Comments on: The digital home: Still a handyman's special?

Someday soon, it'll be easy to stream video to every room and every device. For now, it's still a labor of love.
Bringing wireless connections home

[jelloburn]

Not Really...

"More importantly, broadband adoption is creeping up: 35
percent of U.S. households have a high-speed Internet
connection, according to IDC. And by 2010, adoption is
expected to reach 60 percent. High-speed connections, of
course, are critical for distribution high-definition video around
a home."

All typos aside, this statement is just plain dumb. Before our
house had High-speed internet, I still had a 54G router hooked
up to a PC and a laptop with a wi-fi connection that shared files
and streamed music and videos all the time. What might be
more accurate would be to say, "a high-speed ethernet or
wireless network is necessary to stream high-definition video
around a home."

[Daniel L Smith]

Agreed. Internal network != Internet connection.

I was just going to say the same thing. High-speed Internet
adoption is slowed by the high cost -- you've got to pay a
significant premium each month for the service. "High speed"
home networks, on the other hand, just require a one-time cost
of networking hardware; in fact, they're practically the only kind
of home networks that exist -- nobody is going to use a modem
to talk to their living room TV!

Where high-speed Internet *does* matter is in Internet
distribution of the video content. If, as in a dial-up
environment, the only reasonable way to get video content is by
ripping DVDs or creating it yourself with a camcorder, most
consumers aren't going to think it's worth it.

[skeptik]

Exactly.

The writer of the article clearly doesn't get it. You don't need interent at all to stream video around the house.
And I suppose if a writer of an article about the problems preventing wide-scale adoption of home media networks can't or won't take the time to understand it, the probability of Joe Average understanding it is near hopeless for now.

I'd also add, that content pulled from the web - legal content - is hardly an incentive to network a home for media. There isn't much there, it isn't that compelling and it isn't going to play a huge role in people's viewing habits. Do you realy want to watch crappy YouTube video on your HDTV? I can barely stand it on my monitor.
What is going to drive it is the ability for consumers to rip their CDs and DVDs, and to share their downloaded purchased media. The convenience of ripping your new DVD before you put it away in the basement and steaming that stored rip whenever/wherever a particular member wants to view it... that's the elusive dream.

[Stan Timek]

Apple TV is a great step forward

Contrary to what Mr. Martin says, you can get content for the Apple TV from more locations than just Apple's iTunes store. From music to podcasts to video there are a number of sites serving consumer's desire for entertainment and information. My company is starting a service to provide HD video 'clips' to Apple TV owners in about a week or so. I say that we're providing clips because of the large file sizes of HD material. We decided to limit the initial offerings to 10 minutes and/or 500MB so viewers wouldn't have to download over night.

Since we started this endeavor we've also heard of other's providing similar services. For example, http://rouxbe.com/videorecipes/ offers as their URL suggests videos of recipes. (I worked for three seasons on a cooking show and their videos/recipes are very good.)

The site my company is starting is http://www.HD4AppleTV.com - we'll be offering productions by independent producers in the 720p, 24fps format Apple supports presently. Check it out when you get the chance!

Stan Timek
Pollywog Theater, LLC

[paulsecic]

hd

I don't want HD, too much. I'm paying $77 a month.

[DrtyDogg]

Giant leap. . .

If you want a giant leap beyond Apple TV try a Media Center PC. There's tons of content available for it, anything available on the web; even iTunes content. As well as your digital or analog cable. Been available since 2001 too.

[KingBuzzo666]

Phhhhpht...

Just like Cnet not to acknoledge Media Center or Xbox which have all the functionality built-in.

Nice...

[jimbob5]

yes

Media Center has been doing this for a while. It can record/stream your cable or satellite TV from a central pc to multiple TVs throughout the house over a home network. There are free plugins that allow you to watch YouTube, plugins that allow you watch to watch any video blog, plugins (like Movielink, Cinemanow, etc.) where you can download movies, and there is a large online community with all sorts of apps and help. You can even download TV shows via the xbox live service. Plus streaming your music, video, and picture collection stored on your pc all from a beautiful interface.

This article mentioned all the things that Media Center can do (and arguably better than anything else out there right now), yet without mentioning it.

[brendlerjg]

Talk about the forest, not the trees.

Yes, there are pieces missing. But pieces of what? What is the digital home?

This article bumbles through one tiny facet of it -- the delivery of multimedia content to the Television from an internet-connected computer in another room. That's a pretty narrow definition of "digital home".

What about automation (X10 and what-not)? What about home security? What about telephony? What about automotive computing? What about distributed classrooms? What about health, fitness, and dietary applications? What about digital kitchens and pantries? What about innovative ideas by the author (here's one for you -- a digital wireless "neighborhood watch" program linking multiple home security systems)?

What this article fails to explore is whether there is a compelling value proposition for a "digital home". I say that, despite all the "what about"s above, there is not; not today anyway. Therefore, such applications are indeed still the realm of the handyman.

However, there IS a compelling value proposition for an internet-connected home entertainment center -- a living room PC. Regardless of the available of streaming multimedia content (or lack thereof), individuals are creating more and more content of their own. It is true that TV content search, scheduling, and recording is available from your cable provider or third parties (e.g. Tivo). However, it's also available for free -- currently, for handymen/women.

The article draws one or two useful conclusions, but largely failed to explore the subject promised by its title.