Getting it to You

by Terry Borst

Not many years ago, computer data primarily represented items like company spreadsheets, departmental memos, PowerPoint slideshows and personal finance information. However, today our computers increasingly serve as repositories for leisure time entertainment.

This creates a dilemma. If you want to play MP3s you've downloaded, you're stuck with your computer's tinny speakers, or with going to the trouble of finding some idle external speakers (who's got those, anyway?) to hook up to your computer.

If you'd like your family to see photos -- sent to you via AOL's "You've got pictures" feature, let's say, or downloaded from a digital camera memory card -- you have the choice of:

Bringing everyone into your home office to crowd around your computer monitor for viewing; or
you're lucky enough to own a notebook computer, squeezing everyone onto the living room sofa to peer at a 14" display screen.

You can't blame anyone in the family for running the other way, whenever you suggest looking at digital pictures or listening to digital music.

But what if your computer and your living room entertainment center -- your sound system, your TV -- could talk to each other? What if you could simply push buttons on a remote while sitting on the couch -- and cue your tunes, pull up your photos, and show your dinner guests the first pitch your daughter made competing on a softball team?

Uh-huh. It'd be pretty nice. And you can do it. Today.

This article provides an overview of PC-to-living room networking products. And for the most part, we're not talking about the purchase of any new electronic consoles or system units, or any new wiring. Instead, the setup can be as simple as adding a receiver and transmitter, and putting a remote control in your hand. The PC acts as the network server, and the living room stereo and TV become network clients.

Stereo Sonic

Some 15 million people already use "digital jukebox" software on their PC. Consequently, several manufacturers now make it easy for digital audio to make the leap from your computer (a great place for storage) to your stereo system (a great place for high-quality sound playback). However, we'll find several different approaches to this task.

US Robotics' Soundlink, a "wireless audio delivery system", sets up a transmitter by your PC (connected via cable to your sound card) and a receiver by your stereo (connected with a standard RCA audio cable). Data transmits at the 900Mhz FM frequency, similar to many cordless phones. The broadcast range, in theory, runs up to 1000 feet -- so you could keep a PC even in an outside workshop, and still listen to music in your living room.

The Soundlink handles any digital audio file format, and can also direct Internet radio broadcasts to your stereo speakers. But the Soundlink does lack a separate remote control, meaning you'd first set up your digital jukebox or Internet radio on the PC, then direct the Soundlink to send audio to your stereo.

RCA offers a nearly identical product in its Lyra Wireless (RD900W), though the transmitter connection relies on a USB cable, rather than a sound card stereo cable.

More importantly, RCA includes a universal remote control, so you can direct audio from PC to stereo while sitting in the La-Z-Boy. The Lyra Wireless does this through the installation of RCA's companion MusicMatch digital jukebox software on the PC. Once you've organized a few playlists, you really can control your audio solely through the remote. Through MusicMatch, the remote control easily allows you to cue a CD sitting in your computer, MP3 and WMA files stored on your hard disk, or Internet radio accessed through a web browser.

You can even program the Lyra Wireless remote control. This way, your "Night-Relaxing" playlist could become a one-button selection. Or, you could set up the "Party" playlist to be repeated twice, before moving to the "Late Night Party" playlist.

Motorola's SimpleFi provides slightly more user feedback and control in the living room, by souping up its receiver. About the size of a typical hardcover book, the SimpleFi receiver sports a 3-line display screen on its front panel, with white text against a blue backlight. Here, one can scroll through playlists and Internet radio channels using a handheld remote. This clearly beats programming a remote -- you can choose playlists and Internet broadcasts on the spur of the moment, and get instant visual feedback on your selections.

Install Motorola's SimpleServe software on your PC, and you can begin setting up playlists and channels to browse on the SimpleFi's living room display screen. SimpleServe includes a neat feature called TagIt. Press the TagIt button on the remote while a song plays, and later on you can go to your PC and instantly collect all the detailed information you could possibly want on the songs you tagged. You'll find this particularly useful if you're listening to Internet radio and hearing a song for the first time: you'll discover who the artist is, what CD the song is on, and you'll even be offered a direct link to the purchase of the CD.

Currently, SimpleFi only works with MP3 music files, and not with (the less widely used) WMA music format.

SimpleFi uses a USB transmitter-to-PC connection, and a broadcast protocol known as HomeRF -- which operates at the 2.4Ghz frequency range -- to broadcast between transmitter and receiver.

As you might imagine, SimpleFi costs more than the Lyra Wireless or the Soundlink -- but if you have an extensive digital audio collection on your computer, or love Internet radio, this may be the better solution to bringing computer audio to the living room.

If your computer already has a wireless WiFi (802.11b) or wired Ethernet connection, CD3O's MP3 Player may be what you're looking for. Despite its name, the CD3O base station handles both MP3 and WMA files, and by connecting it to your existing home WiFi network and to your stereo, you'll have instant access to your PC music library from the living room.

CD3O provides its Music Server software for music management on the PC, and this connects with CD3O's most interesting feature, cued from the remote control. CD3O's VoiceGuide will announce each track and playlist from your stereo speakers. Consequently, you can do all of your programming in the living room, with selections provided aurally rather than visually.

Finally, Turtle Beach's Audiotron combines some elements of CD3O's MP3 player and Motorola's SimpleFi. Intended for connection to an existing Ethernet network or a wired phone line network, the Audiotron's living room base station has a 2-line visual display. Jukebox software will again manage your PC music library, and selecting tracks and playlists becomes a matter of scrolling and selecting using the included remote.

Pictures With Your Sound

If you're a digital photo or streaming video aficionado, just bringing digital sound into your living room isn't going to be enough. Once again, manufacturers have explored several approaches to serving this need. However, all of these products use either Ethernet or WiFi network connections, and all turn the TV into a remote-controlled "computer monitor" for their media management.

Hewlett-Packard's Digital Media Receiver 5000 connects to Ethernet and WiFi networks just like CD3O's players, with the addition that it can manage and display your PC's JPEG, GIF and PNG images on your TV just as easily as it can manage your digital musical library. The base station connects to both your TV and stereo, and all browsing and selecting is done using a remote and your TV screen.

Care to print the photo displayed on your TV? The DMR 5000 allows you to do this with one button push on its remote (you'll need a printer on your network, of course). In addition, you can attach multiple DMR 5000 receivers to the network, enabling the simultaneous access of the same digital photo or audio file throughout the house. In other words, guests in the living room can listen to the same music as guests in the garage "rec room".

Owners of Tivo Series 2 can now order up the Home Media Option, which will do pretty much what the DMR 5000 offers. Tivo owners download software both to their Tivo and to their PC, connect the Tivo to an Ethernet or WiFi network, and use the Tivo as a bridge between the PC, TV and stereo. This enables digital audio and digital photos to be managed on the TV, using just the Tivo remote. Two Tivos on the same network can also share Tivo recordings. However, Tivo draws the line on any other digital video access: if you've got digital video on your PC, the Home Media Option won't display it on your TV -- and Tivo-recorded video can't be transferred out to the PC.

Prismiq, a California startup, takes PC-to-living-room networking a step further. Its MediaPlayer connects to the PC via Ethernet or WiFi, outputs audio to your stereo, and outputs still photos and MPEG1 and MPEG2 video to your TV. Prismiq's MediaManager software, once installed on your PC, performs the usual file and playlist organizational tasks.

With the MediaPlayer, you'd expect to make your media selections on your TV, using a remote. But in addition, Prismiq's receiver has a Web browser and instant-messaging client built into it. Providing your network has Internet access, your TV can also be used to browse the Web, read email, and instant-message (for the latter, it'll help if you buy Prismiq's optional wireless keyboard).

SonicBlue, the makers of the Rio line of MP3 players, ups the ante even more with its Go-Video D2370. This product performs nearly all the tasks that Prismiq's MediaPlayer does (though it doesn't have the built-in browser and IM client), but includes a DVD player. The D2370 uses Ethernet or WiFi to connect to the PC, and handles audio files, photo files, and MPEG video files much like the Prismiq, with PC-installed software and a remote-controlled interface from the handheld remote to the TV. For consumers thinking of getting rid of that early-generation DVD player, SonicBlue's networked DVD player may be the perfect next step.

Finally, owners of Sony Vaio PCs interested in establishing home entertainment networks should give serious consideration to Sony's RoomLink network media receiver PCNA-MR10. Specially designed to connect the TV and stereo to a Vaio, the RoomLink manages and outputs digital audio, digital photos, and digital video, much like the Prismiq and SonicBlue units. In addition, the product provides GigaPocket personal video recorder software for the Vaio. This enables the Vaio to be used much like a Tivo PVR -- with the advantage that the Vaio has a much larger hard disk than any Tivo.

End The Separation Between Living Room And Office

Tech experts use a fancy word for what these products further: convergence. But what these products really do is to finally bring the fun part of the computer into our living room -- while leaving the rest of the computer (along with all of its hardware) in the office where it belongs.

Confused by all the jargon? This will help:

Internet radio: Audio broadcast channels available only through the Web. While your local area may support a few dozen radio stations, you can find thousands of Internet audio broadcast channels. Some of them cost nothing; others require a subscription.
Ethernet: An industry-standard wired network connecting multiple devices (PCs, printers, modems, scanners and more) at high speeds.
HomeRF: An early generation wireless network connecting consumer electronic devices, now being replaced by Bluetooth and WiFi networks.
WiFi: An industry-standard wireless network connecting multiple devices (PCs, printers, modems, scanners and more) at high speeds.
USB (Universal Serial Bus): USB connections connect mice, modems, keyboards, scanners, digital cameras, and other peripheral electronic devices to a computer. USB has now largely replaced much slower serial and parallel computer connections.
MP3 (MPEG3): This industry-standard audio data compression file format allows for easy electronic exchange of music tracks.
WMA (Windows Media Audio): This alternative audio data compression file format, propagated by Microsoft, offers slightly better compression ratios (meaning smaller files), and some music tracks will be found in this format.