Entertainment hub for the home

At last January’s CES in Las Vegas, a large portion of the Dell and Intel pavillions were dedicated to the home entertainment centre hub concept. Dell was trying to showcase a media server that looked to be just what one needs at home, rather than a bunch of stereos, CDs and digital boxes in various rooms. Haven’t heard much since though….

My colleague Jason has been hearing rumours of an Apple set top box coming in 2007, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Microsoft is looking to build its own entertainment hub in your home. Now 1,000 hours isn’t alot of material, but it probably beats (in the category of useful content) what you can get from Rogers on Demand. This is from today’s CIBC software bytes report:

“XBOX 360 to Offer HD TV and Movies via Its Live Service

Microsoft, makers of XBOX 360, announced this week that starting November 22 over 1,000 hours of TV and movies will be available to owners as downloads to rent or own. The company has already signed agreements with CBS, MTV, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, and others to bring popular content such as “CSI,” “SpongeBob Squarepants,” the Matrix movies, and the new Superman Returns movie to its customers via its XBOX Live service. This is Microsoft’s latest effort to use the XBOX brand to gain market share in the growing entertainment hub business.”

MRM