Jack Robertson EBN (01/10/2003 5:23 PM EST)

Efforts to draft an open standard to create a home entertainment network that patches together PCs, television, and other consumer electronic products are facing a major roadblock: copyright protection for audio and video content.

According to executives at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here last week, the motion picture and recording industries have stymied attempts to offer a transparent network linking various computing and home A/V equipment because they object to granting users the ability to disseminate digital content indiscriminately over the Internet. And while the PC and consumer electronics industries continue to pursue a standard data rights management (DRM) safeguard, no formal action is yet discernible.

"As soon as you connect a PC to an HDTV set, you run into a major DRM barrier," said a spokesman for Zenith Electronics, a major producer of the next-generation TV.

Until there is a DRM security system for PCs that prevents digital video and audio retransmission, the interoperable home entertainment network will remain hampered, said Richard Doherty, director of The Envisioneering Group, a research firm in Seaford, N.Y.

Even Intel Corp., a major drumbeater for the ubiquitous home network, conceded at CES that "it isn't going to happen overnight." Dave Vogel, market development manager for the Intel desktop platform group, told EBN that movement toward a network that ties together PCs and various consumer electronics in the home "is going to be an evolutionary process."

Vogel said early technology adopters will start the home networking trend, which will build the consumer base and lead to a common security standard for sharing copyrighted content between PCs and home electronics.

Yet other problems persist. Although home networks are technically able to relay personal video and audio content, some in attendance at CES questioned whether consumers will bear an additional cost in order to pass video and audio content among their household electronics.

Companies demonstrating their wares at CES also generally showed proprietary home networks that are only able to link to the products of the particular vendor. Sony Corp.'s Room Link, for example, which uses a proprietary GigaPocket media adapter to relay video between PCs and home consumer electronic devices, allows the software to be loaded on another vendor's desktop PC, but does require a Sony Vaio notebook in the loop.

Intel's Vogel said such proprietary networks are market-limiting. "Consumers want to be able to link up any manufacturer's product with another," he said. "An end-to-end solution traveling into the home and across all devices will open up the market."

Envisioneering's Doherty warned that the more proprietary home networks are installed, the harder it will become to draft a single security standard that covers all equipment. "It would also be very difficult to retrofit installed systems to comply with any new standard," he said.

Though little progress has been made to craft a standard, a panel assembled at CES to address the home networking market was relatively upbeat that a DRM solution will be reached.

Scott Burnett, marketing director of IBM Global Content and Media, said IBM has proposed a standard that would allow consumers to share copyrighted content among a cluster of pre-designated "trusted" platforms within the home but prevent distribution elsewhere.

Burnett said IBM has submitted the concept to the Copyright Protection Working Group of the DVD Forum.

Robert Perry, vice president of marketing for Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, said a recent agreement between the consumer electronics and cable television industries over cable-ready digital television content also showed that a DRM open standard is achievable.

Until that day, however, the industry is frittering away its chances to build a new market for shared content, according to executives.

"The technology exists today to share digital content with PCs in home networks," said Pat Moorhead, vice president of corporate marketing for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. "But the lack of industry agreement on digital rights management is hampering progress. We are in danger of missing an opportunity."