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PC that acts like a TV
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting on the newest HP Media Center PC, a PC that "acts like a TV". Seems to me it is a TIVO with some additional features, like storing and displaying pictures and music files. Runs on some sort of Windows XP." The real killer with this whole genre of device is cost and confusion. Users don't know what they do, so its not worth the cost. Anyone who has used a tivo for a week knows what it means. Business just needs to get the costs down. I think including functionality like pictures and music is a good step towards increasing value, as long as it doesn't
add to the confusion.
Apple has tried this several times, and Compaq has as well (tellingly, Compaq doesn't off this product / capability any more).
I'm not sure folks - and by that I mean the mass market, not geeks - are ready for this. I understand the HP product can record, unlike the MacTV (I own one, btw, as well as one of their 5500's which has a TV tuner card) or the Compaq machine but it seems like most people park their PC in one room and the TV in the other.
PC / TV convergence? Well, your toaster has been next to your refrigerator for 50+ years, and they haven't converged yet. I don't see a mass market for this now, and there clearly hasn't been in the past.
Nice box though.
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The article is short on details about the computer, this is what it says:
Nothing special whatsoever, but what really scares me is what the executive VP of CompUSA says: "The remote control could well become the next standard PC peripheral". Huh? Is he saying that computers are heading down the path of glorified televisions and that in the near future all that you will need to operate your computer is a remote control?
Something's very fishy. This thing is a computer with a tv tuner card, it shouldn't approach $1,400, even with a monitor included. There have to be some other gimics, otherwise this thing seems to be one big rip off.
If someone's got real information on this thing to counteract the lack of information presented by CNN, that would be greatly appreciated.
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
I haven't rolled my own distro yet although my skills are increasing. A multimedia box has been the topic of many of my conversations, but I haven't made one yet simply (kind of silly or a reason) because the only way I knew I could get it to work would be with winwoes. This type of box would have to be totally easy and with little tweeking as possible. I know with XP I could make a box (under a grand for the hardware) with at least 100gb, a 1.6g processor, dvd,a wifi card,wireless mouse and keyboard, and a nice video card to connect to my televison so I could watch all the content I want,esp since I fileshare. But the tivoish functionality, wow... maybe Red Hat or some other major distro will make such a Linux version. I'm sure most of the linux community (at least the people I speak with via im, mail and lugs) could care less about multimedia; it's all about the code; but I'm a media junkie and I know I'm not alone. Your thoughts?
Yeah, a friend of mine had one of those "sears macs" from 7 years ago... (a quadra? performa? all the names meld together after a while) and she didn't have a tv but she did have a coax connector in the back, so she'd watch tv on her mac. IT was a nifty trick.
However her system had 1 SIMM slot (WTF?!) so it wasn't as if you could run permier and make some captures and put them in movies.
Without a killer app it isn't going to be more than a parlor trick. But then again, without having these parlor tricks around you don't give anyone the opportunity to create a killer app!
But given the inherit difference in the user interaction model:
TV: Sit. Watch. Enjoy!
PC: Sit. type. click. read. type some more. enjoy!
Don't get me wrong, there are spectator aspects to a pc- why, look at console gaming (the best example of TV/PC convergence yet)- even in games that aren't head to head I can watch my wife play and still have a good time.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Anyone checked freevo.sf.net ? Reads divx/dvds, mp3/ogg, image files, watch tv... and is free software of course...
Ah yes, what about all this neat DRM functionality? Do you really think the encryption stuff for keying files to the media pc in question won't take cpu cycles? :-)
You really think those wonder machines will let you burn CDs for your car stereo?
I actually started working on this a bit for the excellent DScaler TV tuner card app (this is a Windows app), but I haven't gotten very far yet, mostly due to having lots of other more pressing projects, but I wrote some hack-job code to display current guide data in a simple box overlay drawn on top of the DScaler TV window. It really needs a much more comprehensive treatment than that, but the point is this is a couple of week project. If you are interested, get in touch.
As an AIW 8500 owner IMHO that is it's single biggest problem. XP Media Center Edition does not have this problem however. See:
WindowsXP Media Center Review
and
Screenshot of the series screen
display: Most Tvs are not of sufficient quality for displaying text clearly which makes them unsuitable for general computing.
Keep in mind, though, that this is gradually changing. Mine is a 34" HDTV that can resolve 1280x720 very nicely. (I can drive it at 1920x1080 as well, but only interlaced, and interlaced makes for unpleasant viewing of static material like text.)
I paid out the ass for my TV earlier this year, but smaller televisions with similar capabilities are getting cheaper and cheaper. As the deadline for various FCC mandates approaches, expect TVs with 800-or-more lines of resolution to be the rule, rather than the exception.
I write in my journal
While it doesn't explain the GF4, the CPU can be explained as necessary if they haven't integrated a coprocessor for video compression: Even 3Mbps (ok quality) MPEG2 has my Athlon XP 1800+ gasping for air. I don't know what sort of video codec they're using, but if it's WM9 (a sort of super-MPEG4 supposedly) then increase the CPU usage accordingly. The desired goal is that they'd put actual integrated video compression hardware on there.
Personally I think this is a product area that will get huge: For everyone who's talking about how expensive it is, realize that people buy TV systems exceeding that cost frequently: This isn't a surprisingly high home entertainment cost. Hell, the home theatre market continues to strive, selling five digit projectors and similarly priced audio gear. I personally have been having a debate regarding my own entertainment system: My DVD player was one of the early ones, and I want to replace it with a progressive scan player. Additionally I want something to play MP3 and WMA, preferably over the network from one of my other PCs. What I end up needing, of course, is a computer at my TV, and that's the direction that I'm headed. My biggest problem was software (i.e. I would rather super simple, can't-screw-up, software for family and friends), however the Media Center software seems to fit the bill perfectly.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The more they stay the same.
Commodore annouced something very similar years ago.
They went out of business shortly after. I don't think anyone ever understood why they were supposed to buy the computer for your tv, it wasn't a Commodore 64 or Amiga, it wasn't a game console and it wasn't a VCR. It was something in-between all of that.
Who knows, maybe music will be the feature that saves this one.
http://www.intertrust.com/main/home/press/2002/020 523_sony.html
You won't find Sony going down to washington considering the fact that Sony has big plans for using DRM in future products.
Yes, HP forced MS to disable the DRM by default so that the content could be played on a second PC. However you have to be running XP SP1 on the second machine in order to watch the content using WMP9. On top of that broadcasters like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and others plan to take advantage of the content protection that has been included and broadcast with the signal that turns on the DRM so that people cannot copy the shows onto another PC and watch it.
Here I am reading the /. responses. Most people can't seem to figure out the difference between the Windows XP Media Center Edition and a TiVo or a PC with an ATI TV Tuner card in it.
e view.asp It really does look like a TiVo style UI, but I've seen a demo, and MS did a significantly better job at makinga UI than TiVo did. It also lets you browse or show your photo albums. I've heard that you can also set your photo albums to music and do PPT-style transitions. It has a remote control and menu driven interface for doing all of this.
Well, the WXPMCE machine IS a computer with a TV Tuner card in it. Microsoft will ONLY sell you the OS if you are an OEM and ship the OS on a NEW computer with the minimum requirements for it (i.e. one of a few TV tuners capable of detecting programming information from Cable/Sattelite, etc).
However, this is really an attempt to put a box-that-does-it-all (TM) in your living room or college desk. It plays back and record to DVD, CD, TV, and Computer A/V files. The cool thing is the UI for doing this. Look at http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/freestyle_pr
The graphics card exports to TV signals and VGA, so you don't need a TV in your dorm room, and don't need a computer monitor in your living room. It is also a fully operational Windows XP Professional computer, and it is a pretty darn good one at that (for $1,400 it should be a pretty good game machine).
All this having been said, I personally am waiting for next year, because I have a 500MHz P3 which can TV tune, and does all of that except for the TiVo like recording and DVD-R, but it is connected to my TV through a wall so I can watch the DivX CDs. I have PPT XP so I can make the nifty slide shows of photos really easily, and I also have Windows XP, so I can simply run its slide show mode with WinAmp playing in the background.
Personally, I feel that this solution is very nice (the system specs and the remote control functionality especially), but I can wait until next year, when I can buy the same PC for 1/2 the price. Or a year later, when I can buy it for 1/4. Unfortunately for the PC market, so can most everyone else. If you ever want to feel really depressed about how cheap PC components are now, go to www.pricewatch.com
I'm wondering where companies like HPQ and MS will go next. This device is sure to cut into the bottom line of the TiVo. Here's the imagined sales pitch: "Need a new computer? Buy this desktop computer once, and you don't need a TiVo, a VCR, a Stereo, or a slide projector. Comes with a universal MS Remote. You don't need to pay for a TiVo subscription service to record your favorite TV shows, and if you network your computers, then you can stream TV shows via ethernet or broadband! How much would you be willing to pay for all of this? $5,000? $3,000? $1,500? No. It's only $1,400! Call now, and we'll even throw in a quick-cam! That's a $100 value for FREE! Get your credit cards ready, 'cause theese things are hot!"
I have (well, have had) two big prejudices against television, both of which the past few years have worn away at.
:) Besides bad programs, there are the just-as-bad advertisements. I don't mind seeing some ads, but until I'm in the pickup truck buying mode (one in the family is really enough), I *don't want to see Silverado ads!* I don't need to see tampon ads, ads for Preparation H, ads for vaguely hinted-at medicines about which I am implored to ask my doctor -- ARRRGHH!
;)) If I can watch The Simpsons (hey, no accounting for taste) at the time of my own choosing, and pause as desired, and decide which of the comercials I feel like experiencing, then OK.
...
:)
1) Time-stealing. I hate the idea that a television show should dominate one's schedule, replacing other activities at all costs, and for this reason held my own one-man TV boycott for a long time, trying to avoid it. (Worse, when someone's whole life is written around the television schedule, day by day and timeslot by timeslot.) Besides the general obnoxious time-slavery, there's the other problem that most of what's on TV is awful anyhow
TiVo and other PVRs do a lot of answer this argument. (And tapes suck, as in my #2
2) Bulk. A TV is an annoying thing to carry around, at least for my particular part of the Venn diagram. If you can afford a GIGANTIC screen, perhaps you can also afford to be carried around in a sedan chair by beautiful servants, and have your television moved in (and moved at will later, if you want) by a set of insaller guys, like the characters in the video for the Dire Straights song "Money for Nothing." I can afford a smaller screen than that, and have ended up buying a couple televisions in the course of my life, and inevitably moving them around. I sold my last one (a small but pleasant Sony) and do not regret the transaction at all -- since then, the only TV I've *owned* is a tiny (handheld) LCD one.
Besides the moving-around part, TV bulk is also a problem in that conventional (CRT) TVs take up a lot of space in a room, and often end up being made a sort of shrine, which bugs me. TV is one possible input in a home (or office or wherever) but I always cringe to see rooms / houses which seem to be devoted to it as a household god. Better to have none than to have one which determines the placement of every other piece od furniture.
I had a VCR once, too, and though it was OK, *but* -- I rarely used it, even more rarely programmed it to record anything, and it broke on probably day 366 with a year's warranty. Oh well. Have never bought another, and am happy not to have one. Tapes are like weights on one's ankles. They break, they get lost, they get recorded and then not labeled
[I have had the *use* of some other TVs since I sold mine 3 years ago, but none are permanantly attached.]
So: TiVo (and this thingamajiggie from HP, and Replay TV, etc.) kill my biggest complaints (time restrictions, inapprpopriate and annoying advertisements), and the advent of LCD screens with TV tuners (including computers with tuner cards attached to LCDs) and plasma TVs are doing a good job of killing the others.
In fact, I saw recent-model plasma TV (a 42" Panasonic) for the first time a few weeks ago. [I had seen some others at trade shows, but they were basically *monitors* rather than TVs, and I did not inspect them as closely; a few years ago I saw some at Frys in Palo Alto, and they were OK but nowhere near as impressive.] Amazing colors, bright, sharp picture -- much better, frankly, than I had expected.
One nice thing about them is that though they need *careful* handling, it looks not outrageous for one person to lift up to the 42" size at least. (Someone correct me if that's wrong -- this is conjecture on my part.).
Just as important, once installed, they can be put out of sight, or at least reduced to "inconspicuous" when not being used. Not true of a 42" conventional television. With a plasma screen, I can see hanging a velvet curtain (or more likely a protective louvre) in front of the screen *unless* actively watching it.
(Even if the MS-centric way of doing things is bound to be annoying, I am glad that people are starting to accept computer-things as being a legitimate adjunct to their television-things.)
Soon, a large hard drive filled with arguably good content, connected to a reasonably large flat display (whether Plasma, or LED, or OLED, or whatever) will be a fairly normal thing. I will not weep for the death of "regular" television
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5