Problem Finding, Department of

Here are some comments about a conversation in Ken Rutkowski’s Connected group. The subject was TV on a PC, which meant getting video content over the internet and displaying it on a TV screen. That's VODIP for short.

Any thoughts about why this area continues to have marginal adoption? –Peter Yorke

Although (the D-link DSM-320) works great for any locally stored media, it does not, at this point, have the ability to play any of this on demand content… –Joseph Guice

As more features become available, it will notify you and give you the option to update instantly… D-link DSm-320 ad. PC magazine, Nov 16, 2004 p76

A Near-Perfect Ad-on.. Wouldn’t it be great if you could enjoy its [Windows Media Center Edition 2005] features in other rooms of your house? A Windows Media Center Extender (MCX) lets you do just that. PC magazine, Nov 16, 2004 p34.

PC magazine further explains what it means by near-perfect in a table that lists 14 items of possible content on host PC and checks seven that MCX can play. Things that it can’t play include MPEG-4, Content recorded from premium channels (HBO, Etc.) and Copyright-protected DVD’s.

Thus I begin my list of ten ways you know you’re in Geeksville:

1. A vendor thinks it a marketing advantage to say that the device is unfinished but you can finish it later with updates you will have to wait for, install, and hope they include the services you want.

2. Near-Perfect means that half the things you might want are supported.

3. An explanation of what you can and can’t do takes a table.

4. TBD

No doubt more items will turn up, but these will do as a current explanation of why most people are not interested in trying to send video content from PC to TV by something other than the wired S-video route.

What does this have to do with Zen? Try a technical term: Seamless Integration. The universe can wait, I just want a VODIP technology that is one with itself.