Viiv 1.5 May End Traditional Media PCs

An anonymous reader writes "CNET.com.au makes an interesting case for why the next revision of Viiv will kill off living room PCs as we know them. Instead, we'll be streaming content to digital media adapters from a PC in our home office. From the article: 'The existence of digital media adapters will totally remove the need to have a media centre PC taking up space in your living room, unless you're one of the few users that finds it practical to do anything other than passively soak up multimedia content whilst relaxing on the couch.'"

Comments

That's not really a VIIV thing...

[the_skywise]

The whole home theater industry has been moving in that direction for quite some time. You have a home media storage "furnace" that serves up video and then a small client box for your TV.

You see that already with the XBox hacks, XBox 360 and Windows Media Center, and networked DVD players

Now VIIV may help that along but the technology has already been in existence (and in use) for years.

Well... except for maybe the DRM controls that VIIV will provide...

Cheapest way

[Ginger Unicorn]

I have a soft modded xbox that has samba access to the Ubuntu pc in my bedroom, plus NAT access to the net. Trivial, and all it cost was a 2nd hand xbox.

Re:No kidding. It's about divergence.

[shotgunefx]

Good point. I think I used my DVD player once to play a CD (my stereo was apart).

Maybe at some point convergence works, but right now you get things that are so-so at a lot of things and excellent at none. Cell phones are a good example.

I don't want or need a shitty camera built in. What's the point? The quality sucks, bad resolution, bad picture quality, maybe an LED for a shitty flash. I rather carry my small digital camera instead. Having one company as your gate keeper is perilous too. Take the cell phone example. I got a LG PM-325 from Sprint. I used the camera twice before realizing unless I paid X dollars a month for "Picture Mail", there was absolutely no way to retrieve them from the phone.

The future downside is that if they every do make the ultimate device that does everything, you're fscked if it get's stolen. There goes your media, your pictures and probably tons of other stuff that you wouldn't want other people to have access to. Carrying your life in your pocket might be convienent, but also dangerous.