Who will win the Digital Home war?

[korben_dallas]

I've been doing alot of reading on consumer electronics, specifically digital entertainment and cable/satellite operator devices.

Who do you think will ultimately win the war for the Digital Home? And why?

[korben_dallas]

Can a moderator correct my spelling mistake? It won't let me change 'when' to 'win' :P

[stanger89]

The Winner, in terms of market share, will be the Cable/Sat provided STB DVRs, most people don't care enough, and aren't willing to spend the time and/or money to go a different route. Just watch the CES Keynote by Bill Gates. MCE is going embedded, about half of the talk about MCE in that keynote was about STBs with MCE embedded, HDTVs with MCE embedded. And look a Frey, they're going Linux, which opens them up to licensing in STB markets, like the way Tivo licensed their tech to DirecTV for the DTivos.

That said, I don't think PCs are going anywhere, if anything they will probably continue their trend toward entertainment centers. There's really no better place to store all your digital media. Latest news and announcements seem to point to a hybrid STB/PC "digital home" MS is targetting MCE to STBs, while at the same time making them interconnect/interoperate with PCs, phones, etc. Sage is similar, with their Linux server, and cross platform clients that connect to it. Then there's DirecTV that, after dumping Tivo, has announced a "digital home" initiative, with a PVR, multiple interconnected boxes, connections to PCs and all.

[mostlyfodder]

i couldn't agree more w/ the above post. the general public doesn't want to fuss with this stuff (because they are smart.) they want their devices to work everytime, like a land-based telephone and google.com.

the rest of us, we'll probably be using sage and meedio or the likes, because that's what we likes

[korben_dallas]

Back in the day, you had to lease your phone from the phone company. THE phone company (there was only one hehe). But rotary died out and phones were cheap to make and simple plug and play.

I have a feeling that perhaps in 5 to 6 years or so, our bandwidth demands and home networking hardware will converge to the point where you can pickup your all-in-one internet/phone/cable(or sat) gateway firewall router wireless access point, and just plug n play with the various devices in your home.

What I don't know is how copyright/digital content protection will affect the fluidity of entertainment and informational services within the digital home.

Digital tape was never able to penetrate the home, but anyone serious about data backup and recovery is using large volume digital magnetic tapes, and music studios continue to use magnetic tape and adat for the highest quality pre-master recordings. Basically, the reason digital tape failed as a consumer device was because of the RIAA in the late 70's. So copyright and digital content protection can have a profound hinderance on technology for the consumer, even if it is the best technology.

[Crazedz]

I Voted sage because im stupidly loyal lol

Not that sage doesn't have a chance but they really haven't done much of anything yet on the digital front DTV and HDTV and the like so far they have been strictly Analog unless you are meaning DVD and MP3/Divx etc.. playback.

[Menehune]

I think (future) sage will be in a set-top-box format outside the PC. I envision a box like a VCR which will sit under/above your TV.

I hope that M$ will not buy Sage. I hope Sage will stay "free" and compatible with the widest array of hardware possible.

[indigo]

I voted for the STB from Cable and Sat because if u think of how many people have those boxes, most people here do along w/ sage, and u replace all of those boxes for free and integrate something like sage or mce it becomes completely seamless and they will run perfectly just like the current digital cable boxes.

[tybris]

If this is about marketshare. I predict there will be much hassling, catfighting, crying, many wrong predictions and in the end Microsoft will win. This is not about convenience or technology, it is, as always, about money. The market is already flooding with silent mce htpcs for by the tv. They will become cheaper over the years and they'll be compatible with almost any new software technology developed. The cable/sat boxes on the other hand will remain expensive and stay behind. On the other hand I think there will be a huge diversity in the market with enough room for specialised programs like SageTV (with client software and hardware the ultimate network htpc solution), PVRs don't need much cooperation like VCRs and DVD players once did.

[jptaz]

I agree 100% with stanger89.

People want something that works, but also if they feel like tinkering they can have the devices access other media on their PCs. Much like what Tivo does today. They will continue to evolve and be More SageTV like in there inter connected ness. I am glad Sage is going toward the STB market and hope they end up in some nice boxes for CableCos.

[silkshadow]

Its impossible to vote against Microsoft. Just look at PPC. PPC platform was a looser. It stunk. MS kept at it and waited for the hardware to catch up with its OS. Now, PPC ousells Palm in some surveys. In others it is close. The smart phone version of PPC aka Windows mobile is cranking out new devices like mad and will probably take Symbian's lead someday not too far off. With almost unlimited resources and dominant market leverage, MS can take a bad product and cram it down the market's mouth. Even if the product continues to be bad. Its like eveything else, the 'dumb' masses predict the winner and, in software, MS owns the masses. Its sad. Though I agree the STB makers will be the real winners but we'll will see MCE with its content/market leverage on STBs not too far off.

[indigo]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Its impossible to vote against Microsoft. Just look at PPC. PPC platform was a looser. It stunk. MS kept at it and waited for the hardware to catch up with its OS. Now, PPC ousells Palm in some surveys. In others it is close. The smart phone version of PPC aka Windows mobile is cranking out new devices like mad and will probably take Symbian's lead someday not too far off. With almost unlimited resources and dominant market leverage, MS can take a bad product and cram it down the market's mouth. Even if the product continues to be bad. Its like eveything else, the 'dumb' masses predict the winner and, in software, MS owns the masses. Its sad. Though I agree the STB makers will be the real winners but we'll will see MCE with its content/market leverage on STBs not too far off.

Another fine example of this is Windows, no one really likes it but we all use it because everyone else does! (Oh wait I have a mac, too )

[Crazedz]

Oh please MS is still trying to push that old crap of a stb for surfing the web which didn't take off the first time around because it's a crap way of surfing the internet and doing email and nobody wanted it then and they still don't now.

Now if they were to do it all from within MCE and make MCE a purchasable product at a very reasonable price without having to buy a overpriced MCE machine so people could use whatever hardware they currently have that might help but then they'd have to open their support to service a wider range of hardware and I don't think there willing to do that yet and their certainly not willing to make MCE a cheap product to purchase at any rate for obvious reasons. Besides their still struggling with multi tuner support which Tivo, Mythtpc, Sagetv, Beyond and even the Cable co.'s can do now.

Bottom line people use MS for their OS because most of the software everyone has or can purchase for their pc runs on MS's OS but on a STB platform it's a whole different ballgame because linux has some very powerfull features and abilities for STB's (Tivo and Mythtpc) already plus it's cheap as dirt for an OS. The only problem with linux is it's way over some peoples heads to mess with unless they take time to learn linux and are willing to go through all the headache to mod it and add new capabilities to it. But then most people aren't wanting to do that so as long as it has all the features and abilities they care about at a reasonable price they will be happy with it. Which is where Mythtpc, Tivo, Sagetv and the Cable Companies have a serious leg up on MS. Especially Sage which right now can serve content from a linux machine to windows and to media extenders a.k.a. Media MVP and others to follow which gives sage a bigger advantage right now even though they still have yet to support Digital tv or HDTV. Right now Tivo is trying to do that as well with their tivo to go service to.

So MS can't just keep pushing out a crap piece of a STB like they have and wait for hardware to catchup to the MS OS because the hardware is already caught up heck it's already past it think 64 bit linux was and is already their MS is still working on their 64 bit OS.

Not that a STB needs a 64 bit OS but it's an example to show that the MS OS or it's software isn't ahead of the hardware which the main parts that need to be 64 bit are already 64 bit ahead of MS's OS so it's kinda the other way around now.

Really MS does great in and on the desktop arena with PC's and pocket pc's and cellphones as well as entertainment devices like the XBOX but STB's are a different matter.

Plus they don't have a market dominace in the STB arena so it's a mute point.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Crazedz

Oh please MS is still trying to push that old crap of a stb for surfing the web which didn't take off the first time around because it's a crap way of surfing the internet and doing email and nobody wanted it then and they still don't now.

Now if they were to do it all from within MCE and make MCE a purchasable product at a very reasonable price without having to buy a overpriced MCE machine so people could use whatever hardware they currently have that might help but then they'd have to open their support to service a wider range of hardware and I don't think there willing to do that yet and their certainly not willing to make MCE a cheap product to purchase at any rate for obvious reasons. Besides their still struggling with multi tuner support which Tivo, Mythtpc, Sagetv, Beyond and even the Cable co.'s can do now.

They already did, you can go to newegg (or wherever) and pick up a copy of MCE 2005. Yes it's a little more than Sage or whatnot, but you get an OS with it. As for hardware support, MCE support is all the rage now in PC hardware, it's really not hard or expensive to get MCE compatible hardware. No worse than Sage.

Bottom line people use MS for their OS because most of the software everyone has or can purchase for their pc runs on MS's OS but on a STB platform it's a whole different ballgame because linux has some very powerfull features and abilities for STB's (Tivo and Mythtpc) already plus it's cheap as dirt for an OS. The only problem with linux is it's way over some peoples heads to mess with unless they take time to learn linux and are willing to go through all the headache to mod it and add new capabilities to it. But then most people aren't wanting to do that so as long as it has all the features and abilities they care about at a reasonable price they will be happy with it. Which is where Mythtpc, Tivo, Sagetv and the Cable Companies have a serious leg up on MS. Especially Sage which right now can serve content from a linux machine to windows and to media extenders a.k.a. Media MVP and others to follow which gives sage a bigger advantage right now even though they still have yet to support Digital tv or HDTV. Right now Tivo is trying to do that as well with their tivo to go service to.

So MS can't just keep pushing out a crap piece of a STB like they have and wait for hardware to catchup to the MS OS because the hardware is already caught up heck it's already past it think 64 bit linux was and is already their MS is still working on their 64 bit OS.

But from what I've seen (CES Keynote/announcements) MCE is going embedded, ie they've got it shipping in new HDTVs, inside STB, and no those aren't full blown PCs.

[jptaz]

I work on MS Embedded products and I will say that they have brought the licensing prices into the realm of reality for STBs. They now offer a low enough price for it to be considered in places that Linux was traditionally considered king. VMR and other MS techonlogies may be considered worth paying the per STB price over the "Free" Linux options...I say "Free" for linux with the caveat that as a app developer like Frey there is a longer cycle time to get drivers for hardware and many times the drivers need to be developed and maintained in house which starts to mitigate the Free per STB cost. It just means that the Linux box needs to have the same if not more $ amount per STB set aside for it to cover the extra development cost over the per STB MS embedded license with broader Driver support.

John

[jmiddleton]

I think you'll find that Microsoft intend to merge Xbox and MCE into a single consumer appliance over the next few years. I suspect that Sony have similar ambitions for their PlayStation. With HDTV delivering 1920x1080 resolution there is no reason why a media computer needs a separate monitor. If rumors concerning the cell processor Sony, Toshiba and IBM are developing for PS3 are true, the console should deliver close to supercomputer performance for less than $500.00. No problem scaling it into a general purpose box if Sony chooses to do so. Since cell is based on IBM Power architecture it will be very attractive to Apple - OS X should run with few, if any, modifications. Sony and Toshiba will also be building Cell processors into their HD TV and DVD products since it has the power to processs HDTV streams in real time making it an excellent choice for a media PC - no specialized encoder/decoder chips required. This will help keep the cost down. More details on Cell will emerge in a couple of weeks when Sony and IBM give their formal presentation to ISSCC but it is unlikely that any X86 system will ever come close to matching Cell performance - the architecture is simply too old with too many layers of abstraction. Given that Cell is intended for embedded applications in consumer appliances they will be made in massive quantities (3 fabs are already tooling up) and should sell for pennies once reasonable yields are achieved. All this suggests to me that the winner in the battle for the digital home could be an expanded gaming console or an iMac. I freely admit that my crystal ball is no more accurate than anyone elses but these options deserve as much consideration as any of the others in the poll. (No reason why Sage can't still be a major player Java and Cell processors may work very well together).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jmiddleton

If rumors concerning the cell processor Sony, Toshiba and IBM are developing for PS3 are true, the console should deliver close to supercomputer performance for less than $500.00.

Rumour is that the Xbox2 will come in 3 flavors (diskless, with disc, and "nearly-computer"), and that it will be powered by 3, dual-core, 64-bit Power5s.

[jmiddleton]

I've read that PS3 will have 4 cell processors at 4.6GHz which means Xbox2 will need every bit of that power to be competitive. On the other hand, Xbox2 should ship this year, and probably in the $500.00 range, at least for a base system. It's hard to imagine X86 PC's will be competitive as gaming platforms for a couple of years after these consoles hit the market. Even if you could buy equivalent hardware, developers won't take advantage of it until it becomes mainstream. If the "nearly-computer" versions of the consoles provide the functionality of a media center PC, I can see a lot of consumers (including me) opting for this solution instead of a separate PC, game console and TIVO type box.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jmiddleton

I've read that PS3 will have 4 cell processors at 4.6GHz which means Xbox2 will need every bit of that power to be competitive.

Yup, but kind of depends on how they work. There's only so much for a CPU to do, in terms of physics and AI. From what I've read of the Xbox2 info, it sounds as though it will essentailly have 1 CPU for physics/AI etc (maybe on to emulate for current Xbox games but that's just a guess). And the rest will offload geometry processing from the GPU, yeah, at first though it sounds backwards, but MS has filled a pattent on that line.

It will definitely be interesting, have to see if the possitions of Xbox and PS are reversed this time round since this time the Xbox will have a 1 year jump on the PS.

[mayamaniac]

Win the Digital War? What are we talking about here? Like a standard way of enjoying our various medias in the home? I don't think there will be any "winners." It's gonna be the way it is, we have various devices to choose from and they will continue to compete with each other. Don't expect a standard. Beside, what timeline are we talking about here?

In the next year, nothing will change.
In two years? Probably still, nothing will change.
As for 5-10 years from now, its too far fetch to say. Anyone claiming anything should not be taken seriously in any way.