The Personal Computer Leads the Way to the Fantastic Future of Television

By Gregg Housh

It's inevitable. The entrenched order will soon lose its stranglehold on TV entertainment. We are looking at a new technological paradigm in the dissemination of content. While change can be daunting, this is a fantastic leap forward for the consumer.

The media center PC concept allows you to integrate computer technology with the capabilities of your typical living room entertainment center. This enables you to watch television episodes on your computer. The versatility of available content online makes for an immensely superior experience to the typical home theater arrangement.

A tuner card can be used to incorporate standard television signals into your computer environment. It will permit you to record your favorite shows and burn them to DVD. Many modern video cards are able to export content from your PC to your television. You can also import your audio files and photos into your home entertainment system. The options are infinite.

Some have theorized that online content will soon bring an end to broadcast TV. Why pay for cable television service when you could watch the same content online for free whenever you want? A computer can be easily connected to your television. This seems to make the old cable box or satellite dish obsolete. Why should you have to watch your favorite shows on the network's schedule? Most television programs will soon offer the same content on the internet, indeed, some of it is already available. This creates a redundancy between TV and internet service. If you connect a computer to your TV, you can watch much of the same content whenever you want. As bandwidth speeds go up, the picture quality will improve as well. This will only make it easier to watch high quality internet content on your television.

Since most internet content is supported by advertisements, it turns a profit in the same general way as cable television. In the future, all content providers will be able to profitably offer their shows on-demand. This is a massive improvement over the way we had to get our television in the past.

This also opens up more opportunities for the independent content provider. You no longer have to invest the capital in a expensive television station and pricey equipment in order to create and broadcast content. The internet creates a medium in which the independent arts can flourish, and this new technology can bring their finished products to the home entertainment system. Competition in content makes for better overall quality.

The consumer really reaps the benefits from this boom in new technology. The price of a media center PC will continue to go down as less expensive devices are created. The bandwidth capacity of our internet service providers will continue to grow over time as well. Wireless high-speed internet access is scheduled to soon be made available to rural consumers. As last mile technology grows, more consumers will join us in this technological revolution.

Do not fear this atmosphere of technological change. The computer holds the key to the future of TV content. We will soon be able to see whatever we want at any time. Wireless technology will improve the communication between all of our household devices. We are on the brink of a major paradigm shift in the way we consume media. - 29967

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