Apple and Microsoft led the way in providing the tools that have, they tell us, made personal computers the centre of our digital lives. But what they and others have shied away from admitting is that sitting at a desk in front of a PC is no way to enjoy the digital photos, MP3 music files and videos they have helped us cram on to a hard disk.
It is far more comfortable to watch and listen to PC-based digital media curled up on a couch, and there's now an affordable and rather elegant way of doing this - a set-top box called a network media player.
Network media players can work with the computers on which we already store stills from digital cameras, download and rip MP3 music and edit home movies. They cost around £200 and use networking - wired or wireless - to enable home entertainment systems to play digital media files held on PCs anywhere in the house.
Most network media players are designed for use only with Windows PCs, but a few can work with Apple Macs, and one of them, from Neuston, works with both platforms and Unix/Linux, too. All have certain things in common.
Each displays menus on a TV set in characters large enough to be easily read from a distance. And, as standard, each has a remote handset so you can choose from the menus what files to watch or listen to from PCs connected to the home network.
A wide selection of output sockets is also the norm, possibly taking in Scart, composite video, S-video and even component video and optical digital audio - allowing connection to sophisticated AV systems and all but the most basic TV sets.
No files are stored on the media player: they stream from the PC on demand. That requires the computer to be running a program that can respond to commands from the media player to serve up the chosen files. The server program is bundled with the media player and can run in the background without interfering with tasks such as word processing and internet browsing.
Media players can only handle a limited range of low data-rate file types - a necessary restriction intended to ensure that playback is smooth even over wireless networks. It's not possible to view high-resolution Tiff still images or play video captured from DV camcorders.
For most players, Tiff files would have to be converted to JPegs and DV AVI video turned into a format with a much lower data rate - MPeg-1, MPeg-2 or DivX. Similarly, only a few players can stream audio in formats other than MP3 or PCM. Tools for file conversion are built into most server programs and some can automatically convert any files that are copied into "watched" folders. The conversion process, like streaming, can run in the background without affecting everyday tasks.
A number of server programs incorporate powerful file-management tools to allow users to categorise, sort, group and rename files. That takes time but, if done thoroughly, makes life on the couch much easier. Craftily, Elgato's Mac media player, EyeHome, leaves that side of things to the iLife software suite that Apple supplies with every modern Mac.
All network media players connect to wired 100Base-T Ethernet but, typically, there's also a PCMCIA card slot for a wireless network adaptor. A Wi-Fi wireless card does away with cables running from the PC into the living room but has two disadvantages. The cards are optional extras, though they can cost as little as £20. Also, most media players only accept cards working at the slowest wireless standard, 802.11b. This has a practical data limit of about 4Mbps - far less than 100Mbps Ethernet, and less than half that possible with fast, 802.11g, wireless kit.
While slow wireless may be OK for those who only want to watch stills and listen to MP3 audio, its low data rate limits the resolution and quality of video that can be played over the network.
But any media player can be connected to a fast wireless network by using an 802.11g wireless media converter - a transceiver that plugs into the player's Ethernet port. However, the total cost of the transceiver and the 802.11g wireless router at the PC end is almost as much as for the player itself.
Prices of 802.11g kit and media players are likely to fall rapidly and we should be able to look forward to the day when TV sets and AV systems have high-speed wireless network media players built in.
Entertaining solution
Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, which was reviewed in Online on October 9, is Microsoft's solution for enjoying digital media in the living room. But it can only be bought pre-installed on highly specified home-entertainment PCs.
These machines cost more than less well-endowed Windows XP PCs, and are far more expensive than most of the boxes clustered around our TV sets, such as set-top DVD players and digital TV receivers.
Making their sales prospects even worse, few of us are willing to have noisy, cumbersome PCs in the living room - though not all of them fit that stereotype.
Microsoft recently said there will be a kit to turn its Xbox games console into a network media player but, seemingly, this can only be fed by expensive XP MCE computers.
Entertaining solution
Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, which was reviewed in Online on October 9, is Microsoft's solution for enjoying digital media in the living room. But it can only be bought pre-installed on highly specified home-entertainment PCs.
These machines cost more than less well-endowed Windows XP PCs, and are far more expensive than most of the boxes clustered around our TV sets, such as set-top DVD players and digital TV receivers.
Making their sales prospects even worse, few of us are willing to have noisy, cumbersome PCs in the living room - though not all of them fit that stereotype.
Microsoft recently said there will be a kit to turn its Xbox games console into a network media player but, seemingly, this can only be fed by expensive XP MCE computers.
· Bob Crabtree is editor of Computer Video magazine.
