Why does Real annoy me so much? This is as close as I could get to their booth at Streaming Media West 2001.

As for Real Networks, I have a bias - can't stand the player, can't stand the quality of the playback, and don't really trust the company to have my best interests at heart. At least Microsoft gives it away for free - no questions asked. Every download of a RealPlayer feels like a violation. Frankly, the battle between Microsoft and Real isn't too dissimilar to the battle that Microsoft undertook against Netscape. This time, Microsoft is giving media playback away for free, and Real likes to think it can charge you. Of course, Real is also trying to control the distribution of content through its player by providing channels of audio and video, and in RealArcade hoping to distribute game software. There's a lot of similarities, but no one really cares much about crappy streaming video playback, whereas browsers used to be cool.

Digital media is a drop in the ocean of Microsoft's organization, but it has far reaching implications for all consumers, and content providers. Microsoft's booth at Streaming Media West 2001 had an energy all its own in a very low wattage event.

But, that isn't my real gripe, the upshot of all this competition is that in their battle to win over content providers to their formats and technologies, Microsoft and Real are going to build even more annoying copy protection and distribution features into their formats . You and me are not the real customer here - it's the media companies. What that means is multiple formats of video on a Web site, multiple players, and all those different versions of each player, too. And each will be hoping to convince the guys who own the content that they can tighten the screws on "freeloading" consumers. Streaming media is not fun in the main, or easy, or satisfying. It's also going to become about as friendly as a tour of duty with the KGB.

Anyhow, I suppose we should be all grateful that streaming media isn't the all encompassing, television and cable company beating technology the computer industry hoped it would be. I'd hate to think what would happen if either Microsoft or Real controlled the airwaves, or cable and satellite lines. I suggest we take a solemn moment, and shudder at the thought.

Digital Entertainment Box Forum

The DEB Forum was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, adjoining the Long Beach Convention Center. It was a small, informal event, but this was why I drove here for two and a half hours, through Los Angeles freeway traffic. I said, I know, but I am emhasizing the amount of effort that went into this article. It's not like we put a Joule meter at the end. I think you have a right to know this stuff.

Back to DEB. While I continue to believe that the PC can still outperform any other media platform, there's a lot of interest in other gadgets. Consoles always spark the imagination of consumer electronics companies. Handhelds are kind of hot right now. Cell phones are a few steps from being full handheld computers, if that's what customers end up wanting. Then, there's good old digital cable and television piping broadband bit streams into the home - imagine all the things you can do with that from digital video recording like TiVO to turning your HDTV into a Web surfer.

Kathleen Maher, Senior Analyst at JPA, delivers a keynote speech on the current state of the digital entertainment box

Jon Peddie Associates (JPA) Senior Analyst, Kathleen Maher, delivered an interesting keynote speech on the state of the digital entertainment box, and tried to keep things in perspective. One of the main points of contention Ms. Maher raised was that there are too many boxes that do too many things. There has been a longstanding debate, fueled for many years by Microsoft's insistance that the PC could be all things to all people, that consumers are looking for a single black box that would do everything for them - connect online, play digital audio and video, let you play interactive games etc. Microsoft and Intel - before their estrangement - used to say that this box was the PC. Now, Sony says it could be a PS2, and even Larry Ellison thinks he has a shot with the NIC . Hmmm.

Ms. Maher pointed out some of the fallacies that persist when it comes to the idea of an all encompassing digital entertainment box:

People haven't bought computers will buy something less, something more consumer-ish Anything based on Linux is a winner - a reference to the number of Linux-based thin client devices appearing There is a single killer application - including Internet access People will change their buying habits and pay more than $399 for a consumer device

All we can safely say is that digital media has made content richer: the quality of digital content can be higher and more permanent than analog media, delivery is greatly enhanced, there's more we can do with digital content, including building in indexing, interactivity, and mixing of medium such as audio and video.