A Grand Terrace company plans to market a device later this year that transmits video programming from the Internet to television.

Saigant Technologies Inc. introduced Difron at the Digital Living Room conference in March in San Francisco, a gathering of entertainment, broadcast and telecommunications officials along with venture capitalists.

Difron attaches to a television set like a cable television box and is operated by remote control.

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Photo By Larry Rose

Toyin Dawodu, CEO of Saigant Technologies, talks about his Internet television project in his Grand Terrace office.

Instead of selecting stations from the local cable television provider, or the Dish Network or DirecTV, Difron can pull anything off the Internet and stream it to a television set, said Toyin Dawodu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Saigant Technologies, a software and technology company.

Difron makes it possible to watch any television station in the world live, said Dawodu, who founded Saigant Technologies in 2000 along with his fellow Nigerian Noah Awoniyi, the company's chief technology officer.

Moving content from the Internet to television has been possible for about five years, and a number of companies - specifically AT&T and Verizon -- are working overtime to get their versions of that technology into the market, Dawodu said.

"A lot of people are scrambling trying to make this happen, because the technology is getting more common," Dawodu said. "Getting Internet content on television is the wave of the future, and we're trying to make sure we get our share of that market. We're looking for our one or two percent."

Saigant Technologies, which began researching and developing Difron about two years ago, plans to begin selling its device during the fourth quarter of this year.

A box will sell for about $200, and subscribers will not pay a monthly fee. Advertising will be sold, and some events - movies that have just moved from theaters, for example - will be pay-per-view events.

Moving live programming from the Internet to television - regardless of how it's done - could spell the end of so-called "appointment television" and perhaps the even of cable television.

"With this technology you won't need cable television anymore," Dawodu said.

Dawodu and Awoniyi spoke with The Business Press recently about how they plan to market Difron.

Question: How was Difron received in San Francisco?

Dawodu: Pretty well. There were a lot of venture capitalists there. We weren't able to cut a deal, but there was a lot of interest. I think there was a wait-and-see attitude toward it by most of the people there. I think they want to see whether it can do what we say it can do.

Q: How is the cable television industry likely to be changed by this technology?

Dawodu: It could put the whole industry out of business, but I don't think that will happen. I'm sure cable television will fight back, and by now they're all trying to develop their own version of the technology. The question is whether their business model will allow them to be successful.

Q: Can Difron transmit regular Web sites from the Web?

Awoniyi: It can transmit anything, but we aren't going to do regular Web sites. There's no market for it. Somebody tried that and it didn't work. People buy their big-screen televisions for a reason, and it isn't so they could look at Web sites. Our focus is going to be on news and entertainment.

Dawodu: We're going to go after small niches to start with. There are thousands of people from India who would like to watch live television from India. We want to start with something like that and grow from there.

Q: A lot of old network programming is already on the Internet.

Dawodu: Yes, it is. And what we plan to do is ask the networks to let us tap into that. We wouldn't pay them for that. We would share any advertising revenue with them, or pay-per-view revenue.

Q: Why do you believe transmitting content from the Internet to television could be a boon for the traditional television networks?

Dawodu: Because the networks have old programs in their archives that are doing nothing. Now they'll be able to make money off of them. We can sell advertising or make something pay-per-view. And we know the demand is there.

Q: YouTube videos aren't very high quality. How would you address that issue?

Dawodu: We're working on a high-definition chip. We're also going to have a place for self-produced content, like YouTube and MySpace.

Q: Why do you believe your business model can compete with companies the size of AT&T and Verizon. Can't they access the Internet just like Saigant is planning to do?

Dawodu: They can, but their business model is to provide 200 channels. If they expand, by that time we'll have established a foothold.