Microsoft Media Centre, part of Windows Vista or XP Professional, can organize and serve up content on your hard disk or stream DVDs, Internet content including video and digital radio, as well as accessing all your photographs, music and favourite web sites.

The software is typically geared to work with broadcasters’ EPGs but locally Sky and Freeview have locked down access to their own subscribers.

Hewlett-Packard product manager David Procter admits the proliferation of devices now vying for a space alongside the TV, and an aversion to having a full blown PC by the TV, have held back the media centre concept.

Faster home networks

While slimmed down Pavilion machines can plug directly into the HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) slot on the HDTV there’s still a tendency for people to want the computer in a separate room. HP’s Touchsmart Pavilion with inbuilt TV tuner is a compromise with a big enough screen to stand alone as a media station.

"People are choosing to have different devices for different reasons and as 10Mbit/sec wireless networks becomes more common in the home, people are taking multimedia notebooks with them and streaming content on demand as they move about," says Procter.

Uptake of ‘still to be standardised’ 802.11n wireless networking (up to 300Mbit/sec) is set to revolutionise that space. Maurice Famularo, D-Link’s Australia and New Zealand marketing director says the home networking in New Zealand is still maturing, claiming products like D-Link’s 4-port DIR-855 Xtreme N Duo Media Router are good reason to take things to the next level.

The router can run multiple devices and deliver ‘lag-free’ performance from HD media players, games consoles and computers. Combined with D-Link’s DSM-330 DivX Connected HD Media Player, you can stream HD images and movies direct to your home theatre system and big screen TV.

"The dual band design, combined with a high-speed gigabit switch, Internet firewall and a quality of service engine is capable of handling the most bandwidth-intensive applications such as high-definition media streaming, online gaming and more."

There’s an art in creating the whole home entertainment experience, not only in positioning equipment to avoid a clutter of wires and boxes but making sure everything works together.

It pays to map out what you want and where; from the position of the TV and sound system and components or services might be added later to pipe sound, signal or bandwidth around the house.

Being compatible with the future is paramount. Do you have enough disk space and memory for your computer to record and serve up on-demand digital content or do you need additional network storage?

Is the games console your media centre? Do you need one? How many set top boxes will you have? Do you need Sky or just Freeview? Do your TV and DVD recorder and surround sound system have the appropriate video and audio inputs and connections for computer and wireless access?

TV channels are increasingly offering viewers Internet access to recently screened or archived programmes but nowhere near the level of Australia, the UK and the US where legal TV and movie download services are commonplace.

Once we have wider access to stable broadband - 5Mbit/sec at least - the Internet will become simply another channel for on-demand entertainment.

What’s still missing is a superbox PVR that allows you to subscribe to and record all the broadcast and downloadable services you could ever want on-demand. That would certainly shift the focus from trying to manage half a dozen boxes and fighting over which controller does what, to focus on the key issue, quality content.