A Digital Nexus | The Future of the Digital Home

[64NOMIS]

This is a long story, I will make the introduction brief.

I have been building Console 2.0. It is the culmination of my creative thought on how to organize my home entertainment. Today. I have told that story here on HTGuide.

In the course of this work and in my prior endeavors I have spent a significant portion of my time trying to understand the evolving role of the PC and the rise of digital entertainment in the home.

I have spent time on solving problems in the digital home. I have played my part in the inclusion of "Active-TV" on the DSM-520, the cultivation of multi-core processors and platforms, support of the PC DIY and overclocking community, and perhaps most important the evangelism of AMD64 and the rise of 64-bit x86 technology.

And then I had an epiphany. In the long hours of woodwork on Console 2.0, I came to believe that the digital home has become a Gordian Knot. To undue the digital knot, a cacophony of disaggregated, incompatible network-based devices we may need a cataclysm, a catalyst of change.

And I began to write. The Rise of the Central Computer | A Digital Nexus Let me know what you think.

http://links.amd.com/nexus

[aud19]

Interesting. And I agree that's where we're headed, but I believe there's enough people asking the question, sadly your link doesn't seem to lead us to an answer....

Where is our sword? Our catalyst of change?

Indeed.

[64NOMIS]

All was well then the cloud mysteriously failed me. The link now offers a better glimpse of the catalyst...

[littlesaint]

I don't see this happening. Not because of any technology limitations, as that is always growing to meet the needs of consumption, but because of licensing and distribution competition. There are so many different players involved for content distribution from studios and developers to telco/cable/sat to OEM and CE hardware manufacturers, with many companies having their teeth in everything, you are never going to get the "one ring to rule them all."

[64NOMIS]

I don't see this happening. Not because of any technology limitations, as that is always growing to meet the needs of consumption, but because of licensing and distribution competition. There are so many different players involved for content distribution from studios and developers to telco/cable/sat to OEM and CE hardware manufacturers, with many companies having their teeth in everything, you are never going to get the "one ring to rule them all."

I sincerely believe that today's paid-broadcast model is what is at risk, not web-based dissemination.

I believe that the future model for content providers will center on web-based broadcast services like hulu which allow content owners to assert their control while serving their customers with on-demand content. I believe that premium services like netflix would would love to get out of the physical mailing business and move to broadband video dissemination. The problem is, the big screens don't have access to broadband and lack the compute and software stack necessary for provision of service.

We see an analogue in the rapidly changing US wireless service market. In the US the FCC is finally moving toward the provision of wireless broadband services and away from proprietary, closed cellular networks. They are realizing that consumers will benefit from an open pipe on an open network that allows consumers to select devices and services independent of carriers.

The future model places the full capacity of web-based content and local content on every screen in the home and every phone on the go. The web and the cloud help bind the phones together, and the central computer may bind the screens of our home together while giving them consistency and predictability in their experience combined with exponential improvement in functionality over time (Moore's Law), extending well beyond "media playback."

So in short, I think the content problem gets resolved primarily through web-based dissemination and owned/local content with digital broadcast or free/cheap satellite and broadcast content baselines. Cable will have to drop its prices for broadcast content or simply embrace an uber-hulu back-end.

There are a lot of people thinking about the solution to the cell problem - I am interested in the home problem.

But that's just what I think...