Give Tom Feeley a big-screen TV, surround-sound stereo and computer to link together and he’s one happy fellow. But Roger Sumner wants nothing to do with it.
“It’s like a hobby,” said Feeley of Barrington, who buys wire in bulk and enjoys tinkering with electronics.
“My time’s worth more than all the pain people go through,” countered Sumner of Batavia, who is a technologist in communications.
There you have the great debate that’s building as more people decide to combine their home entertainment systems with their computers: Who will make it work?
Major players are choosing different sides.
AT&T Inc. in November launched Homezone, which enables customers to move photos and music from their computers to TV/stereo systems, as well as converge high-speed Internet content with satellite TV. This month the communications giant will add cell-phone features, and AT&T expects its customers will install the service.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Electronics Association has teamed with a computer trade group to certify home electronics technicians, responding to a growing demand for skilled people who can connect computers and TV systems.
Home networking isn’t new. For years technicians from companies have installed home theaters costing $25,000 and up, security systems, centrally controlled lighting and sound systems that play throughout a home.
But most home computer networks as well as large-screen TVs connected to stereos are installed by their owners.
But it’s still early days for the convergence of home computer networks with home entertainment systems.
A survey in 2006 of 3,400 households connected to the Internet found that only 3 percent had networked computers and TV systems, said Kurt Scherf, vice president of Parks Associates, a market research firm.
“Among those households, the overwhelming majority–about 90 percent–indicate that they installed the network themselves,” he said.
Industry experts believe that the growing popularity of high-speed broadband Internet will spur consumers to want to move video content from computers to big-screen TVs, along with digital photos and stored music.
“You have to give people a compelling reason [to combine their entertainment and computer systems],” said David Novak, executive vice-president of MadiaReady Inc., a Ft. Lauderdale-based maker of convergence devices. “Now those reasons are here, and this is moving into the mainstream.”
Even for someone like Feeley, who over the years has connected three home entertainment/information systems, he spent more than four hours integrating his current system, even though the wiring was already in place.
And help desks aren’t always helpful. When Ron Repking was trying to connect his TV to his media center computer, he called the computer-maker’s help desk and was directed to the TV-maker’s hot line, where he was referred to yet another help desk.
“When you’re putting different devices together, no one wants to take ownership,” Repking said. “Finally the guy who sold me the TV helped me put it together. He did it as a friend.”
That experience prodded Repking to launch a new business, Capable Networks based in Oakbrook Terrace, which operates Web sites such as TechLore.com that provide a place where do-it-yourselfers can ask questions and exchange information.
“We connect experts with novices,” Repking said. “I talked to several friends before I launched the company, and a lot of them said they’d never use something like that. They’d rather just pay somebody to come in and do it right.”
Still, Repking believes there’s a big do-it-yourself market and he’s not alone.
An Indianapolis-based group, the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association, educates and certifies technicians and sees demand for their services growing.
“We are emerging as a trade–just like plumbers and electricians–in the home building industry,” said Utz Baldwin, vice president of the association’s board of directors.
The Computing Technology Industry Association, based in Oakbrook Terrace, has joined with the Consumer Electronics Association to certify technicians skilled in home networking.
“It’s something our members see a need for,” said Neill Hopkins, CompTIA’s vice president of skills development. Retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City send technicians to install TV sets or computers for customers, Hopkins said.
“They’d get the TV installed and if the customer asked for it to be networked to the home computer, they’d have to send out the computer technician,” Hopkins said. “Retailers want technicians with skills so one person does everything.”
AT&T already offers high-speed DSL service that customers mostly self-install, and its new Homezone TV/computer convergence service, which costs $9.99 a month, is also intended to be self-installed, said Virgil Pund, general manager for AT&T Illinois.
Homezone customers must have satellite TV service, which will be installed by a Dish Network technician. An AT&T router, mailed to the customer, is connected to his computer’s high-speed Internet input. That router is designed to wirelessly connect to the Dish set-top box, Pund said.
For a fee, Pund said customers can call a help line and the help operator will, if necessary, take control of the customer’s computer to fix problems.
Phone companies and cable TV operators believe converged home networks can boost monthly subscription rates, said Bill Ablondi, director of home systems for Parks Associates.
“AT&T doesn’t want to make a truck roll for every new customer because it wants to keep installation costs low,” Ablondi said. Business operations that install home theaters and security systems take a different approach, he said.
“They see entertainment/computer convergence as a Trojan horse to sell home monitoring systems, lighting control and security,” he said.
Both business models will coexist, said Brett Griffin, co-founder of Architechtronics Inc., a Bothell, Wash., maker of convergence products.
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jvan@tribune.com
