You know there’s going to be a showdown over some communications technology issue when Google, Best Buy, Mitsubishi, Sony, TiVo and two other big companies start a new group with the word “alliance” in it.

Sure enough, the septet has announced that they’ve united to defend the Federal Communications Commission’s new proposal for an “AllVid” standard that would make it easier for consumers to watch both pay television and the video they get from their home broadband network on the same screen.

Thus has been born the “AllVid Tech Company Alliance” — named in honor of the FCC’s suggested gateway interface.

“It is essential for the Commission to break down the wall separating the home network from [pay TV] networks — not just poke a few holes in it, or rely on progress on the peripheries,” the Alliance wrote to the FCC on Wednesday. “The seeds for real competition must emerge in chips, technologies, and interfaces that can be organic to tens of millions of products, services, and consumer uses — not just those presently conceived, but those that innovative minds, and users who can select and adapt their own devices, can conceive.”

How would AllVid break down this wall? FCC chairman Julius Genachowski described the gadget 10 months ago, indicating cable, satellite or telco video providers would send their signals to “a small adapter on the customer’s premises that would present a standard interface to all consumer devices.”

AllVid could be connected to TVs, computers — pretty much anything that can show multichannel video or internet fare. Thus internet and multichannel TV would be integrated.

The FCC is proposing this as a replacement for its failed CableCard device — the data and security card that was supposed to let consumers pick their own set-top box. Its limited capabilities made it a flop on the video device market.

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