Your Viiv TV
Intel is not satisfied with their dominant market share in personal computers. Their next goal is to make a serious run at home entertainment. That means your next TV (sometime in 2006) will have Intel Inside if you want some very cool new features.
The New York Times reports that Intel is doing some interesting deals with movie, music and game companies.
[tease]
With Viiv-enabled PC’s and other devices, consumers will be able to download content from the Internet that will be automatically configured to provide the best-quality image when viewed on large wide-screen TV’s. Movielink, the movie download service in the United States, and British Sky Broadcasting in Britain, are two companies that will offer content compatible with Viiv.
[tease]
Viiv-enabled computers, which will run the Microsoft Windows Media Center operating system, will be designed to operate like televisions, controlled by a remote and powered on instantly. And Viiv-compliant TV’s will be able to download and display movies and TV shows directly from the Internet without the use of a PC.
I want a Viiv. Even if it does run Windows. Damn.
[via tech.memeorandum]
November 30th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Viiv is a fancy DRM engine integrated into ye olde Pentium chipset. I propose you don’t really care if Viiv is inside your TV or not, unless it enables you to view or otherwise interact with content that you otherwise could not access.
What you “should” be blogging is Walt Mossberg’s review of the new iMac G5 located at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113331174822009686.html?mod=technology_main_promo_left (subscription may be required.) The fact that the next generation of iMac will use an Intel processor (Viiv or not Viiv) is secondary to the *quality of the user experience* delivered by the rich media software.
I imagine that Viiv+WMC does not necessarily deliver a high quality experience. I’m betting that Mr. Jobs and company figure it out before HP/Microsoft/Dell et. al. The pundits at Business Week seem to think similarly http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2005/11/a_mac_mini_for.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_blogspotting .
November 30th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
Thanks for your perspective from the alternate universe of Apple. You need to brush up on what Viiv is and is not. DRM? Yeah, and I am not in love with that aspect, but it seems inevitable. YOu missed (it would seem) the clever algorithms for matching display of content to specific sof your display. I think there’s some real magic there. WE shall see.
I admit: Steve Jobs may be able to peel off hi sgod given market share of five percent. I’m sure ntel is worried that they’ll be limited to a bit less thna 95 precent of this market. Well, there will be other solutions. I’ll put my chips on 50 percent share for Intel, globally, of home entertainment displays.
That’s not too shabby.
November 30th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
Besides, the ViiV logo design is elegant.