[Technology Report]
Digital Entertainment Takes Center Stage
The TV still may be the main source of entertainment for most consumers, but now it has some company—and competition.
TV Still A Mainstay? Consumers may be warming up to the idea of accessing, storing, and viewing digital content on their laptops, iPods, and cell phones. But that doesn't mean they're losing interest in their TVs.
In a study conducted by the CEA about display purchases and preferences, 21% of respondents said they connect a set-top box to their TV. When asked what they would like to do with their TVs tomorrow, 54% said they would want to watch content from a DVR, and 47% said they would want to watch video from a PC (Fig. 2). Another 44% want to view digital photos on their TV, and 29% want to listen to audio from the household PC.
"The message here is that strong numbers of consumers are gaining interest in bridging the gap between the PC and CE-based entertainment spheres," Wargo said. "All this suggests the need for either a greater number of PC graphics and sound cards with the traditional audio-video outputs, or more TVs with PC type inputs."
Silicon Image released a high-definition multimedia (HDMI) chip earlier this year that lets consumers transmit high-definition movies from HD DVD or Blu-ray drives and HDTV tuners to HDTVs and other displays. Toshiba has adopted the chip for its Qosimo G30 and 697 HS notebooks, the first family of laptops to feature an internal HD DVD drive.
Royal Philips Electronics recently announced that TDA18271HD, a multistandard hybrid silicon tuner IC that can receive both analog and digital terrestrial broadcasts. The silicon tuner provides a full system for PCTV hybrid terrestrial applications. Smaller personal video recorders (PVRs) can take advantage of its approximately 780-mW power consumption.
Bringing Digital Content Home: The Broadband Connection Perhaps the biggest driver in the interest in home entertainment networking is the widespread adoption of broadband, which is becoming more and more affordable for the average consumer. Already, 84 million U.S. residents have broadband Internet access at home, up 40% from 60 million last year. And, more than 19 million of those consumers use a wireless network to share their Internet connection between PCs and other devices.
The resulting market for home networking-over-coax chip sets and physical-layer units will grow by over 150% from 2005 to 2010. In-Stat analyst Joyne Putscher says that service providers are deploying coax-based video local-area networks utilizing MoCA, Coaxsys, and HPNA V3 over coax, while evaluating HomePlug AV over coax and other technologies. Yet at this point, no one technology seems poised for major adoption, though wireless seems to have the edge.
One company has developed an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless chip set solution that has non-line-of-sight operation. By incorporating multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) techniques, the set enables video devices to communicate wirelessly through walls to extend across multiple rooms. Tzero's TZ7110/TZ7210 features 480-Mbit/s performance over a range of less than 5 m and more than 100-Mbit performance at 20 m, exceeding the typical WiMedia standard UWB capability. The chip set also can run a completely wireless network that connects multiple devices throughout the home or office at the same time.
The Future Of Digital Entertainment While digital entertainment is here to stay, issues like digital rights management (DRM) and network neutrality have yet to be settled.
"When it comes to digital rights management and consumer access (CA), conflicting interests abound, both among industries and among companies," said iSuppli's Kirstein. "Each industry has its own standards associations and trade groups, which have spurred an array of various incompatible standards and DRM-related proposals. The diversity of interests in DRM has resulted in competitive deadlock regarding interoperability."
Kirstein said DRM is more than just a market barrier for digital media and the underlying equipment markets. He said that DRM also represents one of the most strategic and competitive technologies influencing the competitive landscape. So while manufacturers of consumer electronics may have been able to put off DRM and other issues until now, they will soon have to face them if they want to stay in the game.
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