Browsing the BBC's news site today I spotted a story on the public opinion towards the cost of digital homes.So, I put this question to you: What would you want from your digital home and why don't you have it yet? If you do have a digital home and you're happy with it, then let us know.The high price of gadgets to create homes where TV, computer, hi-fi, phone and net connect is a big barrier, found the Accenture report.
Consumers were also daunted by the potential problems posed by getting all the gadgets talking to each other.
What about me? Well, I envisage a central media library, accessible around my home. So that could entail a nice large NAS box for storing data, but I think I can do one better than that. I'd like a media box, storing audio, video and capturing TV. Then I'd get VLC streaming TV across my network through multicast, so that any device on the network could "tune in". Controlling the channels, time shifting, etc, could get interesting, but I don't think it's infeasible. Other video and audio could be on-demand, served from the media box as required.
What problems does such a vision create? First there's bandwidth. Most devices are going to need wiring in to the network because wireless just isn't up to it, even 802.11g is flaky at handling reasonable res video streams in the tests I've done. That introduces the hassle and costs of cabling. Combine that with the cost of having player units in various locations around the house (mini/nano-ITX systems for places like the living room), then start thinking about the audio/video systems and costs really start to rack up.
Let's not even start on the hassle of putting the family's masses of CDs and other media onto the media server.
The bottom line: This is something I'd really like to do, but it's not going to happen over night.
That's me, but what about you?