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Tech Firms Aim to Link the PC, Stereo


The Dallas Morning News Doug Bedell 01/16/2003

It is, perhaps, the ultimate modern-day convergence conundrum: How can music stored on the household computer be delivered to the living room stereo?
The answer lies somewhere in a swirl of development activity within the consumer electronics industry. This year, manufacturers are producing an ever-expanding set of devices and connections, each finding its own niche with audiophiles.

From clumsy, $40 cables to $1,000 wireless set-top jukeboxes, the choices are as wide as the chasm between PC and stereo.

"Now that consumers have built huge collections of songs on their computers, the ability to use their personal music libraries away from the computer becomes essential," said Carl Holec, analyst for the ARS research service.

"Today's market has certainly not determined what the best price/feature combination is, which is why the current market includes such a broad gamut of solutions," Holec said.

For many, the best are too pricey and too kludgy.

"There's a lot of complicated hardware that is being rolled out," said Jeff Tribble, CEO of the Deep Ellum, Texas-based Streamwaves Internet subscription music service. "Many of the available systems have just been over-engineered when it's really pretty simple stuff."

In a survey conducted last year by eBrain, a service of the Consumer Electronics Association, more than half of the surveyed 1,067 Internet-connected homeowners said they were interested in creating a network for distributing audio and video throughout the house. For ages 18 to 34, this interest jumped to 65 percent.

As manufacturers wrestle with standards and new-fangled set-top entertainment options, home users can create links between their PC and their current entertainment centers using both wired and wireless solutions already on the market.

The thought of stringing wire throughout the house is sometimes daunting, especially if the PC is far from the entertainment center. However, most electronics stores now sell long lengths of standard audio cable designed for transferring sound from the PC sound card to stereo inputs.

The $40 MP3 Jukebox Starter Kit from Monster Cable (www.monstercable.com) contains a 20-foot audio cable plus a copy of MusicMatch Juke Box, which can be used to organize playlists and sort though PC-based music collections.

But sound can deteriorate over long cable lengths, so several manufacturers are now producing wired appliances that convert the PC's digital signals to analog stereo after they arrive at the entertainment center.

These $150 wired alternatives include the Harman/Kardon EzLink (www.harmankardon.com) and the Stereo-Link Model 1200 (www.stereo-link.com). Both are palm-sized boxes that hook into the PC via USB port.

For transferring PC music wirelessly, several manufacturers make small transmitter-receiver units that can beam either audio or video through walls with some dexterity.

Although many of these units advertise effective ranges of 100 feet or more, performance can degrade over long distances. Because they operate on the same radio frequencies as some microwave ovens and cordless phones, interference can be a problem. Noise from other household devices can be almost impossible to eliminate from the stereo feed, even when there are multiple channels available on the radio units.

However, many high-end video and audio buffs have found products like the Wavecom Senior, Leapfrog WaveMaster 20 by Terk and Kima KS-110 Wireless Audio System to be delightful alternatives to hard-wiring their homes. Most sell for $200 or less.

The big problem with all these lower-cost gizmos is that they rely on the home computer for navigation through the music stored on hard drives. The listening experience may be in the living room, but all the action is still on the PC.

Enter a second tier of music player - the wired Ethernet contraption with remote control. At about $250, this breed includes the SliMP3 ("Slim-Pea-Three") from Slim Devices (www.slimdevices.com). This midpriced gadget is a decided advance over its lower-priced competitors.

First, its fluorescent display can be controlled with a remote from the living room. Users can toggle through selections stored on their PCs, even choosing playlists they've compiled on their hard drives.

Second, the Ethernet configuration allows the home computer to be used for other tasks.

And, last, the SliMP3 can be connected wirelessly with the addition of a wireless Ethernet bridge, like the Linksys WET 11 ($115.)

At the high end of the spectrum are digital set-top jukeboxes like the $1,000 HP Digital Entertainment Center de100c. These sleek set-top boxes offer hard drive storage of their own, rather than using the PC as a base for launching music. The de100c's 40GB hard drive can hold more than 750 CDs, which can be navigated via remote either on the unit's display or through a television menu. The HP product also can rip CDs to MP3 and off-load tracks to some portable digital music devices like the Rio 500.

Although they can be connected using a wireless Ethernet bridge, most jukeboxes in this range are still hard-wired to computer hubs for any interaction.

Thankfully, a more affordable segment of set-top music box is now emerging. It is represented by the Motorola Simplefi, a $379 player that smartly bridges the PC-to-stereo gap with a hybrid technology. Using RF wireless signals, the Simplefi connects to any PC within 100 feet. Music is still played from the PC, streamed across the wireless connection. But navigating through songs is done with a unique 12-button remote control.

Industry analysts predict the coming months will produce even more products to mine the PC's music treasure trove. Clearly, they say, an entire generation is addicted to the MP3 and other digital music formats.

"Overall," said Tribble of Streamwaves, "I think you'll see a wide consolidation of equipment with the entertainment center. Wireless, tuners, amplifiers and Internet connections are all going to come together in smaller and smaller units."
http://www.technologyreview.com/offthewire/3001_1612003_2.asp
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