• Media Center PC Approach puts convergence push back on track.

• Media Center PCs add user friendly controls.

• Set-top TV/Internet devices continue to decline.

For years industry prognosticators have heralded the age of PC/TV convergence, where computer and television technologies combine into one central system offering new levels of passive and interactive entertainment. Put for a variety of reasons – mostly related to the operational difficulty of PCs and high prices – the concept has yet to take off in a major way.

Manufacturers from both the PC and consumer electronics industries have grappled with the problem, delivering various devices aimed at simplifying the interactive TV experience, while reducing prices, but sales remain small relative to sales of dedicated TVs and PCs.

That may have started to change during the last two years, when a new class of so-called media center PCs arrived, bringing PCs designed specifically for the living room home entertainment experience. 

Media Center PCs Arrive:

TV/PC combination systems, which have been on the market for almost a decade, took a new path in 2003, as several PC manufacturers introduced A/V-centric entertainment PCs dubbed Home Media Centers. Manufacturers of these systems are tapping the natural multimedia attributes of PCs to serve as central component hubs serving home theaters with a variety of video and interactive entertainment sources while at the same time presenting all the functionality of a traditional desktop PC.

Because these systems employ large-capacity hard drives, they can perform personal video recording services. Additionally, many TV/PCs incorporate NTSC and digital ATSC tuner cards that enable viewers to receive off-air broadcasts for playback on a connected TV monitor.

As the home networking concept grows, this approach is expected to become more common because the PC can be adapted to serve as a central server, distributing audio, video and computer functions to terminals in various rooms of a home.

The so-called Media Center PC was launched as a collaboration between PC manufacturers and PC software giant Microsoft, which developed a home-entertainment centric edition of its popular Windows XP PC operating system (OS). The latest iteration of the OS – Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition – comes pre-installed on a PC with a specific set of hardware features. Like other Windows XP PCs, the OS will allow playing music, videos and slide shows, but a Media Center PC also has both a standard video-out jack on top of its VGA connector, a TV tuner and an infrared remote. The PC performs all the functions of a typical Windows XP PC, but when using the handheld remote, Windows' popup menus and icons are replaced by a streamlined interface that can be read easily from anywhere in the room. Commands can be activated with four directional buttons and a central "OK" button.

Media centers can tune TV channels like a set-top box and record programs like a DVR, in addition to playing back digital image and music files, and browsing the Internet. Prices have come down to a level about $100 higher than conventional PCs.

Set-top Internet-Access Devices:
One solution around using a PC to deliver PC-like applications to a TV is the set-top Internet-access device.

Most of these set-top boxes contain powerful CPUs, RAM, a modem, parallel and/or serial ports, small capacity operating systems, Flash ROM (where the operating system is often stored), an optional hard drive, built-in browser and/or software package, which includes e-mail capacity. Designed for ease of use, these devices allow consumers an easy and relatively inexpensive means of accessing e-mail and browsing the Web on their TV screens, without the expense and hassle of using a PC. These products provide Internet content that can be viewed clearly on TV screens. In some cases the set-top device accesses the Internet through a specific Internet service, carrying a monthly subscription fee, typically running around $20 per month. Other units are designed to be ISP agnostic, meaning the user can shop for a third-party ISP, such as the one used for a desktop PC account.

Presented as Internet access for PC-phobic consumers, the concept thus far has failed to sustain a consistent following, and some key developers and manufacturers disappeared or were acquired by larger Internet service providers (ISPs).