The Digital Home & Entertainment

All new posts at zedwareav.wordpress.com

jzh10 — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:30:04 +0000

Thanks for reading and spending time at the Zedware Home blog. I hope that you will continue to visit us at our new home, zedwareav.wordpress.com. We’ll continue to post on the same type of events, with a focus on new avenues in home entertainment.

More Opinions Why Convergence Is So Slow

jzh10 — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:52:33 +0000

What are some good reasons for the (very) slow pace of “convergence”, that integration of IT hardware and software with traditional entertainment? According to a recent article, here are a few good reasons

1. Lack of skill in the integrator and installer community to be able to sell both sides of the converged package

2. Companies will perform in their own best interests. HP quit making their Digital Entertainment Centres (a Media Centre) because they couldn’t make enough money doing it. It didn’t matter that others in the industry saw HP as a national high profile brand who could spearhead integration and convergence.

3. People and companies overreach, trying to sell a complete integration solution instead of offering some different point solutions to solve specific problems. Would people rather deal with a simpler package that solved a simpler problem? I think they would.

4. Infrastructure not robust enough. Can wireless stream DVD quality video? Only sometimes. Does CableCard work in your area? And will it work in your Media Centre? Maybe, maybe not. Are there any Media Centre based satellite receivers? No, but why not? These are basic “backbone” building blocks that are either not their yet at all, or not robust enough to reliably try them out on most customers.

5. Content providers are wary of new delivery channels. With more and more shows available on network web sites right after the broadcast, how long until most people ONLY watch the show from the website? Why wouldn’t a network make a plug-in so their network appears as another “channel” on Media Centres?

Read the entire article HERE

Intel Anthropological Studies and the Digital Home

jzh10 — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:33:17 +0000

Intel has anthropologists on staff who go out around the world and study (meaning watch) families as they go about their daily activities, both work and pleasure. Brian David Johnson is a “Consumer Experience Architect” for Intel (try putting THAT on a business card!), and a recent project of his tracks companies as they interact with technology every day in homes all around the world.
And what do families want from technology in their home? Across all countries, families desire the same thing – they want shared experiences with others, and they want to use technology to contribute to that. People create their own content – movies, photos, music - and then share it with their family or with others. A blog is an extension of our own desire to share, it’s just a tool that takes advantage of our ability to quickly share with others all over the world, and just as importantly get feedback and validation from them.

How does this apply to the work that we do in the home? Create systems that are easily used by everyone in the house, and systems that allow content to be easily shared and enjoyed. Remember those key points – FAMILY and SHARING.

Electronic House Homes of the Year

jzh10 — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:09:44 +0000

Electronic House magazine shows their award winning examples of home theatre and home automation. Take a a look to see some superior examples at prices ranging from under $25,000 up to high 6 figures – you know that you’re in a niche market when the portfolio of pictures describes the components and integration installed in the dance hall INSIDE the house!

There is also a complete list of all the components of the automation system and the audio/video components to give you a good idea of the complexity of the systems. There is alot of content and photos here as this is a deep and extensive set of examples.

http://www.electronichouse.com/specials/hoty07#43

What CE Integrators Fear About IT

jzh10 — Wed, 23 May 2007 01:30:26 +0000

The conference I’m attending is a mix of traditional CE (Consumer Electronics) custom integrators and companies with an IT background who are interested in the “digital home” market, which can include home automation, media servers, home theatre, distributed audio and video and other services. The point of the conference is to examine the transition that is happening in this industry, as IT technologies migrate over into sophisticated appliances for high end home entertainment.

I was most surprised at how much some of the VERY high end integrators (the ones who routinely do $200,000 and up projects – the most expensive one that I heard about was $2.2 million! ) are also interested in these new products. They perceive them as a threat to their business, maybe not right away but definitely in the near future as these products increase in their capabilities and sophistication, while still offering significant value advantages over traditional products. As well, they often don’t understand how the products work, and they’ve even asked about why I would use these products instead of their traditional foundation products (Crestron or AMX). So while I am here to learn from them, they are just as interested in learning from me, as an IT person, which products I find attractive, where I think the profit will be, who I would use to do the work and where I think the industry is going.

Superna Home Automation

jzh10 — Tue, 22 May 2007 01:32:09 +0000

Just saw a new platform for IP based home automation from Superna. You can use regular Windows XP PCs, MCE PCs, Tablet PCs or Windows PDAs as control interfaces, and it can integrate with a wide range of automation products from Insteon, Z-Wave, Global Cache and others.
It includes media management, automatic interface generation if you want to get going quickly, or you can customize the entire interface if you wish.

This is a very impressive platform that is worth looking into. See further details at the company website

http://www.supernasystems.com/

New Windows Home Server Appliance

jzh10 — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:52:36 +0000

Microsoft product partners have recently shown new appliances based on the Windows Home Server platform, which was created to solve what Microsoft saw as the 2 main needs for a digital home – centralized storage and backup (which is really just more centralized storage!)

HP announced support and an upcoming device on this platform and a few other smaller 2nd level partners have also announced support. More evidence of the potential of this market is that Infrant, a company that we use for network storage for our clients, was purchased last weeks by Netgear for US $60 million, who have slowly been collecting a number of interesting digital assets and intellectual property over the past year.

Article on Windows Home Server vs. a Linux Server (from ZDNet)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=493&tag=nl.e539

Purchase of Infrant by Netgear
http://www.infrant.com/company/news_content.php?id=336

Remote Support of Home Networks

jzh10 — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:36:08 +0000

How big is the potential market for remote support for home networks? According to the article below, over $25 billion. As the home IT network becomes more complicated and merges with home entertainment equipment, remote support is REQUIRED.

From news.com
http://news.com.com/Remote+support+comes+to+consumers+aid/2100-1041-6185084.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703

Why Xbox 360 defeats the PlayStation 3

jzh10 — Sun, 20 May 2007 19:49:02 +0000

This answer has nothing to do with who has the most powerful processor, what kind of outputs or just about any other technical criteria. It has everything to do with how well each device works for everything BUT games.

Microsoft has understood for a long time that having the best product is not always enough, or isn’t even the most important.

After a few tries, they put a platform that is pretty good, and then they
unleash thousands of software developers they have been dealing with for the last 15 years. It’s the developers and the software/programs games that they create that are the key. They also make it easy to
develop across the range of their product line, so if you develop a game
for the Xbox 360, it’s relatively simple to port it over to a PC. So in the
software wave, they can unleash more developers into the market than
anyone else.

Next it Xbox Live. This is a phenomenally successful multiplayer gaming service that Xbox developers can use to integrate multiplayer
remote gaming into their products. And it’s a paid service allowing Microsoft to
capture additional revenue for each account.

Then the Xbox Live service is expanded beyond games.
There are now television episodes and movies available for
download through the service. They are stored in the Xbox360
and available through the same integrated interface that you
(or your teenage child) are already familiar with.

The latest announcement was a demonstration of Microsoft IPTV
service that uses the Xbox360 as a set-top box.
Again, the same interface controlled by Microsoft.

And you know that Microsoft is getting a piece of every transaction
that flows through the Xbox platform.

So now you have 4 revenue streams - game purchase, Xbox Live,
downloaded entertainment content, and IPTV. Against that,
the Playstation 3 has only a single strong revenue stream (gaming)
and a non-standard online gaming strategy that relies on
the game developers to do the development work.

Some years ago, Bill Gates was asked when he thought Microsoft
would see a profit from the multibillion dollar investment
in the Xbox. He replied that Microsoft didn’t invest $5 Billion
just to play games!

The Tangled Web of Convergence

jzh10 — Sat, 19 May 2007 05:49:52 +0000

Here comes the future. By now, audio and video enthusiasts like you and me were supposed to be enjoying the benefits of “convergence” – listening, watching and enjoying music, movies, TV shows, and photos all around our homes. Instead we have digital content locked down by DRM (Digital Rights Management) that restricts how and where we can enjoy material that we’ve paid for. We have U.S. Copyright Boards trying to drive independent internet radio stations out of business by quadrupling the royalty rate they pay for music. We have two competing high-definition DVD formats which essentially provide identical benefits to the consumer, guaranteeing that the mass market will wait before they commit their money.

We’re going to show you what’s out there to help you find your
own ”path of convergence”.

What are the products and technologies that will HELP you to enjoy music and movies throughout your home? How are the big players in IT and consumer electronics approaching the “Digital Home”? How will IT technology help provide breakthrough performance and value for you?

Stay tuned over the next few days. We’ll be reporting from a specialized industry conference just for people like us – a blend of IT and custom home integrators. You’ll see what Microsoft, Intel and others think of the future of the Digital Home market and what we think of them!