CONNECTED HOME
50
connected
home
sponsored by
By Rick Smith Vice President, Sales
and Marketing - EchoStar Europe
Home networks were once about computers
and existed largely inside the world of
technophiles. Sharing resources like the
Internet connection or a printer was a key
driver for home networking for over a
decade. Today, computers are used for more
and more activities in the home such as
shopping, facebooking, doing homework or
catch-up TV.
In the age where convergence is no longer a
buzzword but is actually happening, the
focus is also on getting media devices to
communicate and cooperate too. This means
the set-top-box with its digital-video-recorder
capabilities and devices like portable-mediaplayers,
games consoles and mobile phones.
For content operators though, the connected
home has been about relinquishing control
on content to the end-user thus involving the
difficult "cannibalization" concern. Until
recently operators were holding back and
not all of them have yet embraced home
networking as part of their future.
Whenever TV viewers are given access to
'Catch-up TV' or to digital-video-recorders,
they take them up with enthusiasm and there
is no turning back as with the BBC's iPlayer.
With multiple TV sets in the home,
delinearization alone accounts for one of the
strongest motivations to deliver home
networking. Time-shifting usage permeates
into place-shifting that a Slingloaded DVR
delivers elegantly.
The race is on for more connected-home
features like the number of simultaneously
recordable high-definition channels. Full
resolution HD on a portable screen is a
waste of resource and today's specification
should be "good-enough" resolution so as to
Connecting d
as if they wer
Media devices should just talk
to each other as if they were
meant to. Home networking
has always been about hiding
complexity and making it look
easier than it is. Why then, has
it been so difficult in practice?
What are the driving forces
behind this now seemingly
unstoppable trend towards the
connected home?
remain feasible and scalable. Also, power
serves no purpose if it isn't readily accessible
so let's be more concerned about ease-ofuse,
which is one of today's biggest
challenges.
Buying all your sitting room equipment from
the same single vendor like Sony or
Samsung seems a simple way to achieve
ease of use. With any of the TV, Blu-ray or
sound-system remotes you can control all
videonet | issue 1 | www.v-net.tv
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