Sony and other consumer electronics makers can focus, say, on a pricier PC-TV that can download videos through phone lines.
The PC-TV-DVD combination has proved popular with college students whose parents saw fit to give them a PC to be productive but neglected to throw in a time-wasting TV and DVD player into the mix.
The software will be used in non-PC devices like TV set-top boxes, digital cameras and DVD players.
In truth, none of the PC-to-TV devices on the market today let consumers watch every video format under the sun.
Adobe is aiming to become the global standard for all rich media in the "three screen" world - PC, TV, and mobile.
The PC-to-TV interface manages all content between the computer and the television.
Now anyone can play console-quality PC games on Android-powered connected TV devices.
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Valve, best known for the Half-Life, Left4Dead and the Steam online game store has long been known to be working on a console or set-top box that puts PC-based titles onto a TV.
Though others have tried to combine the TV and the PC-- Gateway 's (nyse: GTW - news - people ) Destination PCs come to mind--this machine doesn't seem to be aimed at replacing the TV you already have in the living room.
Microsoft's FreeStyle platform lets PC-makers ship a computer with a TV tuner, TV-recording software and a remote control.
And this from a man who runs a company that licenses a digital movie distribution service to at least 20 companies, including retailers like Best Buy and Sears, PC makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard, TV makers like Vizio and a number of film studios.
But if past Windows launches are any guide, Microsoft will help its cause by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on high-profile TV ads, viral whisper campaigns and "co-marketing" money for its PC hardware partners and the resellers who push Microsoft software to big corporations.
There's a (presumably Korea-only) TV tuner built-in, which can be activated without powering up the whole PC, while processing powering is provided by a third-generation Core i5 processor and NVIDIA's GeForce GT640M.
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Why not push digital music and video stored on a PC or set-top box with a hard drive to any TV or stereo system in the house?
Matrox PC-VCR 2.0, the included software used for TV recording, includes the capability to search for specific video using keywords in closed-captioning, as well as create text transcripts of shows.
It runs both Xbox's gaming interface and the Windows Media Centre Edition, and it can, connected to a TV in the lounge, or the bedroom, pull HD video, including live, streamed, pre-downloaded, copy-protected, digital rights managed video from your PC onto your TV.
Developers will not need to cross-compile or package applications differently for phone, tablet, PC and TV.
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For consumers looking for a cheap and simple way to bring videos from the family PC over to the TV set, SanDisk (nasdaq: SNDK - news - people ) provides an option that eschews wireless networks altogether.
It boasts a touchscreen and 5-10 hour battery life and can stream games from your PC to your TV.
January 2009 will mark the first anniversary of Apple's switch in positioning Apple TV from something that transferred computer-based content to a PC to a video vending machine that allowed direct ordering over broadband.
There is no such precedent for Apple TV and consumers have yet to express the collective need to move PC-based content into their living rooms.
That can make a desktop PC monitor an easy platform for keeping up with the cable TV news channels all day--or the baseball game you're missing because you're rushing to make a deadline.
Customers can also access Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video from Kindle Fire, Mac or PC, or on a TV using either a compatible connected device such as a Blu-ray player or a Roku or directly on compatible Smart TVs.
PrimeSense, the Israel-based company that provided some of the technology behind Kinect, has partnered with ASUS and is demoing the WAVI Xtion, a pair of boxes that wirelessly link your PC and TV together, and allow you to access content on both through the controller-free PrimeSense 3D system.
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TrustedReviews has their review of the Sony Blu-ray-equipped media center PC, with the usual compliment of card readers, wireless keyboards, wi-fi, and TV tuners.
It connects to the TV through either the composite video or S-Video port, and to the PC through the Universal Serial Bus port common on most newer machines.
When you want to shift the viewing experience from your PC to your HDTV, the Boxee Box by D-Link automatically imports your account, bringing your favorite TV shows, apps, and friends with you.
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So Microsoft shifted gears and developed the Extender model which put a CE device at each TV with the real brains of the operation on a PC hidden away back in an office -- where PCs belong.
ENGADGET: Is the future of Windows Media Center with Windows Home Server?
Performing as a Digital Media Server, the SE-208BW will be a keystone of home entertainment, providing a connection between mobile devices and TV or PC, and also a triangular connection among TVs, PCs and mobile devices.
Global market demand for large size LCD panels was flat with shipments rising just 1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 179 million units, while average sales prices of panels fell across the notebook PC, monitor and TV panel segments.
ENGADGET: Samsung's Q3 2011 overall profit falls despite incredible phone sales
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