PC, TV and set-top manufacturers jockey for position.

The room where the family once gathered to watch prime-time TV has evolved into a space where music is played, photos are admired and email messages are exchanged. Mom, Dad and the kids are enjoying a myriad of activities in the living room these days, and it shows by the number of electronic products that have come to reside comfortably alongside the TV. There might be a hard drive that records and plays back TV programs, another box that plays music CDs and a laptop computer plugged in somewhere for surfing the web.

As technology has progressed, homeowners have discovered that many of these entertainment features can be easily accessed through the Internet and managed by the family computer in the den or home office. Most PCs have large enough hard drives to hold a slew of digital photos, MP3 music files and even videos. Then, by adding special software and accessories to the PC and to the living room entertainment system, most of that content can be zipped off to the living room where it can be enjoyed by the entire family. It's a pretty sweet setup -- if you don't mind having to configure a network for your home. "Networking a PC to a TV is still an alien concept to most people," remarks Tim Alessi, director of product development for LG's Consumer Electronics Division. For this reason, a number of manufacturers have started developing stand alone hard disc servers as well as plug-and-play networking solutions aimed specifically at the digital living room.

The Display Guy's Solution

LG, among other well-known manufacturers of TV displays, is betting on the stand alone server model. As Alessi explains, a stand alone server can store all the content a PC can, but there's no streaming involved and no need to run back to the PC to cue the music or a slide show. The server connects directly to the TV, which ensures that recorded video looks great when it's played back -- something a network can't always promise to do.

Even manufacturers that have traditionally focused on PC products are delving into this new territory of living room–based content management. Hewlett-Packard, for example, has developed the Digital Entertainment Center (DEC), a capacious media server that can play DVDs and store music, photos, movies and TV programs. And that's just one of the many ways HP plans to add enjoyment to the living room. This year, the company will offer a line of smart TVs that can access content stored on a remote PC without any complicated hookup or configuration. The TVs will feature built-in networking components that will enable them to connect to any and all PCs in a home, as long as those PCs are already utilizing some type of wired or wireless network, explains HP director of product marketing Ameer Karim. The next evolution, Karim says, may be a TV that can download video content directly from the Internet by simply being plugged into a broadband connection. "Internet TV is a great up-and-coming technology. There's a ton of great video content available on the web, but right now you have to download it to a PC first." When Internet TV takes off, which Karim thinks might be this year, homeowners will be able to download a movie from an Internet site like www.movielink.com directly to their TVs.

The PC Guy's Solution

No matter how smart a TV becomes, it's unlikely that consumers will ever part with their beloved PCs. Intel is hoping America's computer obsession will help leverage its new Viiv (pronounced like "five") product into living rooms nationwide. PCs embedded with a Viiv chipset will ship with a remote control, the Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition operating system and media software to allow users to interact with the PC in the same way they operate a TV. For example, consumers will be able to watch a movie or play a game while also downloading music -- all from one integrated system. "Intel Viiv technology is our first platform designed from the ground up for the digital home," says Don MacDonald, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Home Group. "Consumers are passionate about the idea of accessing content anytime, anywhere in their homes on a number of devices." In addition to storing and playing entertainment content, Viiv PCs will be able to network with other entertainment devices, such as DVD players and stereo systems, so that the content can be enjoyed throughout the house. According to Bryan Peebler, marketing manager for Intel Viiv technology, Viiv PCs will be rolled out by a number of big-name PC manufacturers over the course of 2006 and will be available in a number of different sizes and shapes. Some may resemble DVD players designed to fit in with the entertainment gear in a living room while others might look more like traditional PC towers.

The Cable and Satellite Guys

If anyone's got a leg up on delivering content to the TV, it's the cable and satellite TV providers. "The advantage a cable or satellite set-top box has is that it's already hooked to the TV and probably has a hard drive and networking capabilities built in," notes David Grubb, vice president of Home Mobility Solutions at Motorola. "It's a product that's in the right place [the living room] and has the right technical capabilities." However, there's always room for improvement, and Motorola is leading the charge by developing a suite of digital set-tops and home media networking software that can spread all types of media throughout the house. Unlike LG, which envisions one box that holds everything, Motorola believes that families are more likely to store bits and pieces of media on different devices located in various rooms of the house. "We see several set-tops participating in a home entertainment ecosystem, as well as multiple home PCs," Grubb explains. A common scenario would be a family that stores digital photos on the PC in the den, downloads MP3s onto the PC in the kitchen, records sporting events on the DVR-enabled set-top box in the rec room, and stores cartoons on the DVR-enabled set-top box in the family room. No matter where the content is filed, it could be distributed to any entertainment system in the house. This seamless mobility of content would allow a family to start watching a movie in the family room and then go upstairs to their respective bedrooms to finish it.

Naturally, some form of networking technology must be used to distribute entertainment to different points throughout the house. But rather than requiring homeowners to fish wiring or configure wireless networking components, Motorola's new set-tops will dispatch the content over wiring that's already prevalent in homes. "We wanted to completely hide the fact that there's a networking system in the house," Grubb explains. Some of the set-tops will zip video, pictures and audio over existing coaxial cabling, while others will do so over a home's electrical wiring. "The simple act of plugging a set-top into either a coax wall jack or an electrical outlet creates the entertainment network," says Grubb.

On the satellite front, DirecTV is planning to roll out a similar system comprised of a main server and smaller receiver units at each TV. Like Motorola's plan, digital video recording capability would be built in, giving homeowners the ability to distribute movies, photos and music to multiple TVs in the house. This new home media center would also be able to store and distribute high-definition content, says Bob Marsocci, DirecTV vice president of communications. To make the media center even more appealing to DirecTV customers, the satellite provider hopes to offer a host of new content this year, including special interest–related programming that viewers can order and download into their DVRs. "For example, if you're a NASCAR fan, you could download to your DVR a half-hour-long behind-the-scenes segment of interviews with drivers and inside information about an upcoming race," Marsocci explains. An increasing amount of that content will be in high-def as DirecTV begins to utilize MPEG-4 technology to transmit its programming to subscribers. "MPEG-4 will allow us to place more high-definition content on our existing bandwidth," Marsocci confirms.

And the Winner Is?

There are many digital media systems aimed squarely at the living room, each promising to make the time you spend at home more enjoyable and convenient. Some manufacturers are creating servers that can hold every album, video and photo in your entertainment library, while others are focusing on ways to network PCs, TVs and other electronic components so that content can be seamlessly distributed to several areas of the house. With so many options available, it may not be one type of system that wins the race to the digital living room but more likely several different types of systems. After all, no two families are exactly alike. One family might like to keep all their media on one super-sized server while another family might opt to divide their content among multiple servers scattered throughout the house. There may be no clear winner or loser in this contest, but one thing is certain: You'll love what's in store for your digital media this year.

Related:
Home Electronics 2006: The Race for Space in Your Living Room
Home Electronics 2006: High-Def Developments
Home Electronics 2006: The iPod

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