In a corner of his Whitby, Ont. store, Janos Kantor of Bestbyte Computers has set up a PC-based home theatre for customers.
He’s unable to assemble systems for purchase yet — one obstacle is Microsoft has not yet released its Windows XP Media Centre Edition to system builders, so he’s using
third-party software on top of the standard version of WinXP. But looking at the equipment various vendors are putting on the market Kantor sees the possibilities.
“”It’s a new area to sell into that we haven’t sold into in the past,”” he explained.
“”And it’s exciting.””
That’s what Intel Canada hopes manufacturers and resellers think too, which is why last month it set up a digital home demonstration in a two-floor suite of a Toronto hotel, showing the chipmaker’s bid to get a piece of what the industry thinks will be the next profitable market segment.
“”We’re concentrating on what we do to enable the platform which supports companies like Janos’ to have standard building blocks they can build products on,”” said Doug Cooper, Intel Canada’s manager.
In addition to graphic and wireless chipsets, his company is also working on a common language for consumer devices to talk to each other. “”When a PC turns on it should send out a signal to everything in the house saying ‘I’m here. I have these pictures and this music and these pre-recorded videos,'”” he said, and the user doesn’t have to do a lot of configuration.
So Cooper was showing off to media, vendors and resellers some custom-made and about-to-be-released entertainment centre equipment for managing content designed around Intel’s 915 chipset, as well as third party wireless routers and other gear which had passed Intel’s network media testing.
Intel has been creating reference and concept designs for manufacturers, hoping to encourage the industry to assemble home entertainment solutions. Such suggested designs include two TV tuners as well as a hard drive for recording broadcasts.
There’s hardly a vendor in the consumer space which isn’t eagerly going after this potential market. Recently Hewlett-Packard announced it not only will be making a digital entertainment centre, it’s getting into plasma and LCD flat-panel TVs and cinema digital projectors for the home.
Last month ViewSonic Corp. announced a wireless media adapter and wireless media gateways (see page 24) will be added next month to its lineup of projectors and flat panel televisions.
Much of the focus in the media centre will be the TV, said Cooper, because few want to share photos on a PC screen. So companies are developing wireless digital media adapters (DMAs) to get rid of the wires between the PC and televisions and stereos throughout a home.
“”Intel’s role is to look at what the industry requires and what consumers want,”” Cooper said, pointing to an Intel-designed digital media centre made by Tatung.
“”One of the big issues (in digital entertainment centres) is noise and thermals. This thing can’t have a big noisy fan.”” So the company has designed a PC-like chassis that controls air flow so it will be very quiet.
Resellers should pay attention to this market, he suggested. “”The consumer is by far the larger growth opportunity, even though business is half of our (processor) consumption, there’s a lot of consumers that are potential candidates for this new device. This is not replacing the PC, this is an additional device. People are going to buy one of these and they’re still going to have a PC.””
Intel’s campaign to get resellers torqued for this market include pep talks at industry symposiums and demos like this one. Marketing materials that the channel can give to customers will be out shortly.
It’s also pushing media centre manufacturers to team up with content suppliers so the device is useful as soon as it’s purchased.
“”At the moment it’s not a big opportunity,”” admitted Kantor as he looked at the Intel displays, “”but it’s an important one, because it adds an extra level of use to your home PC that most people haven’t explored.
“”So instead of people walking in and upgrading a PC they already have, they’re going to add on to their home network. So there’s an opportunity to sell additional devices we wouldn’t have sold in the past.””
Twelve months from now his business might see 20 to 30 per cent of its sales in digital home entertainment equipment, he predicted.
“”This Christmas is going to be an interesting test because a lot of this product will be available by then.””
