What is Broadband Entertainment

What is Broadband Entertainment?

Broadband Entertainment is a new concept to describe the wide variety of high-quality entertainment that is available in every home. Audio , video , and gaming are the main sources of electronic home entertainment. By connecting to broadband networks and storing digitized content on a computer disk drive and optical discs, millions of people are feeling the benefits of enjoying what they want, when they want.

The basis of broadband is to bring choice to your home. Broadband was initally defined as the wide range of radio spectrum that was used to radio and television. AM, FM, VHF and UHF were the first examples of broadband.

The second generation of broadband is cable and satellite broadcasts. Using different frequencies and coaxial cable, hundreds of channels of content are broadcast to homes to offer great choice. Over 90% of Americans subscribe to cable and satellite, but most are unhappy with flicking through 50 or a hundred channels and finding nothing on.

The third generation of broadband is high-speed Internet access over 200 kbps. The problem with broadband Internet access is that it is designed for the computer. It does not go to the television or stereo where people like to be entertained. The Internet needs to expand beyond the computer in the study to the television, stereo and gaming console in the living room. Computer based entertainment is well developed and available, the growing market is a wide variety of entertainment in the living room.

Broadband entertainment combines all three broadband networks with a new device called an entertainment server. At the heart of the entertainment server is a disk drive that stores and plays digitized content on your every whim. It finds the content on ordinary broadcasts and timeshifts it for your schedule. If you haven't experienced the joys of a personal video recorder (Tivo), then you're wasting your time and getting stuffed with unnecessary commercials.

The "big idea" and goal of broadband entertainment is that Internet-based content will be made available for televisions, stereos and gaming consoles. Audio and gaming can already be broadcast over the Internet to computers and gaming consoles. Internet based video is getting better, but it is still nowhere near television quality.

This doesn't have to be. Video can be downloaded to disk drives and played back at high-quality. Instead of streaming the video, it needs to be downloaded to avoid speed limitations. The disk drive and broadband are the ying-yang combination that yield broadband entertainment. Combine the right amounts of cache and bandwidth and you get the broadband entertainment paradise.