Both companies are betting on the future of the "Digital Home", unfortunately neither seem to be off to a good start.
In the battle for the “Digital home,” the right answer (unless something changes) might be neither. I’ve just finished a review of the top contenders for awards at CES, and while I can’t divulge the winner (largely because I have no idea who it is), I can say that neither Microsoft’s nor Apple’s solutions came particularly close. Granted in Apple’s case that was largely because they don’t actually attend CES and seem to believe —with some justification — that they don’t have to. Microsoft seems to think they can continue to blame their partners for failures in this space, but right or wrong, failures are exactly that; at some point, I’ll bet either Bill Gates or Microsoft’s board will say, “Enough is enough” and step in.
But rather than talk about what large companies aren’t doing, let’s focus on what needs to be done to capture the digital home, and set a framework for how the products we will see at CES should be judged.
In Search of the Perfect Home Media Solution
A few weeks ago I had a chance to see what may be the current champion in home media solutions when I dropped in on Kaleidescape. They have a stunning product that allows you to rip your music and your DVD movies (or buy them pre-ripped) and then distribute them around your home. They don’t really work with portable media players yet, nor will their solution work in your car, but when it comes to your home, there is nothing else that comes close. If you want to know what both George Lucas and one of the most powerful (though unnamed) CEOs in the PC space have, it’s one of these systems. Problem is the complete solution can cost well over $100K, making it a little out of the average consumer’s price range (they did recently release a “value” product starting at $10K, but that is still in nosebleed territory).
This product, which is neither based on Microsoft nor Apple technology, is incredibly easy to use (passes the wife test), has a massive amount of readily available music and movie media, and sets the bar with regard to user experience. The only user interface that I’ve seen that beats it is the one from Digeo; interestingly enough, this company is owned by Microsoft founder Paul Allen, and it too is built from scratch. The easiest-to-install product (which arguably had the best remote control) was the Sonos, and it also was largely proprietary. Finally, when it comes to pulling and organizing TV shows, the gold standard is Tivo, which is based on Linux.
Now I will say that the best stealth Media Center in 2006 was the Mac Mini; I know a lot of folks that are using it to manage their media, and it represents one of the better values (particularly when you compare it to the whopping Kaleidescape price). At the end of the year, the best Microsoft product came to market from Alienware which has been positioning itself increasingly at Apple’s heart of late.
So the market-leading offering needs to embody what is great about the 2006 market-leading products, while maintaining the affordability and interoperability of the Microsoft and Apple solutions. This is clearly something much easier to say than do; otherwise, it would already be done.
Gaming and Home Automation
One interesting twist is the introduction of gaming into the mix by both Microsoft and Sony this year. In fact, if you really think about both the price and ease-of-use requirements, the Xbox probably comes closer to the requirement than Microsoft’s own Media Center. Sony kind of missed with the PlayStation 3, but it can be updated, and in terms of industrial design, it is one of the most attractive (and Apple has clearly demonstrated good looks sell) products in the segment.
Gaming adds yet one more dynamic to this mix, both because it is something a variety of these products can do and because it created the opportunity for subsidies, which can make a huge difference in price (the Sony subsidy is estimated to be a record-setting $300 right now).
For home automation, having a product that is always on can do wonders for managing things like your sprinklers and lights to reduce utility bills, which could provide something unique in this space: a return on your investment. At some point in the future, these things could actually pay for themselves in utility savings, not to mention better ensuring your own safety and security. Watch companies like Smart Labs as they work behind the scenes to integrate this type of feature into the various media center offerings.
Home Servers vs. Media Services
Right now we get most of our video off of cable, and then many of us use PVRs to time shift that media so we can consume it when we want. But with Internet TV, we can download what we want when we want it, if we have a big enough pipe into the home. That pipe is coming, and with enough bandwidth we may not need any of the hardware-based solutions we are currently anticipating.
One of those new hardware solutions is a Media Server. This product sits centrally in the home and stores everything you might want to consume in one place (hopefully, one very secure place); it also allows you to access this media from anyplace you have a network connection. The best I’ve seen so far is a product called the HD Codex, an impressive, but expensive offering that sets the bar for this class.
In the end this will come down to bandwidth. As we move to HD, we are likely a good ten years away from when bandwidth will be fast enough for most of us to go directly to a service without having something like a Media Server as a way to watch movies real-time. (To give you an idea, it currently takes about 12 hours to download an HD movie onto an Xbox 360 over DSL).
Looking Ahead to CES
It isn’t without some trepidation that I’m looking ahead to CES and the products there. Last year I saw a lot of potential in products that were far from what the market was looking for. This year I know of some that will be coming very close to the ideal, but they are from companies that lack the market strength to drive their solution to sufficient volume. While we may have our eyes on the big players, it may very well be one of the smaller guys that breaks this market open and creates the next iPod-like wave.
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RSSBeen looking for a blog like this one for a while
Keep up the good work.
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http://www.anarsist.org/
1. Why is it so hard to look for someone who can assist customers in fixing their digital home problems?
2. If PC is considered as future entertainment hub of the home, how can we minimize the problem brought about by the impossibility and the difficulty of PC first set in the bedroom when it?s more entertaining in the living room.
3. What can you say about household problems such as password distribution problem and failure in connective any device?
What I?m trying to say is that any thing that is expected to be successful and embraced by the public should be made accessible and with minimum problems. I really home digital home infrastructures are made in this manner.
You have a large soap box and instead of consistantly being happy with feature poor products why not point out that what many companies are telling us to wait for or to pay exorbitant prices for, has already been done.
Why don't you read the article again and restate your point, because I can't understand the point your trying to make. Try sticking to the topic next time.
From their site:
"MythTV is a homebrew PVR project that I've been working on in my spare time. It's been under heavy development for almost four years, and is now quite useable and featureful."
Really, you sound pretty dumb. I would prefer a conversation about the topic over listening to you bash the writer for dumb reasons. If Microsoft is a client of his, they should fire him, because he certainly did not do any favors for them with this article.
I will choose to ingore everything you ever publish, especially when it involves your client, Microsoft.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/15/nytimes_ms...
[ NY Times bans Microsoft analysts (you) from Microsoft stories ]
Fun article, I enjoyed reading it.
Sonos CEO John MacFarlane was quoted as saying the Digital Home is at least a decade off, and seems to think that a Digital Home is defined by the ability to stream HD content into the house. That would correlate with your decade-away theory. You can read the Talk Back about this here: http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback134.html
I tend to think that to some extent, the Digital Home is already here. I do not think it depends strictly on HD content (in ten years we will have a need for even more bandwidth I am sure). I think with the advent of video-on-demand (VOD) content from TiVo and cable operators, some IPTV features are partially already there in your set-top box.
One of the coolest products I have played with recently is the Logitech DJ ( http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details... which acts as an audio bridge to wirelessly stream your music to any room in your house, including iTunes (among others) DRM protected content. With a street price of under $200 dollars, it hands-down beats the Sonos system and a fraction of the cost. Of course you can just plug your speakers into the Sonos unit, and the DJ requires an amp/speakers.
I think your point about the game consoles is good. Let's face it, Media Center PC's are not cutting it, they are far behind in features and are too restrictive as to what they will work with. Sure, you might not be able to watch broadcast TV on your Xbox 360, but you might be able to download TV shows and movies, which counts IMO.
I think a good media server is basically a PC that works with multiple home automation software programs in an open system environment. Then you do not need to rely on one solution for your setup. One program can run your music streaming, another your video streaming, and yet another for DRM protected content for example. From what I have seen, there is not a single provider that excels at doing everything, so why should we rely on them?