Making the DVD Player the Center of the Digital Media Household

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115028,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115028,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>"As PC and consumer electronics vendors work to move digital media off your PC and into your living room, they're calling on a familiar favorite to lead the way: the DVD player. DVD players and recorders have a great advantage over many other approaches to creating a digital home: They are well-established living room products that connect to a TV, the traditional centerpiece of a home entertainment system. Add high-speed wireless networking to distribute content, and you have a product set that many vendors believe will appeal to people likely to avoid seemingly complex media center PCs, media servers, and similar products."<br /><br />Interesting article - it seems vendors are taking two approaches to this. Some are focusing on adding local functionality to the DVD player, like a hard drive and DVD burning, while other vendors are adding wireless access and pumping media from the user's main computer. Which approach do you think is more viable? Myself, I favour keeping my media on a PC, which gives me the ability to manipulate the data, back it up, etc. The article talks about a new product from HP called the HP Entertainment Hub that sounds like it might be a killer solution...go read the article and tell me what you think.

[encece]

I think the number of Non-techie people are dwindling away quickly. I thought my parents were the only two left...but even my mother uses email these days. Maybe it's time to force those resisting technology or claiming to be too old, etc to embrace the technology of the 21st century.

Throw away the WEB-TVs and just go buy a PC, damn it! :D And manufacturers, stop producing items for these people thus forcing different standards even further.

A networked home is the way of the future with all data stored on a common server. As soon as I get some bucks I'm doing it! Though the day the server crashes, I'll be done for! I wont even be able to turn on the lights as they'll be ties into the system too. I'll probably be pulling the WEB-TV out of the box to see if it still works.

[encece]

And whatever happend to the TechTV Best in CES - MOXI???
http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3366931,00.html

Then Replaced by the 2004 winner....
http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/shownotes/story/0,23008,3591508,00.html

[Jason Dunn]

And whatever happend to the TechTV Best in CES - MOXI???

Good question! I had high hopes for the Moxi - in fact, I was CONVINCED my local cable company (Shaw) was going to be implementing this on their network. Never happened. :( I think the Moxi model was to partner with cable companies, rather than selling retail, which is why we haven't seen it, and possibly never will. :?