RSSCES Countdown #8: Can smart HDTVs bypass the 'media PC' altogether?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published December 31, 2008, 12:23 PM
If you don't own a media PC yet, do you actually want one? Now would be a good time for anyone who makes media PCs to step up to the plate and deliver an updated value proposition...Any volunteers?
It was supposed to be the breakthrough product of CES 2006: a personal computer platform designed for incorporation into the living room entertainment cabinet, that would serve as the centerpiece of a component-rich environment full of choice and diversity. It was an idea touted by both AMD and Intel, and backed up by Microsoft. And if you ask consumers directly, the media PC isn't all that bad an idea.
But it hasn't taken off. Indeed, if any technology has ended up underwhelming the public to a greater extent than, say, HD DVD, it's the Viiv and Live media PC platforms from Intel and AMD, respectively, and the Media Center software that's now part of Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. With regard specifically to Viiv, in which manufacturers and retailers had the highest hope and perhaps invested the most resources, the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro famously called it "a phenomenally ho-hum product."
So what's the matter here? What exactly should a knowledgeable consumer want from a fully digital media environment?
The true promise of digital media is not so much "immersion" -- the image marketers want to implant in your mind that resembles bathing up past your forehead in the soothing, bubbly warmth of pure entertainment -- but control. A smart consumer wants a reasonable degree of control over what she watches and listens to, on what device, and when. She wants portability and interoperability, and a schedule that conforms to her itinerary rather than her conforming to it. This is why consumers want DVRs today: for the promise of a greater degree of control over what they see and when, without sacrificing picture and sound quality.
And perhaps there lay the disconnect: The PC remains something that, in the minds of most general consumers, still seems to be outside of their control. Possibly no other consumer electronics brand has ever been less associated in the consumer's mind with the concept of control, than Vista.
"The media PC has failed to reach a mainstream audience thus far because the paradigm needs to revolve not around the PC, but around our television," says AR Communications Senior Vice President Carmi Levy, our frequent BetaNews analyst and contributor. "In the home, we use computers differently than we do our televisions. We expect our PCs to take minutes to boot, to crash on occasion, and to require care and feeding virtually every day of their lives. Our televisions, on the other hand, must turn on instantly, never fail, and never require any more technical capacity from the user than knowing where the remote control is hidden. Simply adding media-centric functions to basic PC architecture is insufficient, because at the core, it's still a PC."
What content producers, content providers, CE device manufacturers, and some PC makers alike want is essentially the same thing the consumer wants: a respectable degree of control over when, where, and on what the consumer renders her media. But as CES 2008 clearly demonstrated, every player with a stake in the outcome of digital media wants to be the principal, if not singular, resource upon which the entire media economy depends. In short, everyone wants to be the digital media channel.
And with the media center PC failing -- at least thus far -- in attaining that goal, the scrimmage for that unfulfilled role in the consumer's living room remains something of a jump ball. Last year, Comcast -- a company that's not a manufacturer in any respect whatsoever -- made the biggest splash at CES by publicly staking its claim to what CE makers and PC manufacturers perceive as the "grand prize:" on-demand access to a huge library of thousands of films through a subscription model, along with leases for the equipment with which viewers can control access to it.
This year, CE manufacturers are planning their comeback. A lot of attention will be paid to an emerging standard called Tru2way -- essentially an interface for on-demand delivery of programming through a unified component, perhaps a substitute for what currently passes for a set-top box (STB). That programming is to be delivered interactively through digital cable, using the foundation of the standard formerly known as OpenCable. Tru2way's most prominent champion today is Panasonic, which was first out the door last October with compatible Viera-brand HDTVs. Just last Monday, buyers in the Chicago and Denver regions were the first to see Tru2way on-demand content tailored exclusively for compatible HDTVs.
Also backing Tru2way are both Intel and AMD; along with technology providers Broadcom, TI, Motorola, and Cisco; and CE manufacturers LG, Samsung, Toshiba, and Sony. It's this latter brand that could make the biggest impact at CES 2009, since much of the promise of the Blu-ray HD disc format it still champions was its ability to connect to the Internet and deliver all kinds of interactive media, above and beyond what's on disc.
Next: Could Tru2way be the "one way" for interactive content?
FOLLOW THE COUNTDOWN:
- #13: Can automotive electronics maintain forward momentum? by Angela Gunn
- #12: Has streaming media already rendered discs obsolete? by Tim Conneally
- #11: Are the desktop PC's days waning? by Scott Fulton
- #10: Can technology keep television relevant in the digital era? by Tim Conneally
- #9: Will the smartphone become the 'new PC?' by Jacqueline Emigh
TV manufacturer's are still missing the "Killer App" for their HDTV products. Media PC's haven't taken off for one simple reason: We already spend enough time in front of our computers. We don't need or want another excuse or reason to spend even more time there. However, we do enjoy our time on the couch, in front of the TV immensely as that is where we go to RELAX. So, if TV manufacturers would just put a Wi-Fi antenna on their TV's and embed a nice (standard) web browser, or even multiple ones so customers could pick which one they wanted to use, and then bundle their TV's with a good quality wireless keyboard with an integrated touch pad, you would be amazed at how fast TV sales would take off.
People don't need to do much more than watch TV from their TV's, but they do need to be able to surf the web wirelessly from their couch using a wireless keyboard. The first company to really integrate this tightly, simply and cost effectively will be WAY out in front of the crowd and will see their sales absolutely explode overnight. These TV companies need to stop thinking about adding "features" and start thinking about creating "solutions".
Look at the way Panasonic integrates the SD card slot into all of their Plasma and LCD HDTV's for JPEG photo playback. A perfect example of what I am talking about here. A simple solution that adds real value and boosts the overall value proposition of the entire product line.
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|What are you talking about
Maybe it is your HDTV....
My Comcast HD always looks crisp!
even with a lot of action.....
52 inch sony HDTV with DVD-O
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|It is not my television, I have enough tech background to understand what compression artifacts are.
Comcast tech has even acknowledged that they are still "fine-tuning" in the area where I live.
And the issue is not something that I am overstating. Even my 67 year old father sees an issue next door on his 42" plasma.
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|A "smart HDTV".....IS.....a 'media PC'. What really gets me is that if we were to actually be honest about all this....EVERY computer is a 'media PC'.
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|Comcast's HD on Demand was fine. No moviephile is watching cable movies anyway - if you want crisp, perfect quality then you're going to buy Blu-Ray. HD is for the rest of us who just want to watch what we want to watch on our 60 inch LCD HDTVs, edge to edge. And movies on Comcasts HD aren't that horrible. While there ARE blocks when the movements are super fast, or the action gets really busy, it doesn't exactly have a lego effect. Maybe just a few squares in some places...
I don't think that shdtvs will really replace media center pcs, mainly because of the same reason that laptops can't just replace pcs. Media PCs have a deeper, richer feature list than the shdtv....you're not just talking about streaming content from hulu or netflix here. You're talking about being able to store music, downloaded movies (movies from blu-ray discs too), stream whatever from the internet, surf and view web pages, etc. Then you have the fact that you're keeping your components separated so that if an aspect of one fails, the other will function fine. Now I'm not talking about the media center pc that you use replacing your cable box, etc. I'm talking about a companion to all of that, like your dvd player is a companion to your cable/satellite, etc. A small, separate entity that is used to take your entertainment to the next level, digital and online.
The only way I can see smart hdtvs stamping out the media pc, is if tv makers included actual media pcs separately which worked somewhat independently of the tv OR if they were as close to failsafe as Tivos are, but offered everything the media pc could do for the price of a typical TV (that's never going to happen).
In essence, as long as there's some kind of market for media pcs, ie: people who want to basically run a low powered, highly functional PC attached to their TVs - that market will remain unless SHDTVs do more than stream content from the internet. Media PCs will pick up more when PC makers realize that there's no longer a real market for people looking to turn their actual mainstream PCs into DVRs or Media Centers (ie: sell them with a remote control and tv card, 2 dvd burners, etc.).
Market something small, like say, the EEE Box for example, with decent video, hdmi out, a big hard drive and a small universal remote/keyboard (like that small logitech keyboard) for an entertainment device price, something like 200 or 300 or so and voila...the 'media PC' will sell.
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|"Last year, Comcast -- a company that's not a manufacturer in any respect whatsoever -- made the biggest splash at CES by publicly staking its claim to what CE makers and PC manufacturers perceive as the "grand prize:" on-demand access to a huge library of thousands of films through a subscription model, along with leases for the equipment with which viewers can control access to it."
At compression rates that make your eyes bleed from pain...
On Demand fare such as Speed Racer offer high speed visuals that are comparable to seeing the image built out of Lego building blocks when the action becomes fast.
I love the idea of Comcast's "HD On Demand", I just hope that Comcast gets the image quality up to par with the concept. So far, where I live anyhow, watching action flicks via HD On Demand leaves much to be desired.
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