02/19/2002

By VIKAS BAJAJ and DOUG BEDELL / The Dallas Morning News

A coming wave of electronics aims to join your computer and broadband connection to your TV and stereo in techno-matrimony. All that's left is for the two to get off to a splendid first date.

Technology industry chiefs from Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates on down envision a future where music and video flow freely from the Internet to your computer, then into surround-sound speakers and onto a big-screen television screen. It is, the industry giants say, a natural extension of broadband lines that already stream audio and video to your desk.

But the movement to a networked home is in its infancy. Some skeptics say the technology remains too complicated for average consumers, and many don't even have speedy Internet connections. Not to mention that early adopters lured in by networking's prowess find little rich media content online.

The home networking clarion call came early this year when Mr. Gates unveiled a slew of products and ideas at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A host of others such as Pioneer Corp. and Sony Corp. chimed in with their own set-top devices and wireless networking gear.

"Entertainment and information, which are right now sequestered and separated, are going to be blended in a new way," said James Katz, a Rutgers University communications professor.

But for the two worlds to come together, companies must figure out how to make money from content regardless of how it is distributed and consumers must change their behavior.

"Economics and the human psychology also are going to be agglomerated in a different way. It's not just an issue of connecting one end of the wire to another," Mr. Katz said.

The industry's challenge will be to persuade wary consumers to immerse themselves deeper into often baffling wired and wireless technologies. Many will resist entangling simple, stable TVs and stereos with powerful, but finicky, personal computers.

"There's no room for a PC at the center of entertainment experiences," said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst. "Vendors should focus on set-top boxes instead."

Said home networking guru David Strom: "The reason is simple: Most of us already have a digital hub for our homes, and it is called a TV. ... There isn't enough room in the living room or home theater surround system for a PC to poke its ugly head into this mix."

At the Consumer Electronics Show, computer and software makers attempted to prove their products are best for the long haul. Sony trotted out its $2,800 Vaio MX desktop computer, which is designed to take the place of stereos and digital video recorders in the home entertainment center.

Consumer electronics manufacturers rolled out "entertainment gateways" that take over some computing functions in stand-alone, "smart" set-top appliances.

Moxi Digital Inc., a start-up run by former WebTV developer Steve Perlman, presented Media Center, a set-top box that will be marketed to cable and satellite companies. It combines a DVD player, CD player, MP3 player and the ability to record, play back and manipulate incoming video, much like TiVo or ReplayTV set-top recorders.

"We're probably going to enter a three- to five-year battleground where the PC itself continues to thrive, while all the activity shifts to the heart of the living room," says Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc. of Campbell, Calif., an expert on home electronic trends.

"We see a fundamental war between the smart DVD systems, game systems and set-top boxes to try to be the heart of the entertainment hub," he said.

The rapidly expanding ability of home computers to store and process digital entertainment presents consumers with unique challenges.

As home users begin compiling massive catalogs of music on their hard drives in the home office, how can they feed their favorite music to the stereo entertainment center in an inexpensive way? And why can't that home video, so carefully prepared and edited, be piped to the television for viewing?

A Consumer Electronics Association survey found more than half of 1,067 Internet-connected homeowners were interested in creating a network for distributing audio and video throughout the house.

But only the most inventive and well-heeled have solved the difficulties on their own.

"I have had different levels of success hooking up home networks," said Kathie Hackler, a vice president at research firm Gartner Inc. "It's still not something the average person thinks about putting on their shopping list."

As manufacturers wrestle with standards and newfangled set-top options, home users can create links between PC and entertainment centers using products already on the market.

"There is a lot of cool stuff happening all of a sudden," said Mike Grannan, director of Internet data services at SBC Communications Inc.'s Technology Resources division in Austin. "There are a lot of things available today and more coming in the next year."

Stringing wire throughout the house is daunting, especially if the PC is situated far from the entertainment center. However, most electronics stores now sell long lengths of standard audio cable designed for transferring sound from the PC sound card to stereos.

The $40 MP3 Jukebox kit from Monster Cable contains a 20-foot audio cable plus a copy of MusicMatch Juke Box, which can be used to organize playlists and sort though PC-based music collections. Alternatives include the Stereo-Link Model 1200 ( www.stereo-link.com), a box that hooks into the PC via USB port, then sends it to the stereo via a cable connection.

Other manufacturers make small wireless transmitter-receiver units that can beam either audio or video through walls.

Although many of these units advertise effective ranges of 100 feet or more, performance can degrade over long distances. Because they operate on the same radio frequencies as some microwave ovens and cordless phones, interference can be a problem.

However, many high-end video and audio buffs have found products such as the Wavecom Senior, Leapfrog WaveMaster 20 by Terk and Kima KS-110 Wireless Audio System to be delightful alternatives to hard-wiring their homes.

Most transmitter-receiver pairs sell for $100 or less.

Eventually, Mr. Bajarin said, consumer electronics manufacturers will have to find a common standard for wireless networking.

Some pundits say Wi-Fi (802.11b or the faster, 802.11a) connections will be built into more set-top boxes. Others say devices will use the emerging Bluetooth short-range radio protocol developed by LM Ericsson AB.

Home entertainment systems, including Pioneer's new Digital Library system, are being rigged with 802.11b capabilities. The center of the Digital Library is a set-top box, which catalogs all available music, movies and videos stored on its own hard drive and the hard drives of personal computers in the home.

When more devices have built-in networking capabilities, home networks will emerge without much consumer intervention.

"You will see more and more customers buy these devices off the shelf, plug them in and, in a perfect world, they won't even know they have a network," said Kurt Scherf, vice president of research at Dallas-based Parks Associates. "They will see a lot of value in it."

But experts say two thorny issues must be resolved before the promise of networked homes is realized: Media companies must license their content for online consumption, and more Americans must sign up for broadband.

Copyright protection worries have stalled the movement of music and video to the Internet. Media companies are afraid to put their wares online, lest consumers freely share them with each other, undercutting sales.

Experts say until the industry resolves the issue, there will be little need to connect your computer to the entertainment center.

"It's not a technology question," said Mark Dillon, director of application development for Verizon Online. "It's a question of copyright and patents. It's a question of paying and collecting on those rights."

Another thorny issue is the availability of affordable, speedy Internet connections. Last year, cable and phone companies raised high-speed Internet prices more than 25 percent and scaled back broadband upgrades.

Two years ago, manufacturers – caught up in swelling optimism that fast Internet connections were poised for massive adoption – believed music and movies would be flowing into our homes from the Net by now.

Today's reality is that home computers hold some valuable entertainment, but the Internet is not necessarily its source. Entertainment, experts say, primarily finds its way to home computer hard drives through CD-ripping and digital video or still cameras.

"The two platforms will co-exist for some time," Mr. Bajarin said. "But we've got to try to make them talk to each other."