PC Makers Try Again

Still, while JupiterResearch's Gartenberg is optimistic about the prospects of the new breed of home entertainment PCs, he acknowledges that the onus will be on PC makers to push the design envelope if they hope to succeed.

"If vendors are just building beige boxes that's not going to do it," says Gartenberg.

According to Intel's Kister, the company's engineers spent a great deal of time working with PC manufacturers to come up with quieter, sleeker PC designs that won't be out of place in the living room.

For now though, the big PC makers appear unwilling to stick their necks out with something as unproven as a living-room PC. Despite the sleek, VCR-like computers exhibited in Intel's catalog of Viiv reference designs, many of the big players, like H-P and Gateway, are only introducing Viiv PCs in old-fashioned desktop tower designs.

The average consumer still doesn't understand the value of buying a new PC to put in the living room, says Todd Titera, senior manager of desktop products at Gateway. The PC maker will offer Viiv on high-end desktops geared toward people looking for a main, home-office computer. Gateway's home-entertainment push focuses more on low-priced, non-Viiv desktops with slimed-down versions of Microsoft(MSFT) Media Center.

"Our goal is to really introduce this value proposition to customers at mainstream price points," says Titera. "Introducing these concepts to people will get them to start understanding what this could mean. And then the next stop could be a living room PC."

H-P, one of the more innovative companies when it comes to PC design, has an existing living room-appliance-like PC available dubbed the Digital Entertainment Center. But rather than introduce a Viiv version of that product at this month's Consumer Electronics Show, H-P also opted to introduce its first Viiv systems in traditional desktops.

What's more, the company made its biggest home entertainment splash at the CES show by announcing a new 37-inch flat screen television that can connect wirelessly to a person's existing PC.

High-tech digital media appliances may have the cool-factor, but to make money in the home entertainment market there's still nothing like selling televisions.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints