have problems using existing functions, such as programming videos to record.

If people find them difficult to use, it would hinder the acceptance of digital TVs, Hitachi spokesman Yoshinobu Ohinata said, adding that it would also contradict TVs' prime function to relax viewers.

Meanwhile, even those who are encouraged by the long-term prospects are skeptical of any major boost in sales of digital TVs and tuners in the immediate future.

Fujitsu's Hirata expects that demand for digital TVs and tuners will not grow conspicuously until the launch of terrestrial digital broadcasting, citing the relatively small number of subscribers to the existing BS and CS broadcasting.

The total subscribers to BS and CS broadcasting services is roughly estimated at 14.7 million, compared to Japan's total 60 million households.

As Sakaguchi acknowledged, Japanese electronics makers are now very much in the stage of trial and error.

"Although we think of many ideas for the coming digital network era, we don't know what makes users happy and how much cost will be involved to (realize certain ideas)," he said. "It's as if we know that a vast field is out there, but we don't know what kinds of seeds we should sow there."