CAN a computer take over the tasks of every piece of hi-fi, video and TV equipment in your living room? Some of the world鈥檚 biggest computer companies think so, and are preparing an advertising blitz to convince consumers that computer-centric entertainment is the way ahead. If they get their way, it could be curtains for the makers of traditional hi-fi and video equipment, but these manufacturers are not giving up their market without a fight.
The new breed of computers promised by Microsoft, Intel and a host of other companies will record and play back MP3 files, CDs, DVDs, TV and radio 鈥� all on a wide-screen LCD monitor with surround-sound audio. Add a broadband internet link and you can have online gaming and the ability to download sound and video content from anywhere on the net. Who, they ask, needs a stack of hi-fi players, amplifiers and tuners 鈥� or the high-rise of video recorders and receivers beneath the TV?
Ken Ishiwata, a hi-fi designer with Marantz in Japan, is blunt about the threat. 鈥淢icrosoft and Intel have declared war on the consumer electronics industry,鈥� he says. The PC industry desperately needs entertainment-oriented computers to catch on because people are not replacing their old PCs as quickly as the manufacturers would like. A survey of 22,000 European homes by Netherlands-based market analyst Forrester Research found that 32 per cent of domestic desktop PCs are at least 5 years old. The entertainment push by Microsoft and Intel is clearly designed to combat the public鈥檚 growing reluctance to replace their computers, Forrester analyst Paul Jackson says.
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The PC makers believe their new machines will give users a better experience, says Erik Steeb, Intel鈥檚 director of marketing in Europe. Who, he asks, wouldn鈥檛 want cinema-quality pictures and surround sound, online games and music from any disc or digital format 鈥� all on one machine at home? 鈥淭he PC is the best platform to store and manage CD and video content. I don鈥檛 want a rack of 300 discs,鈥� he says.
As tantalising as this prospect may be, there are drawbacks. The PCs that will bring music, video, TV and games together inside a single machine could also bring some of the more unwelcome features of the computer world into the living room. PCs are slow to boot up and they are crash-prone. Their hardware add-ons often require users to spend hours on premium-rate help lines to sort out incompatibilities, their software is sometimes full of bugs, and they are virus-prone. If a virus strikes your entertainment PC, it could knock out your radio, TV, CD and DVD players at a stroke. All in all, the consumer electronics companies say people can expect to be massively disappointed.
鈥淲e are used to computer aggravation at work, we don鈥檛 want it in the home too,鈥� says Charlie Brennan, managing director of UK-based hi-fi maker Arcam. 鈥淭he computer companies鈥� arrogance is astounding. They have a different mindset, almost making virtue out of the agony of using a PC.鈥�
So just what is the technology at the heart of the argument? Last year, Microsoft launched Windows Media Center, a version of its Windows XP operating system designed to make it easy for a PC to play and record music and video, and to connect to built-in radio and TV tuner cards. Intel, which makes the Pentium chips at the heart of most Windows PCs, has just launched its Express chipset, which allows a Pentium-powered Windows Media Center PC to deliver high-definition video and five-channel surround sound.
But under the hood it is still a PC like any other. The user鈥檚 music and movies, copied from CDs, recorded off-air or bought from websites like iTunes, will be stored on a hard disc. And any hard disc-based system is slow to boot up. To be 鈥渁lways available鈥� to drive a TV, CD player or radio, the Windows Media Center PC must be left on standby all the time. Combine that with the internet connection and for the first time, living room entertainment equipment is at risk of viruses and worms.
It needn鈥檛 be this way. Such risks could be avoided by using a dedicated computer for entertainment, rather than a general-purpose PC. Without realising it, millions of people are already doing just that. Digital TV set-top boxes are computers in disguise, pre-programmed to do one thing only 鈥� decode and display digital TV pictures and sound. The operating system, often Linux rather than Windows, is small enough to be burnt into microchip memory. It therefore boots up almost instantaneously, so even if the box crashes it can be quickly rebooted.
This is the approach traditional hi-fi and video companies hope will prevail: use computer technology to improve home entertainment, without foisting the foibles of the PC onto people. They know they stand little chance against the might of Intel and Microsoft. But for now, at least, they hope enough people will refuse to 鈥済o computer鈥� to keep them in business.
