Software to Channel Films From PCs to TVs

As media companies start piping music and movies through the Internet, their wares reach millions of personal computers--but few of the living room stereos and TV sets most people turn to for entertainment.

Those companies--including Vivendi Universal and Warner Bros.--count on the Internet to be the next-generation conduit for digital entertainment on demand. But without a simple path to the living room, music and movies from the Web may never find their way to mainstream audiences.

Some computer and electronics companies have tried to bridge that gap with specialized devices that connect computers to home entertainment gear, but consumers have shown little interest. Nor has there been much demand for TVs and receivers that hook directly to the Net.

“This is the single biggest technical issue facing Hollywood: Moving the content off the PC and into the living room, where people are used to having their entertainment,” said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with GartnerG2.

In the latest effort, an Austin, Texas, company is trying to bridge the gap by piggy-backing on Sony Corp.’s popular PlayStation 2 game console, which is plugged into 40 million TV sets worldwide. New software by BroadQ connects a PS2 console to a PC through a digital home network, enabling the box to play MP3 files, digital movies and TV shows stored on the PC.

This approach may not fare any better with consumers than previous attempts to unlock entertainment from the PC, but it’s a harbinger of things to come as Sony and Microsoft Corp. tinker with ways to expand their game consoles into digital media centers. It’s also a preview of the kinds of products that several large consumer-electronics companies plan to roll out--devices that can ferry all kinds of entertainment around the home through high-speed wireless digital networks.

The goal is a home where music, games and movies travel freely from room to room, letting consumers enjoy them on whatever screen and speakers are nearby. Microsoft, for example, added storage and Internet capability to its Xbox game console with the idea that consumers eventually will want to use it for all sorts of entertainment both inside and out of the home.

Some analysts say BroadQ is jumping the gun. Most consumers aren’t interested in such a complicated solution, they say, and the next generation of game machines will be better equipped for the job.

“This is something the average consumer isn’t going to do,” McNealy said. “This requires a high level of computer sophistication.”

The same hurdle has tripped up previous efforts to integrate PCs into home entertainment.

Gateway Inc., Dell Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., among others, have tried in recent years to sell audio-visual gear that piped programming from a computer or the Internet to TV sets and stereos. But these devices worked only in homes with digital networks--typically, the kind that required consumers to run high-capacity wires from room to room.

Only about 6% of U.S. homes have any kind of digital network, according to Parks Associates, a Dallas market research and consulting company. With too many competing technologies and not enough compelling programming, consumer electronics companies have been reluctant to push home networking, said Kurt Scherf, vice president of research at Parks.

Many consumers have come up with a simple alternative to home networks: They record digital music or movies onto CDs or DVDs, then carry the discs from their computers to their living-room stereos and DVD players. In fact, many new disc players come with the ability to play homemade CDs with MP3 files, the most popular form of downloadable music, and many DVD players are adding support for digital video in formats developed by Microsoft and DivXNetworks Inc.

BroadQ’s software also requires a home network, but its approach is different from its predecessors’ in that it takes advantage of a device that’s already sitting in one out of 10 U.S. homes--the PS2. BroadQ’s solution requires PS2 owners to buy Sony’s broadband adapter and network the PS2 by connecting the box to a hub via Ethernet cable. Users then would pop a disc into their PS2 and another into their PC. The software would let the two machines talk to each other and share movie and music files. In this fashion, the PS2 becomes a conduit to the television or home stereo.

But today’s console owners have demonstrated little desire to do anything more with their boxes than play games, much less buy peripherals for their machines and hook them up to a network. Sony, knowing this, plans to ship just 400,000 of the adapters needed to connect the PS2 to the Internet or a home network over the next seven months.

Nevertheless, BroadQ has lined up a few allies to help convince PS2 owners to buy its technology: MoodLogic automatically generates playlists for the digital music files on a computer, SnapStream enables computers with built-in TV tuners to record shows digitally, and DivXNetworks makes one of the most popular formats for downloadable movies.

With these partners, a BroadQ-equipped PS2 can function as a jukebox, personal video recorder and digital video player. The consumers most likely to benefit are those who’ve filled their computers with movies and music from online file-sharing services, the richest sources of free--and unauthorized--copies of media on the Net.

Noticeably missing from the list of partners, however, is Sony.

A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment, other than to say BroadQ is not an officially sanctioned PlayStation technology.

Sony’s desire to distance itself from BroadQ is hardly surprising, analysts say, given BroadQ’s support for the DivX format popular with online movie pirates. Aside from making games, Sony also produces movies and music, and like other major studios and labels, Sony is struggling against piracy.

The Japanese consumer-electronics giant also is working to develop its own solutions for distributing entertainment over the Internet. One such effort is PlayStation 3, which is not expected out until 2005 or later. Sony is working with IBM Corp. and Toshiba to develop a 16-chip microprocessor architecture capable of processing photo-realistic digital data for games and movies. Sony also expects the machine to have the ability to connect to high-speed Internet services.

Before the Internet becomes a mainstream source of home entertainment, consumers will need simple, wireless home networking, fast Internet connections with guaranteed high capacity, and standard approaches to blocking piracy, Gartner’s McNealy said.

“We don’t have any of those things today,” he said. “Since home networking isn’t mature enough yet, we’ll continue to see patchwork solutions like this in the interim.”