[opendtv] Re: New Sony COO bullish on Blu-ray


Ron Economos wrote:
 > My current thought is that the critical mass for home
 > networks (using any transport) is quite far in the future,
 > if ever. Even DLNA (which everyone seems to like)
 > would seem to have a difficult road ahead. But I
 > may be wrong.

My own current techno-political opinion is that home networks for 
non-copyrighted IP is a cake walk but for copyrighted and protected 
material is still totally infeasible.

And my IO-Data Linkplayer is off on a shelf somewhere.

- Tom


> I'm not really trying to defend 1394. Just pointing out
> that Kilroy's alternatives don't exist in the cable STB
> world (at least not yet).
> 
> As a 1394 developer, I'm well aware of the politics
> and sentiment towards 1394. It's amazing how an
> inanimate object can generate so much animosity.
> Even my co-workers often ask the question "When
> will 1394 die?". Reminds me of the Neil Young
> lyric "it's better to burn out than to fade away".
> 
> However, in my mind, the real question is "Are home
> networks even viable?". I was given a nice demo last
> night of the I-O Data Avel LinkPlayer home networked
> device. It's capabilities are pretty impressive and quite
> numerous. But at least to me (and I admit that I'm
> not much of a CE consumer even though I work in
> the industry), that it only had geek appeal and was
> way over the head of the average consumer.
> 
> My current thought is that the critical mass for home
> networks (using any transport) is quite far in the future,
> if ever. Even DLNA (which everyone seems to like)
> would seem to have a difficult road ahead. But I
> may be wrong.
> 
> Ron
> 
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> 
> 
>>At 1:45 AM -0700 5/16/06, Ron Economos wrote:
>> 
>>
>>
>>>Except that the reality of current cable STB's
>>>is that they all have ethernet and USB ports,
>>>yet none of these interfaces are actually enabled
>>>by cable providers.
>>>
>>>BTW, I'm the designer (along with my JVC cohorts)
>>>of the 1394 interface for the HM-DH40000U,
>>>HM-DH5U and HM-DT100 D-VHS decks.
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>
>>You're not going to make any progress with this discussion Ron. 
>>Kilroy is simply parroting the MS company line with respect to 
>>Firewire. They never liked it, never will.
>>
>>Most of the FUD about 1394 as a display interconnect came out of 
>>Redmond. !394 was never intended as a display interconnect, nor was 
>>it designed for the transport of uncompressed bitstreams, although it 
>>can do this with SD video in a pinch.
>>
>>The whole idea behind 1394 with HDCP was as a device interconnect for 
>>compressed isochronous streams. in a more perfect world, you could 
>>use the 1394 port on that cable box to add more hard drives to 
>>increase the total storage capacity of the system. But this would 
>>also mean that you could take digital content from the cable moguls 
>>and put it on a hard drive that you could connect to any other 
>>machine and play.
>>
>>Once again we are getting hung up on what is possible in a technical 
>>sense, versus what is ALLOWED in the REAL techno-political world. 
>>1394 with DTCP was supposed to be the political solution that would 
>>allow us to share media across an in-home network. DTCP provides the 
>>content management layer to support handshaking between devices and 
>>the keys that would make sharing content practical in the home, and 
>>profitable for the members of the DTCP royalty pool.
>>
>>It is ironic that Kilroy points out that 1394 has been a success as a 
>>professional interconnect for digital camcorders and the world of 
>>professional digital media content authoring; a world that Microsoft 
>>does not dominate. In that world you can buy a wide range of devices 
> 
>>from a wide range of vendors, plug them together and do your job. 
> 
>>This is what SHOULD be expected in the digital world we are trying to 
>>create. There are no political barriers to raising the bar; thus we 
>>have seen the growth of digital media authoring platforms for SD to 
>>HD, and the ability to output your content in whatever format/codec 
>>you want/need. Even Sony and Avid have been forced to open up their 
>>systems and codecs, due to the reality that this involves nothing 
>>more than some simple blocks of plug-in code that can be used across 
>>the diverse devices that are used to author content today.
>>
>>Unfortunately, the same capabilities do not exist for digital media 
>>consumers today. Rather than a vibrant marketplace where you can buy 
>>components from any vendor and plug them together to create your 
>>in-home digital media entertainment configuration, we have a world 
>>filled with roadblocks, and connectors on the backs of boxes that 
>>simply do nothing, because the companies that reluctantly put those 
>>connectors on the boxes will not enable them.
>>
>>The CE guys keep building components that only work together if you 
>>buy everything from them. Microsoft keeps designing Media Centers 
>>that support only the "Open Technologies" they wish to support, and 
>>only then with layers of Microsoft proprietary code to keep you 
>>inside THEIR walled garden. By the way, although I appreciate the way 
>>the products i buy from Apple work together, they are no better than 
>>Microsoft in terms of being "open."
>>
>>As I told Bert when I first responded to this thread, we are not 
>>discussion technical issues here. We are talking about a handful of 
>>oligopolists trying desperately to hold onto archaic business models 
>>that would already have been blown away, were it not for their 
>>ability to impede technical innovation while seeking protection from 
>>the politicians, who are cannibalizing our constitutional rights with 
>>respect to its original intent to proliferate intellectual property 
>>to the masses.
>>
>>And the beat goes on and on and on...
>>
>>Regards
>>Craig
>> 
>>
> 
> 
>  
>  
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