Intel tries to ignite the entertainment PC

Intel: New consumer entertainment PC platform

Intel has unveiled a new consumer entertainment PC platform called Viiv (pronounced: Vive).

Don McDonald, Intel's general manager for the digital home group, unveiled the new programme in a keynote on Wednesday at Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The programme is similar to the Centrino marketing programme, which tells computer buyers that a computer system works with Wi-Fi wireless technology. It allows Intel to enforce strictly which technologies are supplied in entertainment PCs and thereby guarantee a minimum user experience.

Limited support for technologies and standards in today's entertainment PC devices have made using them a hit-and-miss game where the user can't be sure if devices will work together. This can hold back development of what McDonald referred to as the digital entertainment industry.

"The consumers get to set the bar. We have to adapt to them," McDonald warned delegates.

Computer manufacturers will be allowed to use the Viiv logo if their devices meet certain criteria. A computer requires an Intel dual core processor, remote control and has to run Windows Media Center Edition to qualify for the Viiv logo.

A TV tuner is optional.

The first Viiv devices will be available in the first quarter of 2006.

While the programme is a noble attempt at kick-starting the digital entertainment industry, it fails to address the real problem, said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.

"We are talking about a group of users who can't set the clock on their video recorder that is blinking at 12," Enderle told vnunet.com. "It has to be dead simple."

Software, including Windows Media Center Edition, is too complicated for use in the living room, he said, and the hardware of living room PCs is lacking several features that prevent it from delivering a good of the box experience.