I’ve mentioned before that one of my all time favorite television shows from the “golden age” of the medium is “The Honeymooners”.
Any student of the history of television ends up impressed at the visionary that Jackie Gleason was about the still-in-its-infancy business. Gleason’s use of the kinescope is why we still have the ability to watch the 39 episodes from the single season that the show was on the air in 1955. We all know of Gleason the legendary clown, but his acumen as a television producer may not be as well appreciated.
My favorite “Honemooners” moment is when Ralph and Ed get into scheme to sell a kitchen gadget by doing a television commercial. Ralph assumes the character of “Chef of the Future” and promptly blows the whole deal by getting a case of stage fright as soon as he sees the red light on the camera.
As usual, I’ve used this elaborate backstory as a device to get to my real point here, the idea that something that promises to be “the future” can’t just be a potato peeler with a really good marketing campaign.
The whole “Chef of the future” thing was on my mind because I was thinking about this because of some weekend work I’ve been involved in on the idea of using a personal computer as the “media center of the future.” (You can do your own Art Carney as Ed Norton voice here.)
More and more, people want to hook up their computer to their television sets. Why? Because that is where most of their entertainment is kept.
My older daughter moved into a new apartment this weekend and one of the first things she wanted to do was connect her college graduation present (a new Macbook Pro laptop) to her new apartment housewarming present, a flat-screen TV.
Frankly at first, I didn’t get it. But after about ten seconds–it began to make perfect sense.
Think about it, many people now get their movies, television shows, and certainly their music as downloads to their computers. Your computer’s hard drive is likely to be most occupied by these “digital entertainment assets” that are internet delivered. (This is why most music retailers have closed their stores and video rental places are not far behind.)
Personal computer manufacturers have taken notice by putting HDMI jacks (or ports) on more models of computers, including laptops. Why this is significant is that the HDMI jacks allow users to connect their laptops to HDTVs and playback anything on the computer’s screen on the television. And because many high end desktops and even laptops can actually produce resolutions equal to or greater than the 1080-line standard of HD, the computer becomes an all-in-one content engine, capable of playing downloaded content–and even streaming content from the web.
(Apple has just released a version of its Mac Mini, which many people have turned into a media server, with the first HDMI jack on a Mac. While they still don’t ship a laptop with HDMI, a $35 adaptor from an outfit called Moshi turns the latest MacBook Pro’s Mini Display Port jack into a full-fledged HDMI port. Apple even carries the item in their stores now.)
If you’re still following all this technical jargon, you may have jumped ahead–if not, then let me make it simple for you: Online content like Hulu, Netflix, and even YouTube–all on your big screen TV. Along with whatever you have from iTunes, Napster or Pandora.
Make sense now? Your computer could replace your DVD player, your CD player, your…. well you get the idea. Your computer becomes, “the media center of the future!” (Again, the Ed Norton voice here is optional.)
With the large amount of legal video and audio content available online (not to even mention the larger amount of content that is less than legal) you begin to understand why one of the hot new technologies is something called “Wi-Di”. Being pushed by Intel, it is short for “Wireless Display” and the technology allows a properly equipped laptop to wirelessly connect to a external adaptor which then plugs into your HDTV.
These are just the first salvos to be fired in the battle to merge your computer and television together to be the center of your entertainment universe. There will be more, but for now–don’t be surprised to walk into someone’s new apartment and see their laptop hooked up to their big screen TV, pumping out their favorite shows, music and whatever.
I’m looking forward to seeing that–and the rest of her new apartment in the not-too-distant future.