Feature
Blurring the Line Between TV and PC
By Kassandra Kania
Mar 3, 2007, 18:33

You're sitting on the couch watching television on a big screen, flipping through channels with the remote, and recording shows to watch later -- is this really all happening on the PC?

It's getting harder and harder to tell PCs from televisions. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2007), suppliers showcased a wide range of options that allow viewers to stay glued to the boob tube, whether at home or on the road. Home PCs are looking and acting more and more like televisions, with large screens, remote controls and software optimized for entertainment, while notebook PCs are being equipped to receive television programming over the Internet.

Cyberlink and DiBcom, for example, have teamed up to make the notebook computer into a mobile digital television – DiBcom’s dual-antenna platform receives digital video broadcasts using either the DVB-T or DVB-H standard, and CyberLink’s PowerCinema software lets users play back TV content. PowerCinema includes time-shift playback, electronic program guides, scheduled TV recording, and the ability to watch and record simultaneously. Cyberlink is also partnering with NDS, whose VideoGuard PC security device plugs into the computer’s USB port so that users can access paid TV content from the computer.

NDS, in turn, is also working with VBox to broadcast digital high-definition television content to PCs. Showcased at CES, the VBox Cat’s Eye Premium is an HDTV receiver optimized for reception of video, audio and IP data. Connecting to the PC via a USB port or PCI slot, it provides digital set-top-box functionality for the PC.

Slinging TV Content

Another company offering expanded solutions at this year’s show was Sling Media, whose Slingbox transmits TV content to a remote PC. New technology called Clip+Sling lets Slingbox customers share short segments of programming – live or recorded – with other Slingbox customers, as well as with a larger audience. Clip+Sling will be built into both the desktop and mobile versions of SlingPlayer software. While customers will need a Slingbox to publish clips, the content they post will be accessible by anyone.

SlingPlayer Mobile on the Treo phone

Sling Media also showcased several other new products: A customized version of the SlingPlayer software is designed to take advantage of Microsoft’s Windows Vista Premium operating system (for example, the full-screen viewing mode based on Vista’s Aero Glass overlays SlingPlayer controls and customized TV remote controls on top of the Slingbox video stream); and SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm OS lets Treo smartphone users watch and control their home televisions at broadband-like speeds.

Slingbox got some more competition this year with the announcement of several new place-shifting devices:

• Axion previewed its new iPTV, which consists of a base station and 7-inch wide-screen wireless LCD display. The iPTV lets consumers watch home TV or Internet TV content anywhere in the world with a broadband Internet connection. By digitizing the content from a TV, DVR, cable, or other video source, the AXN-8017 provides streaming video via a home network (or Internet) to the wireless 7-inch LCD anywhere in the world.

• The Monsoon Hava

  Monsoon Multimedia announced the availability of HAVA, which enables the wireless streaming of video content from any video source to multiple PCs in a home or business. Content can be viewed in full-screen, DVD-quality video on multiple PCs simultaneously, or viewed remotely on an Internet-connected PC. Users can control all the functions of the video source such as a TV or TiVo from their PCs. HAVA allows TV content on the PC to be stored, recorded, and burnt onto DVDs and enables the PC to operate as a personal video recorder with pause, fast forward, and rewind functions. Windows XP Media Center Edition PC users can use HAVA as a wireless tuner to add full multimedia capabilities to their PCs.
  
• Avid Technology announced two new versions of its Pinnacle PCTV To Go: the PCTV To Go HD and PCTV To Go HD Wireless. Both offer high-definition and standard-definition television viewing and are Windows Vista-ready.

TV or not TV?

Other companies that exhibited hardware and software at CES are continuing to blur the lines between TVs and PCs:

• On HP’s Digital Entertainment Center, users can record and view TV shows anywhere in the home and also view digital content such as photos, music and videos.
• Dell introduced Home Media Suite, a bundle that includes a Windows Vista desktop, a digital TV tuner, 27-inch flat-panel monitor, speakers, a full suite of entertainment software, a printer, and an 802.11 pre-n router and powerline AV bridge. The suite lets users receive and record high-definition digital cable and stream it wirelessly to other parts of the home.

• AMD's ATI TV Wonder

  The new model of AMD’s ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuner turns a PC into a personal video recorder with Windows Vista Media Center menus and interfaces. In addition to bringing premium HD digital cable channels to the PC, it also supports over-the-air digital TV, analog TV and satellite set-top box connectivity.
• Corel, which just acquired InterVideo, announced InterVideo WinCinema, a software application that turns ordinary PCs into Media Center PCs -- complete with 10-foot-interface solution for watching TV and videos, playing music, viewing photos and listening to radio. WinCinema also enhances Media Center PCs with features like HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc playback, TV support, DVD authoring and real-time MPEG-2 encoding.
• ExtendMedia and Showtime Networks announced the first consumer video download-to-own service designed for Windows Vista. The service lets consumers use ExtendMedia's OpenCASE software to download episodes from Showtime series and play them on a home PC or transfer them to a portable player for viewing on the go.
• Intel and CinemaNow also announced a download collaboration; movie download service CinemaNow is adapting its Burn-to-DVD feature to work with Intel Viiv-based PCs, large-screen PCs that are operated via remote control from across the room. Currently, the service only woks with a standard PC interface, at a 2-foot distance.
• MediaZone announced a beta version of its shared streaming Social TV platform. The platform let users chat with others watching the same television show and rate, comment on and blog about the shows.