Sunday,Aug 29 2004, 01:20:50 AMRoad to ROM - Brief History Of Multimedia:...

Road to ROM - Brief History Of Multimedia: Part One

August 24, 1995. Windows 95 is released with a level of publicity noy seen from a computing product since the Macintosh was introduced at the 1984 Superbowl. Win95 was the first real step towards a true convergence of medias, and helped popularise the much-maligned term --- 'multimedia'.

Multimedia, or convergence as it's also known, is the combination of computers and telecommunication devices into a user-controlled medium. Ever since the invention of the transistor, electronic devices have been appearing in almost everything --- from beds with clock-radios built in, to, well, pens with clock-radios built in.

The world of electronic Swiss Army Knife is here. Why have a gadget that only does one thing, when with a device like the new Sony CLIÉ PDA you can take pictures, do your taxes, listen to MP3s and write emails?

Many convergent technologies up until this point seem to sufffer from the 'jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none' syndrome. Sure, you can buy a fridge nowadays that connects to the Internet --- but why would you want to? It becomes a matter of quality versus convenience.

In most cases, a device designed to do a singular task will perform it much better than one designed to do several.

Where does this leave the PC?


THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONSOLE

the Pc and multimedia owe a huge debt not only to television, but also to the humble gaming console. It all began in May 1972, and though the Atari overshadows its importance, the Magnavox Odyssey Home Entertainment + System was the world's first gaming console. It allowed you to play video games at home six years before Space Invaders had even been conceived of.

The unit didn't have a CPU or memory, but was based on an analog system of discrete logic circuits. Similar to today's consoles, it used cartridges to store games: only these carts contained daugterboards, which altered the circuity of the Odyssey. Stickers placed on the televesion delineated the playing area.

After the Odyssey came Home-Pong, the Atari, the Vic 20, the Commodore 64, and the Amiga. All were increasingly complex multimedia devices designed to be connected to your television, and to be easy-to-use. The Atari was the last device of its kind, as PCs began to take off due to their modular, non-proprietary nature. The computer/TV combination gave way at last to the pure gaming console.

And right now, the console market is booming, with relative newcomer Sony, and its Playstation 2 decimating the opposition before it. Long term player Nintendo holds the lead over newest entrant Microsoft, with the GameCube outselling the Xbox --- in Japan at least. Nintendo has been able to fend off attacks in its core market from less experienced contenders due to its insistence on creating a game machine rather than an all-in-one entertainment system. Xbox might be fun, but how many PC users would want one?

Sony curently offers the Linux for Playstation 2 kit. At US$499, its claimed by Sony to allow you to 'utilise the Playstation 2 Console as a fully-functional desktop computer'. It includes an Ethernet adaptor; 40GB HDD; USB keyboard and a "Monitor Cable Adaptor". Meanwhile, the Xbox has also been (unofficially) hacked to allow users to run Linux on it.

Consoles have come full circle: they began life as home entertainment systems, became computers in the 1980s, went back to simple game consoles, and are once more becoming computers and gaming consoles.


'FRIDGE, THIS IS WASHER. DO YOU COPY? OVER.'

Home automation has been a dream for many people, but until recently, not very achievable for those without bank balances in the googles. Almost every electronics manufacturer is currently pushing its own brand of 'home networking', which will allow your toaster to speak with your stereo and so on.

The most infamous example of this trategy at work is LG's Internet refrigerator: the GR-D267DTU. It's a poorly spec'd machine with a 300Mhz COU; 128MB of RAM; 17GB HDD; 15.1" in LCD touch-screen; as well as a built-in Webcam, microphone and speakers. But for $15,000, you'd want a Cray super computer built into Walt Disney's personal cryogenic unit!

Apart from the occasional kitchen teleconference, it doesn't do very much on its own. It's designed to act as a central hub for connecting LG's other devices: microwaves, air-conditioners, and washing machines. It seems even the little man in the fridge has finally lost his job to progress.

The trend for automating inanimate objects continues, with Bill Gates announcing 'smart' devices at November 2002's COMDEX show. Thanks to the magnate, we can now surf the Internet with our pens, and check sporting results with our fridge magnets!

Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) is designed to enhance the capabilities of the object rather than create an all-in-one device. As such, it goes against the current convergence trend. SPOT comprises a receiver (presumably using an RF-based protocol such as Bluetooth), and a centralised server, which services n array of gadgets with Web-based information like sports scores and Greenwich Mean Time, Microsoft is expected to make further announcements about the technoloy as you read this.

In other parts of the house, the future of entertainment seems to be going hard disk drive, with products such as TIVO's Digital Video Recorder and Imerge's MP3-based Soundserver. With DVD recorders becoming cheaper by the day, the HDD video recorder is the only real competitor. The two formats have similar features: 'time-shifting', the ability to record while watching an earlier part of the program; search functions; and the ability to record in a hi-resolution format --- unlike the VCR. The main difference between the formats being the portability of the media, and the fact that you can edit programs recorded on a hard disk drive.

If you have a spare $40,000++ to throw around for a hard disk music server, then you can't go past the Linn Knekt Kivor. It looks suspiciously like a PC in hi-fi clothing, with serial and USB ports, as well as a monitor connector. Sadly, these are for technician-use only, but no doubt millionaire hackers (a contradiction in terms?) could get the thing to work as a normal PC. You'd be better off buying the real thing, really.

Then there are products such as the Onkyo Net-Tune TX-NR900 receiver which was an Ethernet port for connecting to a PC. It uses a proprietary software player that allows you to listen to MP3s and Net radio without connecting a billion leads, and is also handly if your computer lives in another room.


THE HUMBLE PC

As more and more devices start to mimic stunted PCs, the PC itself engulfs more and more tasks traditionally done by custom-made components. Almost every professional enviroment now uses computers for some or all of its tasks, and similarly a large proportion of home entertainment involves electronic devices of some sort. Therefore it makes sense to roll it all into one unit.

The PC is perhaps the ultimate convergence device: it is almost infinitely configurable and upgradeable and able to do dozens of different tasks well.

It also has a built-in clock. <3

Audiophiles and PC enthusiasts have similar aims: to tweak their systems to give the maximum possible performance. It makes sense, therefore, to combine the two pursuits: home entertainment...and..er..tooling about on the computer. It's time for the PC to break its bonds and venture out of the bedroom!

PC home entertainment got a shot in the arm with the invention of the sound card. In 1989, Creative released the Sound Blaster, based on its first device: the Creative Music System. Multimedia capability had finally come to the PC. The card offered an 11-voice FM synthesizer and 8-bit mono playback.

At this point, the Macintosh had offered stereo sound for at least two years: PCs were playing catch-up with Macs.

The PC has always struggled to garner any sort of multimedia credibility, and it's a stigma that still persists. Many graphic designers and musicians swear black and blue that the Mac OS is superior to the Windows for graphics and music.

Home theater PCs (HTPCs) weren't a real possibility, however, until DVD-ROMs became widely available in the late 1990s. At the time, most standalone DVD players were upwards of $500, and the ability to watch a DVD on the computer, and also connect the TV up via video-out started a small revolution. No longer would you have to pay thousands and thousands for a home theater set-up. You could add a DVD player to your existing PC and blast the living lights out of your neighbours!

Of course, anyone can make their own (HTPC), and the quality of components is increasingly competitive with hihg-end hi-fi. Up to ten years ago, PCs were an RF nightmare, and consumer sound cards struggled to produce anything resembling coherent noise. but since the release of cards such as Creative's Audigy series, 100dB noise floors --- a hi-fi standard ---- had finally become achievable.

Further to this, companies such as Zalman produce near-silent fans and power supplies, defying the overclocker's maxim that the lourder it its the better its performance. Products like the CNPS6000-Cu cooler ensure we can watch DVDs in relative peace or even have our computers on while we sleep.

An important consideration when contemplating a PC in your lounge room is aesthetics. Thankfully, after years of complaints by PC owners, the beige case is on its way out. In its place are dozens of beautiful cases which you could use without shame as part of your stereo system. Some even have the little isolating feet that stereo components have. Nice.


to be continued ...
all information were sourced from the library. so why not go and visit the nearest one today?

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