Archive for Home Media Servers
Posted on Aug 4, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:46 am
Roku is best known among gadget lovers as the company that offers the home music-networking device SoundBridge. It’s rapidly gaining a reputation, though, as a player in the set-top box space with the arrival of its Netflix Player, a small, Internet-connected device that streams Netflix’s selection of Watch Instantly movies over the Internet direct to your TV.
As I’ve noted a number of times in this space, these Internet-connected set-top boxes may be the future of entertainment in the home and Roku has a big advantage being so closely tied to Netflix and its content (Netflix is also a minority owner). In the wake of apparent initial success of the Netflix Player, the company is looking to expand.
In a company profile, Roku’s VP of consumer affairs, Tim Twerdahl, mentions that the company will be looking to add support for content from other “big name” providers via a software update later this year.
I’ve long thought that these kinds of home media servers could expand beyond movies and music to web-delivered photos from services like Flickr or FrameChannel. After all, when all the screens in your home are WiFi-enabled, why not serve different content to different screens from a single hub?
It will be interesting to see if Roku capitalizes on its momentum and buzz to exand beyond just movies over the web to add photos, as well.
Posted on Jul 26, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:49 am
A few months ago, I noted a move by Polaroid away from its traditional film and camera business and towards the emerging portable media player space. Now, the other name most closely associated with photography in the U.S. – Kodak – is also heading towards other kinds of digital media hardware.
Kodak has introduced, and will ship in September, its Kodak Theatre HD Player. The device is a home media server that handles photos, web radio, podcasts, music, and other web-delivered content and pushes it, in HD quality, to HDTVs throughout the house.
The service, of course, suppots Kodak’s Gallery online photo-sharing service, as well as Flickr. But, given that the device is not only photo-specific, but also specifically designed to pull content from the web, it seems that FrameChannel would be an excellent fit as well.
After all, if the goal of the Kodak Theatre HD is to display content on HDTVs, FrameChannel can offer uses not just photos, but also other kinds of web-delivered content, like news, sports scores, cartoons, and more.
Posted on Jul 17, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:39 am
HDTVs and home media servers and streamers are becoming more common parts of our home entertainment landscapes. But, most home media servers are designed to handle standard-definition content only, which doesn’t allow you to take advantage of your HDTV’s high-quality display. This is because home networks, especially wireless ones, can’t usually handle the high bandwidth that HD content demands.
Enter Aztech’s line of HD media streamers. These devices include both a transmitter and receiver and live between your router and TV, ensure that even 1080p HD content can stream smoothly and clearly across your home’s wireless network.
Ensuring this kind of quality will be key to the spread of home media servers in our increasingly high-definition entertainment landscape.
The devices likely won’t be sold to directly to consumers right away. Rather, consumers will get them from cable and Internet providers who are also offering connectivity services. The devices should cost around US$260.
Posted on Jul 7, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:20 am
Hewlet-Packard’s MediaSmart Conect home media server will be available for slotting into your home entertainment network this month.
The device, which acts as a media server to stream audio, video, TV, and photos to TVs and, in some cases computers, around the house, costs US$349. The device, which looks like a small server, connects to your home network via WiFi or Ethernet and accepts both content you load on it and that gathered from the Internet.
These home media servers that are the heartbeat of the home entertainment network seem poised to become more widespread over the next few years as media continues to become more digital and more frequently delivered over the Internet.
As more digital picture frames and other wirelessly connected devices begin to show up in homes, it seems likely that these kinds of servers will be the central repositories for thousands of family photos that are constantly streamed to different screens throughout the house.
Posted on Jun 13, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:43 am
All kinds of media – audio, video, photos, games, downloads – are coming to our TVs thanks to web-connected set top boxes. These media servers are gaining increasingly prominent places in the product line ups of well-known consumer electronics companies and though not all of them connect to the Internet yet, they will soon.
Two recent announcements make that clear.
First off, HP announced that its MediaSmart Connect set top box has added YouTube support to allow users to view YouTube videos on their TVs, without ever once using their computers.
Secondly, Sony is releasing a new home media server to Japan that plays (nearly) all the audio and video formats you can imagine, displays photos, and streams all the content throughout the house over Ethernet. No web features yet (or US availability that I’m aware of), but that seems an obvious next step.
Posted on Jun 11, 2008 by Sam Costello at 2:06 am
In the not-too-distant future, TiVo boxes may do a lot more than just record TV and let you skip the commercials. According to Tom Rogers, president and CEO of TiVo, the company is working on a “whole-home model” that would make the TiVo a hub connected to all TVs.
Rogers made the comment, a seemingly off-hand notion, at the end of a transcription of a live interview, at the D: All Things Digital conference in late May.
TiVo’s desire to take on more capabilities hasn’t been a secret — it’s added streaming music from Rhapsody, Amazon Unbox movie downloads, podcasts, and YouTube support — but this is the first I’ve heard of TiVo explicitly saying it wants to be at the center of the home’s entertainment network.
If that does come to pass, we can expect some wireless networking between TiVo and devices, I think. I suspect TiVo will also need a way to stream photos and other web content to TVs and other displays around the house. FrameChannel might fit that bill.
