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October 6, 2004A home needs a digital hubPosted 2165 days ago on October 6, 2004Charles says "I don't get it. Who's going to buy ... media PCs?. His argument is that PCs are too complex for TV functions, and that there's too much family competition already for the TV in the corner of the living room. But let's look at this another way. The media server concept is just obvious. Network the home (wireless in many cases), put all your music and video on one box and stream it out. You don't need to listen in the living room; listen anywhere. Video's more difficult because of bandwidth requirements, but the same logic applies. It's also obvious that this media server should be connected to the TV. Why? Because unless you have deep pockets, only the TV has a large enough screen to be watched from a distance. Plus it has to be connected to the Internet, so as not to be limited to standard TV broadcasting fare. Now that sounds like a media center PC to me - or one of several other solutions, on offer or coming from Sony, Apple, etc. Personally I like the flexibility of a PC-based solution rather than a closed-box Tivo; it also tends to work out cheaper. The challenge is to make the UI easy enough for ordinary people, but that's a problem of implementation, not the core concept. Note that it doesn't add to the problem of fighting to use the TV; it actually solves it. |
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Re: A home needs a digital hub
Posted 2164 days ago by Tim Anderson • • • ReplyOf course usability is key. I've not seen the updated media center PC so I don't know how good it is in this respect.
Yes I'm a geek; but look at the popularity of home PCs themselves. People like them for what they can do. If you can communicate what an internet-connected home media server/PVR can do, it's an easy sell.
Clarification on price: a PC-based system works out cheaper than trying to assemble the same level of features from one-function hardware devices. At least it did when I last looked - eg. Yamaha have a breathtakingly expensive music server system. However the PC system doesn't have to run Windows.
There's a place of course for all kinds of devices and pricing strategies (eg. cheap or free hardware with subscription costs etc.). The Media Center PC is one approach but time will tell what succeeds best.