Microsoft’s Digital Entertainment Anywhere Conference
Microsoft’s Digital Entertainment Anywhere Conference
By Stephen Muratore
Microsoft launched third-generation Media Center Edition PCs and ancillary devices yesterday at its Digital Entertainment Anywhere conference, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. At his keynote there, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Bill Gates, said, “This year we’ll look back on as an inflection point for those media activities,” adding that over a million copies of the Media Center Edition software have now been sold. He predicted, “with this next version, the one being launched today, the 2005 Edition, we’re going to take that volume level up again, up another factor of four or five. We’re moving Media Center into the mainstream. And this is based on the new features, and on the new partnerships.”
As an example of these new partnerships, he said that Microsoft is now enabling not just the major computer OEMs, but the thousands of “system builders” to build MCE computers. He described a future in which all of one’s music, pictures and videos would be available anywhere, through a variety of devices, controllable through playlists and a standardized, consistent interface. Mr. Gates also said that the penetration of broadband Internet access has already brought many people to the era of downloadable movies. He compared this with the advent of downloadable music: “We could say that video today is sort of where music was, or photography was, four years ago. With video, about 13 percent of PCs have video files on them now. That was almost five years ago with music. We have 50-percent broadband penetration in the United States, and so that helps a lot. On broadband, it takes about 14 minutes to download a compressed movie for a portable device, and that’s about the same as it would have taken over narrowband to download music.”
Bill Gates also introduced Microsoft’s new “Playsforsure” logo. This stamp will be placed on the packages of products certified by Microsoft to work with other Windows MCE and Windows Media Player 10 devices.
Among the new features Bill Gates listed for MCE 2005 were its support of high-definition channels, dual TV tuners, Instant Messaging in the “10 foot experience” and its “add to cue” function which easily enables users–say, various people at a party–to add songs to a live playlist, jukebox style. The complete text of Bill Gates’ keynote is available here.
Following the keynote, conference attendees entered an exhibit room filled with product demonstrations by Microsoft’s Media Center Edition partners. Some of the types of products shown were:
Media Center Edition Computers in the standard mini-tower format from Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Dell, and in new form factors designed for better integration with home theater systems from Stack 9, Alienware, Niveus, ZT, and NCA. Sony also showed a line of Vaio computers aimed at home media management.
Audio/video clients that support the Windows Media 10 series player from companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Linksys (Media Center Extenders), D-Link, Akimbo and Roku. Linksys also showed an 802.11b audio client that comes with detachable speakers. It can be used with headphones as a portable music player, or as a “boom box” anywhere within one’s home wireless network. Microsoft introduces an upgrade to the Xbox gaming machine that makes it also a Media Center Extender.
PC TV Tuner Cards, including a number of dual-tuner cards that can support the dual-tuner capabilities of MCE 2005, by companies such as nVidia, ATI, Aver, and Hauppage.
Wireless a/g Routers by Netgear, Linksys and others.
Portable Digital Music Players by Rio, Dell, Creative and a number of other companies.
The first Cell Phone with Windows Media Player 10 was shown by AT&T.
A Pocket PC with the Windows Media 10 Player installed (the Axim X50) was shown by Dell.
Digital Audio and Video Content Providers such as XM Radio, NPR Radio on Demand, Audible, MSN Music, Napster, Movielink, CinemaNow, MSN TV Today, Akimbo Video On Demand and Kodak with its Share TV version of Ofoto.