PluggedIn: Digital media on TV, anywhere and anytime
Tuesday January 20, 1:58 pm ET
By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES, Jan 20 (Reuters) - It's as though every electronics company that knows anything about data and networking had the same idea: Build a box to connect the TV to a home network and pull digital audio and video off the PC.
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At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas recently, conventioneers could not turn a corner without seeing a device -- wired or wireless, with a hard drive or without, audio only or audio and video -- to transport digital music, photos and videos to the home entertainment center.
While the idea is not necessarily new, a combination of new and faster wireless technologies, lower costs for hard drives and other components and the growing popularity of digital media has combined to create a land rush in the category.
And those rushing in to grab a piece of what could be very lucrative territory acknowledge that the new technology is daunting and must be made as user-friendly as possible.
"We need to make this dirt-simple," Paul Otellini, the president of Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News), said at CES.
Analysts, who look at the technology world with an eye toward business, are also clear on the implications.
"Consumer use of ... digital media over the last few years continues to accelerate, creating enormous demand for ways to share, edit and archive the media," American Technology Research said in a CES summary. "We see a 'rendezvous with destiny' between the (consumer electronics) world and PC world to address this demand."
NEW PRODUCTS
TechTV, the cable technology channel beloved by digital geeks, voted Denon's upcoming NS-S100 server, which can feed audio, video and still photographs throughout the home, the "Best of Show," despite a price tag that may push $5,000 when it is released.
Home-networking company Linksys showed off a DVD player that also pulls content off a PC. Last year's CES darling Prismiq showed a new unit that records TV to a remote hard drive, and consumer electronics heavyweight Philips (Amsterdam:PHG.AS - News) showed off two wireless media receivers.
Virtually every electronics company at the show embraced the idea of what Microsoft called "seamless computing" -- data anywhere, anytime, on any device in the home.
But as seamless as the computing experience may be, the choice of what kind of device to buy will be anything but.
Some will opt to simply look at their pictures and listen to their music from their TV, in which case existing adapters like a $149 unit from Linksys will do. Others will want their server to incorporate DVD playback and will opt instead for models from Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW - News) or GoVideo.
Meanwhile, there will be those who opt for the Denon unit or similar devices that can archive existing content, record new content, and act as a server to distribute media throughout the home.
PC COMPANIES GET IN GAME
But it was not just traditional consumer electronics companies showing off these media receivers at the show. PC makers are pushing aggressively into consumer electronics as a new source of profits, and they have set their eyes on media receivers as a logical first step.
Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News) announced an "all-but-the-kitchen-sink" hub that will record and play live TV and store audio and video, while both Dell Inc. (NasdaqNM:DELL - News) and Gateway lined up to support new Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) technology to extend the multimedia Media Center PC to televisions in the home.
Meanwhile, Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) demonstrated a reference design for an "Entertainment PC" that will cost less than $800, be operated without the use of a keyboard and, in theory, replace every device in a traditional home entertainment center (other than the television, of course).
With prices for such devices plunging, both PC and electronics companies are banking on them being hot holiday gifts later this year.
"We believe that these multimedia networked boxes could be the next great wave to hit the home entertainment market," Pacific Growth Equities analyst Brian Alger said in a report. The convergence of these technologies in one simple-to-use device should enable the products to tap into a market beyond that of the early adopters."
