Articles and whitepapers

Doorway or Destination? Media Centre Systems in the Home (1/11/2004)

By Ed Moore, Moore Innovations

Each time I look into the future of home entertainment and try to guess the direction we're taking, I run the risk of being tripped up. I thought it was all getting easier! Analogue TV drops away, CDs replace records, DVDs replace VHS and memory sticks replace cassettes, leaving us with a unified world of digital data delivery for all needs. No, I'm more distracted than ever by the possibilities and mixture of potential systems now on offer: satellite, digital terrestrial, cable, IP TV, DVDs by region, capacity and protection, SACD, MP3, AAC, MPEG4, WMA, DivX, online music downloads, iPods, video servers, multiroom links, PVRs, interactive TV, the Internet and massive multi-player games - where will it end?

The case for the media computer

Long gone are the days when you could buy one piece of equipment to handle one source. Proliferating standards and support give rise to the need for a new approach. This should be a combined multi-standard platform to handle all sources in and all out, across not just home entertainment, but all of your household media needs. This is a media computer.

Example of a high-end media PC

Personal computer technology has, for a long time now, been able to handle multiple data formats with ease - accepting, processing, storing and delivering as necessary - and the time is now ripe for adoption.

Typically in a media PC you will find the means to accept both stored and real-time media, to process them, store when necessary and then deliver on demand. Inputs usually include a digital TV tuner, high-quality DVD player and permanent Internet feed - the Internet being an essential tool whose flexibility is only gaining in importance. These days, output can be via a high-end graphics card to a digital plasma, LCD or projector screen, plus sound via S/PDIF to a full 5.1 or 7.1 receiver, with the whole solution being driven via a wireless keyboard, mouse and remote control system.

Inside the media computer

Inside the system is usually a high-performance processor, more than 200GB of disk space, at least 512MB of memory, and crucially, the software to drive the functions. All this is then wrapped in an attractive and quiet case that can be accepted in the home environment.

Primarily, the software tends to be based on a Microsoft platform (although Linux based systems are appearing), with third party tools such as ShowShifter to provide media management or a product such as Microsoft Media Center. With data handling done primarily in software, you get the flexibility needed to future-proof a home, plus the richness of solution to keep everyone happy.

Functionality

Services include playing and saving DVDs, making music libraries for pleasure or for feeding a mobile player, recording or pausing TV programs, playing games, or even just doing your email. And that is just for a single user. With a media PC, not only do you get a rich media system for the main room, you get a media server for the rest of your home. Multiroom deployments are possible via a simple CAT5 network or even wireless. Share a DVD library, stream music to different rooms and access your home movies in the bedroom - all are handled with ease by a computing platform.

By all means, there are concerns. What of viruses and support headaches, cost and compatibility? These will take time to completely overcome in an installation, but the richness of end solution easily justifies the extra work. It evens makes certain tasks easier in the future - graphic components can be swapped to support HDTV, hard drives can be added to store more data and new software installed for handling better or smaller media types.

Practical considerations

A media PC gives you a single control platform for a huge world of entertainment possibilities without limitations, and from which customers can freely select from a range of activities. From the professional's point of view, the media PC simply controls and manages data. It cannot plan a custom installation, and so should not be considered a threat.

When looking for a system, choose one that has been specifically designed for the purpose rather than a standard PC platform with extra software. Capacity, performance and reliability continue to be important, but now functionality and quietness are issues too. You can expect to pay £600 - £3000 depending on features, looks and capacity, and given the extra functionality, this compares well with standard high-class AV equipment.

The Moore Medio bundled with screen and speaker system

The media PC future

Just because you may have seen a need for a media PC now, do not let this limit your imagination for what you could do in future. Once you have a PC available and always switched on, think of intelligent home security systems with remote access; video telephony for free from your sofa; 10,000 Internet radio stations rather than 30 on Freeview; rental movies delivered to your hard drive and not fetched from a local store. Why use plastic discs to carry bits and bytes around when you can get them direct over the Internet? The possibilities really are endless. Play a game, converse, watch TV, all at the same time from any room in the house - one box fits all.

A media PC makes sense now, and within a short period of time, no other solution to home entertainment will. So come and take the plunge!

Ed Moore is the Managing Director of Moore Innovations Ltd, designers of the Moore Medio line of high-end home cinema PCs.

www.mooreinnovations.com