Intel's Linux Based Home Media Gateway

An anonymous reader writes "This article at LinuxDevices.com takes a look at a new 'home media gateway' design that was unveiled today by Intel at the Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, CA. The device is expected to be manufactured by multiple consumer electronics manufacturers in Asia, and will enable the distribution of PC digital media to TVs and stereos throughout the home. The gadget is based on one of Intel's new XScale processors running a customized version of Linux, provides support for JPEG, MP3, and WMA digital content, utilizes 802.11b wireless networking, and supports NTSC/PAL/S-video TV connections and AC-97 stereo connection. The home media adapter is a key component of Intel's 'Extended Wireless PC Initiative', which is part of Intel's greater Digital Home initiative."

Comments

How many of these are out there?

[KelsoLundeen]

I bet this one will be as popular as Indrema.

Whatever happened to Indrema, BTW? I know they closed and went out of business, but for some reason I thought they'd written a bunch of code and given it out under GPL after they went under...

Any notice

[interstellar_donkey]

On their little diagram showing photos of individual components, that the TV in the 'living room' appears to be displaying an MS blue screen?

That gave me a chuckle.

BOM costs = $79, retail $150?

[Marx_Mrvelous]

The article gives the cost of one of these (material costs) at about $80. So, retail would they go for about $150?

Looking at the back, they only really have one set of AV/ out cables. Kind of disappointing, it would have been nice to make this device more like a receiver.

Re:BOM costs = $79, retail $150?

[Soko]

The article gives the cost of one of these (material costs) at about $80. So, retail would they go for about $150?

A 100% markup on material costs is not uncommon. But, don't forget labour, management, facilities, profit, etc., etc. have to be covered by the price as well. $150 would be optimistic, IMHO. Try $250

Soko

Media Box Wars

[JayDiggity]

So here's what we have so far:

Sony's new PS3 may have some digital media capabilities, but no one's quite sure. But it would seem to make sense considering that there are rumors all over that the MS XBox 2 is going to serve as a hub for digital family entertainment. Course, that's running the XBox OS (or Linux depending on the hack). And now Intel is coming out with something that's running Linux? Intel and Microsoft are usually in bed together, and suddenly they're releasing competing products and Intel's is even running Linux? People are fleeing Microsoft in droves... maybe their tactics are coming around to bite them in the butt? At first it was "Game Console Wars," and now it's "Digital Media Center Wars." Let's sit back and watch.

Re:Media Box Wars

[SirSlud]

The computer is (and will always be IMHO) the center. It plays the stuff. It stores it. It sends it out to the 'terminals' (the TV/Receiver in this case) which can display it.

My question is, why doesn't the computer provide the GUI and hand off the screen caps to this Intel Device? Seems to me that way, if you have multiple hubs like this in your house, say one for the living room, one for the rec room, you dont have to replicate or use another GUI to access the content?

It seems to me that the dumber and thinner you make these supposed 'hubs', the more centralized your functionality is on your computer, and the better off the technology is. Plus, things like playlists, etc dont become specific to a particular wireless hub, as I'm prone to think it would be in the case of the device in the article. I'm also working on the assumption that adoption goes up when people dont have to learn how to use that new technology.

The computer should do everything - thats what it was built to do! These room-specific hubs should basically be wireless dump terminals that just show X-like or Remote Terminal Services-type sessions from your 'digital media' software running on your computer.

Re:Media Box Wars

[4of12]

And now Intel is coming out with something that's running Linux? Intel and Microsoft are usually in bed together, and suddenly they're releasing competing products and Intel's is even running Linux?

In this case the key ingredient is that AFAIK, Winodws doesn't run on XScale.

The lower power requirements of an non x86 design are a sufficiently compelling argument for set top boxes that Intel can plausibly make this argument to MS, though I'm sure there's been overtures that perhaps WinCE might work.

You can be assured that if there not enough arguments against using Microsoft's products, that Intel's biggest co-gorilla would have them using Windows or have them on the carpet explaining in great detail why not.

Re:Media Box Wars

[shren]

I don't see this as being a big deal to them. It runs linux. So? It's not like the average user is going to know it runs linux. It takes stuff from the computer and sends it to your home entertainment center. As far as they are concerned it's an appliance like the stereo tuner - it could be running off of the chained souls of demons and they wouldn't give a shit as long as it does what it's supposed to when you plug it in.

Re:Media Box Wars

[Grishnakh]

But you're forgetting the license fees. By using Linux instead of WinCE, they're depriving MS of a license fee for each box, and MS won't be happy about that.

Re:Media Box Wars

[decefett]

I prefer to think of it as by forgetting the licence fee they are able to provide a better product for less money.

Re:Media Box Wars

[Grishnakh]

You might think that, but Microsoft certainly doesn't, and to Intel, Microsoft's opinion is what matters.

When Microsoft says "jump", Intel asks "how high?"

I think the best part

[PhysicsGenius]

is the WEP-enabled 802.3 compatibility layer that will optimize the window polarization diffusion. OTOH, you really have to love the 25 micron fabrication process for the sub-floor insulating layer as well as the silicon-eroded conduction density valences. I was talking with the kids and they feel that the biased temperature inversion lattices and Java insertion sorts embedded in the bathroom towels are going to rock.

My wife said to stop being stupid and use my money to buy food for homeless people, but that seems like a waste to me. Any thoughts?

Re:I think the best part

[deblau]

My wife said to stop being stupid and use my money to buy food for homeless people, but that seems like a waste to me. Any thoughts?

Yeah, it is a waste. If you are going to give them money, at least have them wash your car or shine your shoes or something. Giving away unearned money is a sin.

Xscale MMX

[brejc8]

I wonder if intel will stick their finger out and put some optimisations into gcc or linux for their MMX extentions.

Re:Xscale MMX

[blakespot]

The "Multimedia extensions" on the XScale come in two forms

MMX does not stand for "multimedia extensions", it stands for "matrix math extensions."

blakespot

Re:Xscale MMX

[Grishnakh]

I wonder if intel will stick their finger out and put some optimisations into gcc or linux for their MMX extentions.

Hell no, they won't. Have they ever contributed optimizations for gcc? They already have their own compiler, icc, which they'd rather everyone purchase. Why would they help out the competition?

Re:Xscale MMX

[Wesley Felter]

Does Intel make an ARM compiler? I've never heard of it.

Re:Xscale MMX

[brejc8]

A tad aggresive? It is still difficult to find what the timings of these and sequencing gives best results without knowing the structure of the pipeline.

802.11b 2.4 GHz Spectrum

[Ho Kooshy Fly]

Wow, talk about using you're 802.11b spectrum. Imagine having at home the following devices (assuming they detected the correct clear band!): 1. Intel's new fangled wireless media gateway on channel 1. 2. Your access point on channel 3 with your other PC's. 3. Your wireless home alarm system on channel 5, burgulars love this one! :) 4. Your cordless phone around channel 7. 5. Your wireless headphones on channel 9. 6. Your X-10 video camera blowing away channel 11! Sounds crowded, then again who will have so many wireless gadgets at the same time? Oh wait I do! (channels spaced according to 802.11b standard 20MHz+guard band) Ho

Re: 802.11b 2.4 GHz Spectrum

[Wesley Felter]

The new fangled wireless media gateway needs to be on the same channel as your access point, so it can talk to your PC.

OT: 1U MP3/Internet Radio Streamer?

[LinuxHam]

Does anyone still make a 1U MP3 or Internet Radio Streamer? What about that tiny MP3 streamer that was the size of a nameplate? Is that still in production?

It's a start, but...

[renehollan]

It does not look like it supports H/W MPEG2 decoding (stream DVDs from the home server, yum!), nor have component video or DVI output.

Also, wired ethernet would be nice -- if I'm streaming unencrypted DVDs from my server to my TV I want to play nice with the ??AAs (At least to that degree) and not broadcast them to my neighbor.

Still, not a bad start: add a Sigma Designs em8470 H/W MGEG 2/4 decoder, and component or DVI video output, and it starts to look useful.

Re:It's a start, but...

[stratjakt]

it's a reference design, not a consumer level product. Manufacturers will base their products on this design, and no doubt include some of the stuff you mentioned, if necessary.

Btw, that does look like an ethernet jack in the back of the box, which as it seems, is clearly marked DELL, not Intel.

whats the real feature?

[stratjakt]

"Intel anticipates that PC vendors will bundle the media adapters with multimedia PCs in order to allow consumers to deliver music and video to their entertainment centers from their PCs."

Ok, aside from it not using the PCs CPU horsepower, how is this altogether different from a really long set of A/V cables? (or a 900mhz broadcaster?)

Oh yeah, DRM.. Silly me. Asked and answered.

Of course this is automagically wonderful because they used linux to save time during development.

Re:whats the real feature?

[NetJunkie]

You can sit on your couch and run it via remote control, with a good interface. That's the reason I bought a Rio Reciever.

Sure, you can rig up a PC to do all that, but I bet it costs more and doesn't work as well as this. The price point is a deal. My Rio Reciever was about twice that much.

Re:whats the real feature?

[mblase]

Ok, aside from it not using the PCs CPU horsepower, how is this altogether different from a really long set of A/V cables? (or a 900mhz broadcaster?)

Two things: you don't need to worry about installing a TV-output card on your computer, and you don't need to figure out how to run the cables from your second-floor office to your first-floor living room.

Not everybody's a geek with a studio apartment, you know. Some of us actually like to pay a few bucks have things neat, tidy and simplified.

Re:whats the real feature?

[SirSlud]

The only thing they got wrong is that its GUI should be thin .. the GUI should be on the computer. I always thought it was funny that these devices are called 'hubs', when really the hub is the computer. These things are just thin clients to access the content on the computer.

In that respect, centralize, centralize, centralize! These things should just host GUI-output from your computer, and accept commands from the remote and hand them back to your machine. I'm not sure why they'd put a device-specific gui on it when the computer might as well provide that in the case where you have 2 or 3 of these things around the house and you'd rather have a consitant interface and consistant playlists/settings/etc.

Re:whats the real feature?

[KelsoLundeen]

Yeah, but you know you've got the mojo crackerjack when you're a geek in a studio apartment -- and you have a a Murphy bed.

That said, I have to wonder if Bill Gates (for once) was right when he suggested several years ago that "media convergence" isn't really a thing that people want. People want to compute on computers, watch TV on a television, and watch movies in a movie theater. Converging the three into the single PC -- or the PC breakout box hooked up to a PC -- is nifty and very George Jetson-like (and who can forget his boy Elroy spiralling down from the old man's hoverbug in a mini-hoverbug of his very own?) -- but it seems that technology (in this case and others [palladium and MS's MediaPC's especially) is thinking too far ahead for its own good.

Watching TV on a computer is (for me, at least) much like reading e-books on a palm or an Ipaq or on the computer screen in a library -- it gets the job done, yes, but it's not very enjoyable. (I'm trying to figure out why the only ebooks I'm able read at any length are non-fiction. I can't, for example, bring myself to read fiction electronically. It seems, well, not right. And not comfortable. Yet I can sit on my little ragged sofa -- feet up, trusty Bawls soda beside me -- and can read deadtree fiction until the cows come home. But that's another story for another day ...)

Re:whats the real feature?

[stratjakt]

I wonder if anyone can respond to a question/comment they disagree with without insults.

I'm not a 'geek' with a studio apartment, I have a 3000 sq foot 3 level home. Not that it matters.

"you don't need to worry about installing a TV-output card on your computer"

No, you just need to worry about installing 802.3 hardware. Being as the end-user is too technically challenged to install a video card, expect to see lots of insecure WAPs for the sake of looking at 'net porn in the living room.

"and you don't need to figure out how to run the cables from your second-floor office to your first-floor living room."

http://www.x10.com/products/x10_vk53a.htm
http: //www.x10.com/products/x10_ak11a.htm

(IIRC, they're the same thing, just different software bundles)

So I reiterate, what's the feature? Oh yeah, DRM, and maybe a prettier box.

Re:whats the real feature?

[sunking2]

For the record, these things actually work pretty well. I use it 2 fold

To watch divx movies from my linux machine that is downstairs in a closet to any tv in the house

Allows me to get rid of all the kludgy vcrs that I used to have attached to each tv. Having a child who has more vcr movies than dvds this is a great thing.

Re:whats the real feature?

[inkfox]

"Intel anticipates that PC vendors will bundle the media adapters with multimedia PCs in order to allow consumers to deliver music and video to their entertainment centers from their PCs."

Ok, aside from it not using the PCs CPU horsepower, how is this altogether different from a really long set of A/V cables? (or a 900mhz broadcaster?)

It's more like having two devices which can use DVDs off the same shelf. The key thing here is that multiple people can use it at the same time, and you've got local control in both places.

Still, the DRM's as much of a bitch as ever.

Re:whats the real feature?

[swillden]

I'm trying to figure out why the only ebooks I'm able read at any length are non-fiction. I can't, for example, bring myself to read fiction electronically. It seems, well, not right. And not comfortable.

Try it with an e-Book reader designed for the purpose, rather than a computer or PDA.

I like my e-Book *better* than dead trees; more comfortable, more portable (I carry a dozen novels with me at all times), more resistant to damage (when enclosed in a ziploc baggy), never loses my place, is visible in the dark, doesn't require two hands, etc., etc., etc.

Re:Big deal, I already have one of these.

[KUHurdler]

You'd better copyright this "network" before someone steals your idea.

hmmm....

[edrugtrader]

"home media gateway" gets translated in my head as "RIAA funded home media rights management filter"

might want to check the source before you turn it on...

Re:DRM: Where art thou?

[mblase]

I'm sure you'll be able to use your *own* music and media as you see fit. That's not what DRM will be about, though. It'll be about downloading video and music over the Internet and not being able to record or redistribute it.

Now think about that for a second, and you'll see what Intel clearly has in mind for this thing. Sure, it'd be cool to play your MP3 collection on your home stereo using this device. (I think Intel would be idiots to not include in this box some sort of MP3 jukebox browser controllable from your television.) But that's not what this will be intended for -- it's for downloading video over the Internet and playing it on your television.

Right now, that's a bit of a pipe dream. Televisions aren't connected to the Internet without a lot of customization, and computer screen are either too small or too poorly placed to be useful for viewing. Plus you have to set everything up with a mouse instead of a remote control. This box could (emphasis on "could") solve all that, by letting you download video on your computer and have this remote-controlled box pick it up for your television, all automatically and wirelessly, so your computer doesn't even need to be in the same room of your house.

Don't worry about DRM affecting your ability to play your own media; in this case, at least, it'll only affect your ability to play somebody else's media which you downloaded, with the understanding that it's not yours to keep.

WMA on Linux?

[namespan]

The interesting surprise for me is the idea of WMA-enabled applications running under Linux. Is this a first?

Re:WMA on Linux?

[stratjakt]

I dont think linux does anything more than dumbly copy data from one black box to the next.. Ie; from the 802.3 to the decoder.

It's a referee, not a player. Or its a coach. Or something. Real world analogies stink.

Re:WMA on Linux?

[David F.]

Is this a first?

Nope, the Empeg and Rio Receiver (which both run Linux) can play WMA files.

Re:WMA on Linux?

[Nailer]

Microsoft has had Windows Media on Linux for a few years now - I forget the name of the company, but another company had a real, MS written Windows Media *server* for embedded Linux a couple of years ago.

And MPlayer (and I think Xine) has played WMA for around a year now.

Re:WMA on Linux?

[Cryptnotic]

The Phatnoise Car Audio System and Kenwood Music Keg both run Linux (on an ARM processor) and support WMA audio. While the Linux kernel is open source, the WMA player is not.

Teasing rat b*st*rds.

[victim]

All that talk about video had me thinking it could transfer video. :-( Looks like audio only, the video is for navigation menus.

Note to marketing weasels: Don't be using the generic term "media" when the more specific "audio" will suffice.

But, please let me know when it supports mpeg streams to video and zeroconf, aka, rezendezvouss (plus a bunch more french letters, look, if you aren't going to pronounce them I don't see why I should be bothered to remember where they go in the word)

Ideally it should have a tuner and an mpeg encoder, but thats going to rack up the cost. Note I didn't say it needed a disk drive. My computers can take care of that.

Re:Teasing rat b*st*rds.

[victim]

I believe sort of VHS quality Tivo mode is about 6mbps which should fit nicely even in todays 11mbps wireless. (I get about 10mbps wireless from my access point upstairs to my tv room downstairs.)

Sure, higher quality video would be nice. High quality material to record would be nice too. :-)

Re:$79.00

[Enry]

That's the BOM (Bill of Materials) cost. That is, the parts. Not including packaging, profit, making back the engineering $, sales, support, and the cost to actually make the thing.

Expect it to be in the $150-$200 range. Still sounds like a good price for what it provides.

SCART

[EnglishTim]

I hope they put in a SCART cable at the back in any European versions they do. I'd hate to be stuck with just composite video when I could have crystal clear RGB...

DRM issues - Research before posting, please!

[BenEnglishAtHome]

From the FAQ at the Intel developer's site for this thing:

How will audio, imaging and video content be protected using the digital media adapter?

Protection of digital media content is a concern of Intel and many other industry leaders. Although several viable solutions exist today, a singe standard has yet to emerge that will satisfy the needs of all content owners. Intel is actively working with the Copy Protection Technical Working Group and other industry bodies to get comercial content protected when it is created. In the interim, Intel believes that the first phase of Digital Home will focus on personal content.

Emphasis added.

In other words, they're hedging their bets by going to market with a product/product spec/development framework that might not be all that the content providers want while still saying they're a bunch of cooperative guys.

How should we read this? How about - "Buy it when it comes out, because as soon as the CPTWG people get their act together, the next generation will be crippled"?

Re:Looks Cool

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I bet it will cost a bundle.

Had you read the article, you'd know that it's actually projected to be quite affordable:

When can I get one? . . . and for how much?

Intel expects consumer versions of the digital media adapter to begin showing up during 2003.

Based on an estimated total bill-of-materials (BOM) cost in the neighborhood of $79, Intel anticipates that PC vendors will bundle the media adapters with multimedia PCs in order to allow consumers to deliver music and video to their entertainment centers from their PCs

Ooops - S-Video

[EnglishTim]

Whoops - I missed the S-Video out on the first look..

Well, that'd be better than nothing I suppose.

Re:Ooops - S-Video

[brer_rabbit]

I noticed that too, S-Video should be sufficient. I didn't see a optical audio jack though. Digital audio would be a nice addition. The soundcard and A/D converters in the typical computer are pretty crappy.

blue screen

[wiredog]

Several years ago at Comdex one of the casinos (MGM Grand?) had their outside display blue screen on them. It was the talk of the show. Well, that and the new digital LCD screens.

Come to think of it, digital LCD screens were the last new consumer item that everyone at Comdex was talking about.

Seems to be a mistake

[doublem]

If it's from Intel, why does the photo have a Dell logo on it?

why this idea misses the mark

[jjtime4sko]

Here's what the customer experience has to be to make something like this OK for the mass market:

1. Turn on.
2. Select media.
3. Push play.

What this idea would look like:
1. Turn on "media adapter"
2. Walk across the house to where the computer is.
3. Boot computer. Wait 5 minutes for boot.
4. Walk back to living room.
5. Find remote for media adapter.
6. Browse through dozens of menus and file systems to locate content.
7. Computer crashes. Repeat steps 2-6.
8. Push play.
9. Wait for content to buffer.
10. Little Johnny decides to play his new networked game.
11. Repeat steps 9-10 until (A) Johnny doesn't get to play any more or (B) you give up.
12. Turn off media adapter.
13. Shut down computer.
14. Go to bed.

I'll wait for the Apple version, thank you.

Re:why this idea misses the mark

[renehollan]

Here's what the customer experience has to be to make something like this OK for the mass market:

1. Turn on.

Get universal remote for TV/STB and turn both on and select the STB as TV input. Maybe turn on A/V [5|6|7].1 A/V receiver too. Perhaps user has a fancy remote with macros to do this with one button.

2. Select media.

Browse for media like one would a channel guide, with a web-like interface on the TV, perhaps.

3. Push play.

Click on desired program.

What this idea would look like:

1. Turn on "media adapter"

O.K., we've done that.

2. Walk across the house to where the computer is.

Whatever for?

3. Boot computer. Wait 5 minutes for boot.

Why? The home media server should be burried away somewhere, in a closet, or basement, or utility room, or something -- always on. It's prolly sinking your email and scraping TV channel lineups as well.

4. Walk back to living room.

Not necessary. See 3 above.

5. Find remote for media adapter.

If ya dinna hafta go nowhere, how could you have lost the darned thing? O.K. O.K. TVs should have a button that makes the remote go "beep".

6. Browse through dozens of menus and file systems to locate content

Er, kinda like a satellite channel menu? Maybe better organized. Maybe we can have several "favorites" buttons on the remote, you know, "B" for Britney Spears video, and "J" for Jenna Jamison pr()n. [Note to self: remember to implement mod_parental for Apache]. Seriously, though, I can imagine third-party installable sites and skins for organizing stuff like this on the web server sitting inside the media server.

7. Computer crashes. Repeat steps 2-6.

What part of "Thou shalt not run a Microsoft O/S" didn't you get in hacker-wannabe school?

8. Push play.

Heck, by this time the geek is already groping around for something to clean his mess up with, having pushed the "J" favorites button.

9. Wait for content to buffer.

Repeat after me: s-t-r-e-a-m-i-n-g---v-i-d-e-o, not to mention the nice, fact, predictible 100 Mb/s switched ethernet ya got. 802.11b would leave old Jenna'Ho as jerky as..., well never mind. Besides, you really don't want all the local geeky teens in your front yard, with their laptops, drooling, or worse.

10. Little Johnny decides to play his new networked game.

I said SWITCHED ethernet! Pay attention. Besides, Johnny has his OWN gaming machine (such is the price to pay to keep him off the pr()n server).

11. Repeat steps 9-10 until (A) Johnny doesn't get to play any more or (B) you give up.

Heh, if you can "repeat" enuf times, you can trade the J-button for the real thing.

12. Turn off media adapter.

I suppose, if you must.

13. Shut down computer.

Look, if you're that cheap when it comes to electricity, perhaps you need to look at other priorities besides uber-hacker-coolness.

14. Go to bed.

Nah! Just slam another Dew, dude! I'll wait for the Apple version, thank you.

Xscale - how better than SA-1100?

[blakespot]

How is the Xscale an improvement to the StrongArm SA-1100?? Is there a comparison? Thanks.

blakespot

Antennas are decorative

[zenyu]

Did anyone else notice that the antenna's are not connected to anything. And, that they look like the Linksys antennas, while the Wi-Fi card looks like one of those crappy PRISM2 cards?

It looks more like a mockup than a reference design. Some video of it working might have made it more convincing, or source code... though I guess under the GPL they can just distribute that to their licencees. (Who really don't have a compeling interest to redistribute unless say the FSF buys a kit.)

Well its sad really.

[miffo.swe]

Intel has pushed numerus innovations out the door before and only to be forced to take them off the market by Microsoft. This gadget will collide with microsofts dream of being in everybodys home. It will dissapear soon believe me. The biggest thing Microsoft destroyed from Intel was their effort on building an platform ontop of their processors that would enable crossplatform applications between all sorts of processors. Like JAVA but on hardware level and thus extremely faster. MS stopped it cold by threeting to not support intel in windows.

Think of the hardware we could have had if Intel had been able to drop x86 10 years ago?

".. will satisfy the needs of all content owners."

[dpilot]

I'm sure glad to know that we "content consumers" are being considered in this standardization process.

I need to write to "my" folks in DC about this. I keep meaning to do so, and never have time. As far as I'm concerned, the ??AA can go ahead and push all the DRM and content protection encumbrance into their delivery systems that they want, with only ONE condition:

Full capability for recording/editing/playing unprotected media must NEVER be removed.

As long as this capability is retained, I wish them luck, and hope they impose ever-more-onerous constraints on their content. They're digging their own graves by treating artists like dirt and viewing/listening like taxable criminal activities. Nor do I particularly care if there are legal consequences legislated for removing watermarks, etc.

IMHO removal of recording/editing/playing of unprotected media is and should be protected under the First Ammendment. When digital media distribution becomes the norm, gatekeepers like the ??AA gain unconstitutional power if capabilities for unprotected media are removed. Aside from this, unencumbered capabilities permit the genesis of a 'replacement media business model.'

it'd better be a customized version

[__aahlyu4518]

Because up til now... playing videofiles just plain sucked... Slow as hell. Ok, I don't have the latest hardware at my home, but that's not the problem. If I play a video file on the same hardware on whatever linux distro or Windows 98SE, MS ALWAYS wins in performance AND quality.
And yes, next time i'll read the article before I start flaming.

Re:Media Box Wars and maybe no DRM

[Grishnakh]

Since Intel is releasing this on their own and it is running Linux instead of some flavor of Win, might this be a sign that Intel is not strongly in favor of DRM hardware. Otherwise why would there be this apparent split?

It's just a case of a difference of opinion within a huge company. Intel really is strongly in favor of DRM hardware; that's why they spearheaded the TCPA. Intel sees that it's not going to be able to expand the market for processors in the US because most people who want computers already have them, they already have by far the most marketshare, and their sales are now mostly from people upgrading, which probably isn't as often as they'd like since a 4GHz Pentium 4 really isn't any more useful for word processing and email than an 800MHz P3 from two years ago. So they want to expand the market by making the PC a media hub for downloading and watching pay-per-view content. Of course, just like digital satellite, cable PPV, etc., this requires strong hardware controls to prevent easy copying, so that's what they're trying to push.

Intel is really into this "convergence" thing, and they see DRM as a way to facilitate that. They obviously don't give a rat's ass about fair use rights, the ability to do what you want with your hardware (like running a different OS), etc. They use Linux now because they're opportunistic--it makes it easy to do something now in the short term, so they'll use it for now in applications like this. But in their grand view of the future, everyone's going to be running Windows with Palladium.

Re:More Reasons to be Lazy

[RatBastard]

I've got a pile of old TV episodes on DivX and (shudder) Real Player. My wife would love to watch them on the TV rather than at her computer desk.

Sounds Cool

[Mignon]

I wonder how long before someone ports Linux to it.

Re:Media Box Wars and maybe no DRM

[decefett]

Intel has a vested interest in fair use and will (to some extent) push this interest.

A hardware protected DRM world will not be as profitable as the free-for-all PC world has been. The reason for this is DRM devices by their very nature are either not hackable or difficult to hack.

When you look at the history of PC's it's the hackers/gamers/whatever's that have pushed the architecture far far beyone what anyone envisioned, PC's were originally meant to be a stepping stone to IBM's big iron.

A DCMA DRM world will hamper the growth of a company based on selling commodity general purpose technology.

Re:Media Box Wars and maybe no DRM

[Grishnakh]

I agree with your historical views, but I don't think Intel wants to continue this. I think they've decided the PC market has expanded about as far as it's going to with this current model, and that it needs to move into "convergence" in order to grow more. You can see this from Paul Otellini's speech at the IDF a few days ago. Basically, in Intel's mind, they need to make computing more ubiquitous (beyond the hackers and gamers), so that every regular Joe and Jane has multiple computers with Intel processors: PCs, entertainment systems, "media hubs", tablet PCs, etc. and the reason they'd want such a thing is to make their lives easier through such things as music- and movies-on-demand. Of course, to deliver this kind of content, DRM is needed.

What they're missing is that Joe and Jane Sixpack really don't want to pay for every time they listen to a song or watch a movie, and actually like being able to burn their own CDs with songs they like. I've met a bunch of not-very-computer-savvy people who love this, and they're not all young. So I really am hoping that this stupid DRM crap goes the way of Circuit Sh*tty's Divx, and hopefully Intel's stock price will take a huge dive and they'll lose tons of marketshare, so they (and others) learn a hard lesson about trying to push crippled BS on their customers.