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Over the past decade, there has been a phenomenal amount of crossover between computer technology and TV technology. This is especially surprising given the fact that most Americans have largely rejected the idea of a living room computer. However, most of the computer technology that has found its way into the living room hasn’t had the overt appearance of a personal computer.

The earliest example of an acceptable piece of computer equipment in the home entertainment center (that wasn’t a video game platform) was the digital TV receiver. The widespread use of these devices actually dates back to the early nineteen nineties when satellite TV became economically viable for typical households. By all outward appearances, it would have been easy to blur digital TV receivers together with any other set top box, but underneath it all was the fact that they converted digital data to the sounds and images that made up TV.

The DVD player was a much more obvious example of the blurring between computer and TV technologies. After all, by the time that DVD players became common, CD-ROM drives had been on computers for years. Since both are optical drives, and computers and DVD players loaded their discs in similar ways, the resemblance was pretty plain. Of course, CD’s had been in stereo systems and computers for years, so people were already used to seeing the resemblance there.

The next major change was the digital video recorder. DVR’s as these devices are more commonly known, can record video onto computer hard disks and then play that video back later. Most models also automatically record whatever the viewer is watching live in order to enable the pausing and rewinding of live TV. Among the advantages that DVR’s have over VCR’s is an ease of programming that none of the manufacturers of VCR’s ever got right. Another advantage of DVR technology is an ability to watch recorded programs in any order. That’s because a hard disk doesn’t store video sequentially like a video tape does. In other words, a video file can simply be accessed without the time wasted cuing through other videos.

Over the years, computers have also taken on a number of the same capabilities that’s previously only been reserved for TV sets. For example, it’s been possible to buy a special TV tuner that can be installed in a computer for years. These devices allow computers users to watch TV right on their computer screens. These days though, this capability is standard on many computers to some extent. For example, most modern computers can display streaming Internet video on their screens and laptop computers have been used to watch DVD’s for years. There are also now special adapters available that contain a TV tuner and connect to laptop computers through a USB port so that users of laptop computers can watch TV on the screens of their laptops.

The most obvious hybrid between computers and TV equipment is the media center computer. These devices are DVD players, DVR’s, digital receivers, and Internet browsing machines all combined into a single unit. They’re likely to be the future of TV technology.

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), the leading trade association for the world’s information technology (IT) industry, announced today that it is now accepting speaking proposals for Breakaway 2008, the association’s annual member conference.

 



CompTIA Logo

 

Breakaway 2008, the IT industry’s premier partnering and educational event, is scheduled for Aug. 5-7 at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.

Seven educational tracks are planned for this year’s conference:



Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: A Roadmap for Success

Marketing Successfully in a New Service-centric World

Virtualization: The Value Proposition in the SMB Market

Green Computing: Benefits to the Environment and Your Business

Evolution of Managed Services: Where Are You?

Unified Communications: Applications for Today’s Business

Data Security in a Mobile World



Additional details on the individual educational tracks are available at http://breakaway.comptia.org/call_for_papers.aspx.

 

Proposals for speakers should include full contact information; the educational track name; title of the proposed session; a detailed description of the session; and the speaker’s name, title, organization, and biography. The deadline for submissions is Monday, June 16.

Each year Breakaway brings together executive-level representatives from IT industry manufacturers, distributors, value added resellers, systems integrators, independent software providers, service providers, and consultants. With its strong, solutions-based agenda and compelling educational content, Breakaway brings the IT channel together as the place to go for networking, education, building partnerships, and learning about new trends in the industry. For more information on Breakaway 2008, please visit http://breakaway.comptia.org/.

About CompTIA

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is the voice of the world’s $3 trillion information technology industry. CompTIA membership extends into more than 100 countries and includes companies at the forefront of innovation; the channel partners and solution providers they rely on to bring their products to market; and the professionals responsible for maximizing the benefits organizations receive from their technology investments. For more information, please visit www.comptia.org.

Every time the computer industry tries to make inroads into the home entertainment center by offering products that are designed to use the home TV screen as a computer screen, consumers offer a lot of resistance. Yet, the computer industry persists as evidenced by Intel’s Viiv technology and the fact that the media center version of Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system and several versions of the Vista operating system are designed to make computers a part of the home entertainment center.

While consumers have been busy resisting the incursion of the home computer into the home entertainment center, computer equipment has been sneaking in anyway. This covert incursion can be seen in the form of newer forms of TV technology. DVD players, digital TV converters, satellite receivers, DVR’s, and video gaming systems are all computers in some form or another.

One of the side effects of having all of this new technology so thoroughly computerizes is that there is an unprecedented level of compatibility between computers and the Internet, and the home entertainment center. For example, there are a variety of devices that take advantage of Internet connections to provide their users with more options. The TiVo is a good example of this. TiVos download their program guide information from the Internet and are even capable of being programmed to record specific TV shows from another location over the Internet. Some of the newer TiVos are even capable of downloading movies from the Internet to be shown on TV sets. Other devices that can do this include some versions of Sony HDTV sets, the Vudu, the Slingbox, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and several others. The Apple TV can fetch video from the home computer(which can get the video from the Internet or from a digital video camera), and the ability to download movies directly from the Internet is expected to be coming soon to the Play Station 3 from Sony.

Another interesting result of the overlap between computers and TV is the introduction of portable video devices. A portable video device is a hand held, battery powered portable device that can store video on a built in data storage system and then display it on a TV screen or its built in screen. These devices come in a variety of sizes and capacities. For example, there are versions with only two gigabytes of storage space and such small screens that you have to wonder why anyone gave them the capacity to play video. At the other end of the extreme are devices that have amply sized screens, the ability to store over a hundred hours of video, access the web over a WiFi connection, and even record video that’s being played off of other devices and store it on their own hard disks. The data storage systems use either flash memory or more conventional hard disks, and the screens can either be conventional LCD technology or energy saving OLED screens. Some of these devices can even download video from some Digital Video Recorders if all of the compatibility issues are taken care of.

All of these devices show the benefits that computer technology can have when applied to home entertainment.