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 >> >> > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: > > - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at > FreeLists.org > > - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word > unsubscribe in the subject line. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.