Popularity of Media Servers Growing, But Hesitation Remains

By | October 21st, 2004 comments icon (1)Comments


CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) this month surveyed 1,298 US online adults and found that 38 percent of consumers currently own a media server (a stand-alone hard drive based device – PC/DVR/NAS Server – that holds digital media files for in-home network distribution), and that 19 percent of consumers who currently don’t own a media server plan to purchase one in the next two years. However, 49 percent of respondents noted that they would “be somewhat or more likely to purchase a [media] server if a professional could install, set-up and maintain their server.”

While all the numbers and predictions detailed in the report are noteworthy, nothing stood out more then the reading that 49 percent of the respondents felt that they needed someone to install, setup, and maintain their media server. What is that about? Do general consumers really believe that running a media server requires special skills that only a professional can provide? It appears, YES. This news is a slap in the face to the “Digital Home” industry. The report confirmed that more education needs to be done to inform consumers about choice and capabilities (yeah, like that pimple-face guy at Best Buy has the proper training to educate you on how to use products you’re interested in), but the truth is manufactures need to design products that are so drop-dead-simple to operate, a 10 year old can setup and use them without having to refer to a manual.

In an ideal world these are the attributes a media server should have:

  • A generous amount of storage
  • The device should show up immediately as a shared drive on the network without having to install software on networked PCs
  • Should be able to connect wirelessly using 802.11a/g or by Ethernet
  • Silent (fanless preferably)
  • Stackable and expandable (by either connecting USB 2.0 external drives or by adding/swapping larger capacity hard drives)

Via: Designtechnica





Filed in: Digital Media Servers

  • theharmonyguy

    the truth is manufactures need to design products that are so drop-dead-simple to operate, a 10 year old can setup and use them without having to refer to a manual.

    Amen. :) If only the rest of the technology industry understood this kind of design. :p