2006: Battle for the Living Room

[Carl B]

This thread is also missing the existing brands in the living room. The cable operators and the telephone guys. Some friend wanted me to look at: http://2wire.com. I was told their B.O.M. cost is close to USD$600.00. The operators bought into their idea and products because it has many sophisticated features in supporting end users that makes it scalable to large number of users very well.

BTW, we may have difficulty agreeing because "Success" or "Won" is not defined in this thread.

The thread's not missing them - they were excluded because they are more on the service/content delivery side of things than they are on the hardware side. It's true they might trump the others, but with the cable and phone companies consigned to certain geographic regions for the most part, it's best to talk about them as a whole or in terms of digital distribution than it is to bring them in for th epurposes of this discussion.

I don't think it's proper to define 'success' or 'winning' either for the purposes of this discussion; it's just an open-ended debate on what the positions of each of these players is. Rather than 'success,' I think it'd be easier to judge what 'failure' would constitute.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Hm ? Not the living room the last time I checked. By your definitions, "Play for Sure" would have taken the world by storm.

I stated that vista would spread because it is the next version of windows, your response was that that was a ms-centric POV. I'm telling you that the PC world is ms-centric.

You seem to be assuming there will be alot of peole with high-speed internet and/or digital recording devices that do not own PC's. This is unrealistic. Most people who have digital imaging hardware, or a highspeed internet connection will also own a pc with MS windows on it. They will already be storing their content on this PC. They will already be printing/sending/burning this content with their PC.

The cheapest most convenient way to share it to the living room is to simply purchase an extender.

 

[mckmas8808]

This thread is missing this.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9981/Starz-Partners-with-Sony-and-Microsoft-to-launch-VONGO/

Sony:Connect on the rise!

 

[aaronspink]

Well and that's what it comes down to essentially. I agree that pervasive Vista is something that in a void would give Microsoft an incredible advantage, because it would put the onus on the consumer simply to buy an extender, whatever form that might take. Even with fierce competetion, it's still a very large advantage down the line. But the question is, between now and 2008 (when it's reasonable to expect Vista uptake to really hit it's stride), is the consumer mindshare already going to start to solidify behind some other brand or concept, or will the market by then still remain small, weak, and fragmented?

By the end of 2008, it is likely that MS will have sold on the order of 200 Million copies of vista. There is NOTHING else that will have penetration of the same magnatude of Vista. PS3 and Xbox360 will be lucky to stay within an order of magnatude of the vista numbers. I just don't see anything else slipping in. Unless it integrates with Vista, it really doesn't stand a chance. Really, the PC is and will be the center of the digital universe. Think of it this way, even in its best year, 5-6x PCs were sold than PS2s. This won't change. In fact, if anything the ratio will increase.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[mckmas8808]

By the end of 2008, it is likely that MS will have sold on the order of 200 Million copies of vista. There is NOTHING else that will have penetration of the same magnatude of Vista. PS3 and Xbox360 will be lucky to stay within an order of magnatude of the vista numbers. I just don't see anything else slipping in. Unless it integrates with Vista, it really doesn't stand a chance. Really, the PC is and will be the center of the digital universe. Think of it this way, even in its best year, 5-6x PCs were sold than PS2s. This won't change. In fact, if anything the ratio will increase.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

Wow great job genius. Now tell us how many were sold to homes.

 

[Carl B]

By the end of 2008, it is likely that MS will have sold on the order of 200 Million copies of vista. There is NOTHING else that will have penetration of the same magnatude of Vista. PS3 and Xbox360 will be lucky to stay within an order of magnatude of the vista numbers. I just don't see anything else slipping in. Unless it integrates with Vista, it really doesn't stand a chance. Really, the PC is and will be the center of the digital universe. Think of it this way, even in its best year, 5-6x PCs were sold than PS2s. This won't change. In fact, if anything the ratio will increase.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

Hey and throughout this thread, believe me I'm giving respect to MS/Vista and Intel/Viiv. You will see me with my Vista PC heavily networking the extenders, in part just because I'll need a new PC to build come 2007. And to be sure, I've pointed them out as the 'most likely' successors.

Still though, the question I was asking stands. There is a lot of latent functionality in Windows/Office/'software x' even now that people don't exploit, and that's simply because they're unaware of how to do so. Like I've said I think Viiv will be the first step in seeing how 'dumbed down' the PC experience can become for the consumer. Because until it's at that point - extremely simplified - even being ubiquitous won't equate with 'victory' in my book unless not only is it the leader in sell-through, but also the solution most associated (in the minds of the consumers) with the given problem.

Now, I'm not making any claims as to Sony's strategy with PS3, because I have no idea. But I think at the minimum Apple and Sony both have a shot at that mindshare if they can execute well. Obviously Microsoft and Intel are going to be powerful players, but the thread would be pretty un-dynamic if we just left it at 'Microsoft will likely dominate...'

We have to at least explore the other angles.

 

[aaronspink]

Wow great job genius. Now tell us how many were sold to homes.

The vast majority. The PC market is huge, selling on the order of 2x the number of PCs in a single year than the PS2 will sell in its lifetime. The non-office side of the PC market is a significant percentage of the total market.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[wco81]

Most of those PCs won't be in the living room.

And how many average consumers are going to keep their noisy, power-hungry PCs running all the time just to stream some photos to the TV in the living room? Talk about overkill.

Now in the WSJ today, there's a long article about various companies trying to deliver products for the living room which will draw content over the Internet. Various downloading services, the X360 and MCE combo and even a Linksys DVD player which will have a Net connection to display downloaded video.

No discussion about how the broadband infrastructure in this country is woefully unprepared for any great volume of video downloads/streams. Like how Comcast have cut certain customers off for surpassing some unwritten data transfer limit.

 

[patsu]

I stated that vista would spread because it is the next version of windows, your response was that that was a ms-centric POV. I'm telling you that the PC world is ms-centric.

Ok, I was wondering where that came from...

You seem to be assuming there will be alot of peole with high-speed internet and/or digital recording devices that do not own PC's. This is unrealistic. Most people who have digital imaging hardware, or a highspeed internet connection will also own a pc with MS windows on it. They will already be storing their content on this PC. They will already be printing/sending/burning this content with their PC.

The cheapest most convenient way to share it to the living room is to simply purchase an extender.

No I did not make that assumption. And yes I understand your investment preservation argument but to take the conversation further...

Based on existing investments:
(i) People stores, edit and print their personal media on a Mac or PC
(ii) PCs and Macs are existing conduits to the Internet in many homes

I'm saying as a consumer...

(1) Both (i) and (ii) may be irrelevant depending on the living room function(s) in question. Say if Apple rolled out a VoD service with a custom Mac-mini box, the issues will be DRM, quality of movies, selection of movies, pricepoint, ... In fact, the service can be used with my Mac and PC turned off. And if I want to store the movies to my PC, Mac or iPod, just upgrade to iTunes 7.x. No mention of Vista is necessary.

If I want to play music from the living room, DRM'ed music is readily available to iTunes users since Apple supposedly owns 70% of DRM'ed music. If the music is just pure MP3 files, then it will be playable with or without Vista.

(2) The living room box in question can have its own LAN connection independent of a PC or Mac. If I want to save money so to speak, my preference may be to centralize all my computing needs to a single powerful laptop (Vista or otherwise) and an independent living room box. I do heavy lifting on my laptop all the time, and do not want any living room function to slow it down. A second Media PC would be my last option.

(3) Finally you have the the FUD or uncertainty factors: With malware being rampant, how "screw up" are home PCs these days ? Many of my friends complained about their PCs being slow. Another just got infected by key logger 2 days ago. I read somewhere (forgot where) that 80% of home PCs are still not protected by AV software. How happy are the consumers with (i) and (ii) above really ? Are they still too complicated for most to use ? Food for thought.

 

[expletive]

Dont get the Mac confused as being relevant in the home pc market jsut becuase of the ipod. The reason why people use Windows-based PCs in the home and at work is becuase of the software. The home PC is not going anywhere, its like the automobile in NA at this point. People get their mail, do their taxes, print out recipes, get directions, read the news, i mean its a part of our culture. Youre all making the arguments that some other device is going to come along and do something that people can already do on their PC. Fact is that peoples 'media' is on their PC RIGHT NOW. You need to give them a reason to move it off there onto some other appliance, learn a new interface, figure out a way to back it up, sacrifice functionality, etc. Its just not going to happen. Now you can make the argument that the consumer is not ready for the "connected home" but if they are, theres a 98% chance its going to be on Windows.

 

[patsu]

Dont get the Mac confused as being relevant in the home pc market jsut becuase of the ipod. The reason why people use Windows-based PCs in the home and at work is becuase of the software. The home PC is not going anywhere, its like the automobile in NA at this point. People get their mail, do their taxes, print out recipes, get directions, read the news, i mean its a part of our culture. Youre all making the arguments that some other device is going to come along and do something that people can already do on their PC. Fact is that peoples 'media' is on their PC RIGHT NOW. You need to give them a reason to move it off there onto some other appliance, learn a new interface, figure out a way to back it up, sacrifice functionality, etc. Its just not going to happen. Now you can make the argument that the consumer is not ready for the "connected home" but if they are, theres a 98% chance its going to be on Windows.

Where's the confusion ? iTunes is available on Windows as well ? You can still do many things with the PCs staying in the study room and no MS Media Extender.

What content are you talking about ? Majority of the movie content is still with the publisher or in DVD form.

As for music, they are also abundant in PCs and Macs thankfully but you don't need a full OS to play MP3 files right ? And Apple still has the largest share of DRM'ed music files today.

 

[expletive]

Where's the confusion ? iTunes is available on Windows as well ? You can do many things with the PCs still staying in the study room and no MS Extender.

What content are you talking about ? Majority of the movie content is still with the publisher or in DVD form.

As for music, they are also abundant in PCs and Macs thankfully but you don't need a full OS to play MP3 files right ? And Apple still has the largest share of DRM'ed MP3 files today.

And what % of all the music people have on ALL the PCs is of the DRM'ed variety?

And you dont need a full OS to play music but you do RIP cds, back them up, copy them to your player, etc..

 

[patsu]

And what % of all the music people have on ALL the PCs is of the DRM'ed variety?

All the more reason why you're not tied down to any OS, Windows or not. You just need a good MP3 management application.

And you dont need a full OS to play music but you do RIP cds, back them up, copy them to your player, etc..

True, but those are not living room functions. Having the capability to do all those does not guarantee MS a spot/mindshare in the living room. While we are at it, the ripping and management can be done by third party software too (e.g., to PSP directly). Another example is Google's wonderful photo management application.

 

[dubyateeeff]

Also, Media PC doesn't need to 'spread', media PC is just a stop gap, windows vista will spread since it will be the next edition of windows, the media centre functionality is built in.

Just like in the Portable Video Market I believe there will be a lot of manufacturers using their own OSes or Linux.

And there will be a lot of different versions of Vista, not all including medica centre functionality.

Archos or iRiver could come up with some nice stuff, they already have great mp3-players/PMPs/PMCs

 

[patsu]

This came up recently... http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20060103005027&newsLang=en

A little salesy and high-level but it's relevant to the topic so what the heck...
(e.g., Personally, I think there may be other reasons why 80% of the households don't buy data services for cellphone -- not just ease of install and use).

 

[Nicked]

To comment more on the topic, this I think is pretty significant positive for Blu-ray in PS3.
People had been speculating 720p/1080i content would dominate early on, but according to SPHE:

Beginning this Spring, SPHE will support the rollout of BD-compatible
players, PCs and drives from a variety of consumer electronics and computer
companies by offering a wide-breadth of high-definition movies and other
promotional materials," said Mr. Feingold.
The first slate of BD titles encompasses a diverse mix of genres including
The Fifth Element, in multichannel uncompressed audio Bram Stoker's Dracula,
Desperado, For a Few Dollars More, The Guns of Navarone, Hitch, House of
Flying Daggers, A Knight's Tale, Kung Fu Hustle, The Last Waltz, Legends of
the Fall, Resident Evil Apocalypse, Robocop, Sense and Sensibility, Stealth,
Species, SWAT and XXX. Black Hawk Down and The Bridge on the River Kwai will
also be available on 50 GB, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs Summer 2006.

[...]

In addition to 1920x1080p HD master quality, consumers will benefit from
Blu-ray Disc's immense improvements over current DVD technology including
enhanced menu navigation, increased added-value and new interactive
capabilities.

[...]

Commencing Summer 2006, SPHE will begin adding bonus BD Java games, and
other anticipated features, to new release titles including Underworld
Evolution that will street day-and-date with DVD. The studio announced it
will also deliver four catalog titles per month beginning this Summer,
accelerating to 10 titles per month by the fourth quarter 2006. Also being
readied for Summer release is the complete television series of sci-fi
favorite, "Stargate Atlantis," in high-definition.

(had to bold Stargate Atlantis because its awesome)

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-04-2006/0004241959&EDATE=

Sounds like the arrival of Blu-ray is going to be a bit more than a paper launch. And full 1080p content! Awesome. Can't wait to see what the other studios announce at CES!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wow that's giving me hope that Sony really is serious about this!

Are we really going to get a real Sony:Connect? It looks like we really are going be able to download music and movies on the fly with our PSPs. Hopefully Tim Schaaffcan bring that togetherness to Sony just like Apple has.

Things wrong with CONNECT:

1. Only supports ATRAC format and is incompatible with most MP3 players. You have to use Sony's SonicStage as a player instead of your usual audio player.
2. Has poor quality compression. I was appalled by the compression artefacts, though maybe that's the norm for downloaded music?
3. Is by far and away the most expensive service (99p per track in the UK, versus iTunes 79p as second most expensive).
4. Proprietary browser hasn't got options to check the security of the connection when paying. When you log in to your account, Windows warns that you are switching to a non-secure connection, but there's no way of checking.
5. Your credit card number is visible in full in your payment details. That means a person only needs your email address and CONNECT password to get your name, address, telephone number and card number.
6. Of the five tracks I purchased, one was corrupted. I was informed this was a content problem and they couldn't replace it with a working so they gave me a voucher for another track. They continued advertising the broken track for sale without warning customers they were buying a broken product. To the best of my knowledge they haven't fixed the problem but are still advertising the track for sale. The preview clip of course doesn't demonstrate the two breaks in the audio.

My breif experience with CONNECT, which I used as the only service I could find that would sell single tracks of the rare album I wanted (iTunes has an inferior range, at least for my tastes) lasted 24 hours, and I won't go near it again until it's had a severe overhaul.

 

[patsu]

Wow... this is pretty bad indeed. Mr. Schaaffcan (on the software side), Howard Stringer and gang (on ops and corporate culture side) are going to need lot's of help. :|

 

[Carl B]

I expected this, but I didn't expect it to happen like this - pretty quick onAMD's part, now we just have to see what it brings to the table vs Intel's plan.

...CES attendees are in for a surprise announcement from AMD to launch a platform called AMD Live to compete with Intel's Viiv

Information from our sources tell us that AMD is preparing to announce to CES attendees that it has been working with a select group of partners to develop and launch a platform technology it calls AMD Live. The new platform technology said AMD, is being designed from the ground up to directly compete with Intel’s Viiv....

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=159

 

[Carl B]

First Viiv system spotted it seems:

The Kapsel Media Center PC runs Windows Media Center Edition and is one of the first we've seen on the Intel Viiv platform which means this little orb packs in a dual-core processor (Yonah likely, though they don't specify), and Intel's Quick Resume Technology to power the media center on and off quickly. This tiny (10.6 x 9.1 x 3.0-inches) ceramic shelled PC can be positioned horizontally, vertically, or hung on the wall and throws down 7.1 surround and hi-def video playback. Expect this and other Viiv-centric media centers to ship first quarter 2006, price not yet disclosed.

http://homeentertainment.engadget.com/2006/01/04/kapsel-media-center-ceramic-pc-with-intel-viiv/