Editorial: The slow speed of TV/Network integration

To me its a no-brainer, I want my TV to have an ethernet port (or a wireless adapter built in) to access my home network. I’ve got a WHS box ready to serve up MP4 movies and MP3 audio files, but the only devices that can handle them are my 360 and PS3. Where is everyone else?

(Note: I had most of this written before the most recent Apple TV/DVR/Subscription rumor)

I’ll grant you that the segment of the market that would actually want this type of thing would be small – enthusiasts. However, its one of those situations where you need some sort of end to end solution to provide for this heightened level of functionality. DLNA can handle all the uPnP/streaming technical issues, the only problem is the TV supporting all the necessary codecs though some chip (MPEG-2, AVC, WMV) and some sort of UI that allows the user to select the music and movies.

The only companies I can think of that would be interested in an end-to-end solution are MS and Apple – and I think Apple tried that route with the Apple TV and it didn’t do too well, mostly due to the higher price of the device (local storage) and the lack of a dedicated media server. However, I think you could rebuild an AppleTV device from the ground up (ARM chip and video decoder – essentially an iPod Touch without a screen, sensors, mic or speaker), and only provide enough flash for the OS (streaming only, no local storage) you could trim the costs down to about $80 (and sell it for $129). To build it into a TV, the costs would come down even further (adding $100 to the price tag). If Roku can sell their streaming media player for $99, Apple should be able to sell a streaming only device for $129 (and have a “built in” version inside TVs for $100 extra).

The issue is that, on the Apple side, there is no iTunes media server product. It would act as a central storage system for media and then stream it to the client for playback. Microsoft has their Windows Home Server that can stream media but its somewhat expensive ($400+). Apple could be better served to let their time capsule and airport extreme hardware get firmware updates to allow for the devices to stream movies and music stored on them – this would allow for fairly inexpensive device support ($180 + $100 500GB USB HDD) and serve as a central storage point for all media.

Its not a pretty situation – from almost any angle. There are high start up costs for some sort of enhanced TV/media server setup, putting more storage on the device will push the price up (as is the case now with AppleTV), and just adding DLNA support doesn’t help most non-tech savvy people who otherwise cant share video from their computer to their TV (how much video would they have in the first place?).

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