Report: PC use in home theaters to surge

By Danny King -- Video Business, 3/26/2008

MARCH 26 | Rumors of the demise of the personal computer in the living room are greatly exaggerated.

Despite an increasing number of products designed to download or stream content directly to a TV without the help of a PC, computer use as a home-entertainment component will surge during the next five years as customers seek fast downloads of high-quality content, according to a report by consumer-research firm ABI Research.

The number of worldwide households using a PC to download content and feed it directly to the TV will jump fivefold to about 25 million in 2013, from less than 5 million this year, ABI predicts.

Software programs such as Microsoft’s Vista have a media center application that allows PCs to process and output audio and video content that can be used for the home theater.

Much of the surge will occur in Western Europe, where the demand for high-definition programming outstrips supply because of the popularity of over-the-air programming and lack of digital broadcasts in some countries. This year, about a third of Western European households will have at least one HDTV, but just 2% will receive high-def signals, U.K. consultant Understanding & Solutions said in a separate report this month. By 2012, that gap will widen, as about 70% of households will have an HDTV while about 30% will get high-def broadcasts.

Although "HDTVs are popular in Europe, high-def content is not readily available,” said Steven Wilson, principal analyst of consumer video technologies research service at ABI. “The PC platform actually provides some of the best quality display output available, as well as access to broadband, including HD, content.”

With U.S. broadcasts going digital next February and the growing popularity of cable-, satellite- and fiber-optic TV operators that offer high-def, more than 85% of U.S. households will have both HDTVs and access to high-def signals by 2012, Understanding & Solutions said. Still, amid the growth of products such as Apple TV and Amazon.com’s Unbox that use broadband connections to process video content before it hits the TV, PCs may still be used by those wanting to avoid a hodgepodge of set-top boxes around the TV set.

“Almost all of these services support playback on the PC directly and that, in fact, is one of the benefits of using the PC in the living room,” Wilson said. “It will provide access to all these services without the need for a separate box.”