AMD's All-in-One Media Machine

Drakewolf writes to tell us that despite the many failed attempts to bridge the gap between the PC and home entertainment systems, AMD has released several new products at CES under their LIVE! brand. The centerpiece was the AMD LIVE! Home Cinema, an all-in-one device that combines a set-top cable box, stereo receiver, DVD player, digital video recorder, and a PC.

Comments

failed attempts?

[macadamia_harold]

Drakewolf writes to tell us that despite the many failed attempts to bridge the gap between the PC and home entertainment systems

You mean like the xbox360? or the macmini running frontrow?

Re:failed attempts?

[AK Marc]

Then you don't understand what they mean by "failed attempt." There are a number of products out there that do the job well. There are none that have gotten consumers to buy them in large numbers. Just because the products work well and have been delivered and sold doesn't make them a success. All have fallen short of their sales goals, so all of them are failures. You own a failure. That isn't a personal attack, it is a statement of fact. It works well. But it is a failure because your neighbors don't have it, don't want it, and probably don't know what it is.

I hate all-in-one devices

[morgan_greywolf]

All-in-One devices (of any sort) tend to do all of these related things, but none of them particularly well. On top of it, if one of it's functions quits on you, you generally have to replace the entire thing, since the all-in-one device will typically not integrate with anything external.

I understand why they continue to gain popularity (takes less space, you get all the functions for one price, uses less power, etc.), but in general you can always seem to do better from a functionality and features standpoint from individual components than from any integrated 'all-in-one' device.

yeah, I get it.

[macadamia_harold]

The centerpiece was the AMD LIVE! Home Cinema, an all-in-one device that combines a set-top cable box, stereo receiver, DVD player, digital video recorder, and a PC.

This device is to computing what the spork is to silverware.

Two Problems for Convergence Still

[chia_monkey]

Everyone continues to talk about the digital convergence, yet we're still seeing two big problems. The first, which is evident here...is price. We're not going to see widespread adoption of new media hardware (and software) with pricepoints like this. Only the rich (and geeky) will shell out that kind of dough for something so cutting edge right now. Second, we're still in early-adopter stage for many of these devices and the average consumer still isn't "trained" to use these devices. Remember when Tivo came out? It was mostly the technically savvy people that bought it. This device still resembles a computer too much to be adopted and placed in the living room of the common household. Some day though...

! is the "Extreme" of punctuation

[straponego]

Have you ever noticed that any product with "!" in the name... well, there's no delicate way to put this... sucks?

Faster Processor for Streaming File Server?

[stu42j]

"They can't stream content if you want video. The connection isn't the problem, the problem is NAS isn't fast enough to get content on the wire," he said. With a faster processor in its Media Server, data can now be streamed off a server, either wireless or wired.

WTF? I stream videos off my 400mhz K6 fileserver and have never had problems with CPU load. Are NAS devices seriously that slow?

Re:A tad overpriced?

[Waffle Iron]

it starts at $1000, which given it's also a decently powerful modern computer

However, I doubt that most people would actually use it as a computer. A couple of years ago I put together a MythTV box, and I had the idea that as a bonus it would be handy to have a computer system in my living room. It turns out that even though it's a perfectly fine computer, I rarely if ever use it as anything other than a PVR. Even though it's directly hooked to an HDTV monitor with an HDMI cable, the resolution still isn't very good for reading text. Somehow it's a lot worse at showing high-contrast details than the equivalent pixel-count computer monitor would be; TV electronics just don't seem to be designed with text in mind.

Sitting way back on the couch makes matters worse, and using a wireless keyboard on my lap is incredibly clumsy and frustrating. Just browsing the web feels klunky, and doing any kind of serious work is out of the question. Even a lot of PC games seem to be written assuming that you're sitting upright in a chair with both a mouse and a full 104-key keyboard on a stable surface in front of you. It seems to me that investing in a high-end system for the living room would be a waste of money for most people.