Intel Provides Peek At Viiv

After spending more than a year recruiting VARs and system builders to push Wintel media servers into the home, Intel got a little help last week from actor Morgan Freeman and content partner DirecTV to provide a peek at the applications for its new Viiv entertainment PC platform.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Intel, Santa Clara, Calif., showed off a variety of Viiv models ranging from small footprint PCs the size of a wireless router to devices that looked more like stereo components to traditional tower PCs.

The Viiv platform requires a dual-core processor, necessary for decoding high-definition video and responding to multiple media requests from within the home, as well as an instant-on system that works like a typical consumer electronics device, a universal remote and support for SCSI RAID.

Overshadowing the hardware specs, however, is concern about the quality of the content available to download for the systems. That’s why during a CES keynote, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini talked up a number of content partners for the Viiv effort, including DirecTV.

During the keynote, DirecTV President and CEO Chase Carey said the satellite provider is working on a set-top box that will work with Viiv systems.

Freeman was there to tout ClickStar, his joint venture with Intel that is working to provide original movies for download. NBC, ESPN, America Online and Yahoo were among other content providers that stepped up to pledge support for Viiv.

Otellini said there currently are 2 million songs, 100,000 music videos, 10,000 television shows and 1,000 movies available to Viiv viewers.

Steve Jarvis, president of custom system builder Elite PC, Tempe, Ariz., said content relationships are important but they will not be the only driver of Viiv applications that can be envisioned and designed by digital integrators and VARs. In addition to letting customers distribute movies and television programming to different locations in the house, media PCs already are controlling security, lights and other home automation, he said.

Steve Dallman, Intel’s senior director of channel sales and marketing, said he expected to have 400 channel partners trained on the Viiv platform by the CES launch.

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