By Pamela Winikoff

Up until recently the idea of an affordable home system that stores and plays back music, video, and photos from one, easy-to-access central location seemed like a pipedream. But that’s not the case anymore. The breakneck speed of technology has ushered in a new era of “digital convergence” that is changing the way we think about our world. This convergence has put digital media literally at our fingertips, whenever and wherever we want it. And best of all, at a reasonable price.

Today when your customers want to listen to digital music, watch a video, or view a slide show of their favorite family photos, they no longer need to be tied to their PCs. In fact, homeowners no longer have to go to where their electronic hardware is plugged in. Thanks to a quantum leap in residential home networking technology, they can enjoy all their digital media from any equipped TV and stereo, in any room in the home – at the simple touch of a handheld remote.

How can you offer your customers these wonderful options? The Leviton Entertainment & Applications Platform (LE&AP) -- a robust home media server that’s available at price points compatible with most homeowners’ pocketbooks. A veritable “home-pod” that enables photo and video viewing, LE&AP doubles as an Internet-sharing, firewall-protected residential gateway. As a residential media server, it offers homebuilders a cost-effective way to integrate digital entertainment into new homes as part of their structured cabling offering. In a nutshell, it affords the ideal solution to the quandary of storing and distributing home entertainment content.

A fast growing market

Consumer spending on home entertainment products and content now stands as a $150 billion business. A recent Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) survey found that more than 85% of consumers want media servers for video, music, and photos. Additionally, 72% of those polled want that content to be available throughout the home on various televisions and audio systems.

LE&AP offers you an effective way to illustrate both the life-style benefits and the flexibility of today’s structured wiring systems. It gives homeowners – whether direct or through the builder – a key reason for considering structured wiring for a new home: A built-in home media server that won’t cost them a small fortune and at the same time is easily upgradeable.

What about existing homes? Homeowners who have structured wiring will see the system as an appealing upgrade that lets them leverage the full potential of their structured wiring system.

 System nuts and bolts

At the system’s heart is a Digital Distribution Center (DDC) that installs as part of a home’s structured wiring system. The DDC acts as an audio, video, and photo server and resides in the Structured Media™ Center (SMC) – which is located neatly out of sight. Another system component, a set-top Digital Player acts as a digital media adapter for the home’s consumer electronic devices. The Digital Player delivers stored content to existing stereo and television equipment in each location in which it is installed. It is compatible with digital video interface (DVI), component video, S-video, composite video, line level analog audio, and digital audio connections.

The system’s Digital Player and DDC communicate over the home’s existing Category 5, 5e, or 6 cabling (the DDC includes an eight-port router/Ethernet switch). The Digital Player includes a handy remote that allows users to quickly search, play and enjoy stored audio, video and photographic content by navigating through simple on-screen menus. Typical homes may have as many as three or four Digital Players.

LE&AP’s handheld remote and TV-style menu selections make it easy to use for people of all ages and abilities. Its built-in network switch also allows the DDC to link together a home’s computers, printers and other peripherals in one highly manageable, integrated network.

Storage and vulnerability

The system’s intuitive Media Manager software lets users on all the home’s networked computers conveniently copy, organize, and protect digital photos, videos, and music. This is done simply by moving selected files onto the DDC. The “standard” DDC incorporates a 120GB hard drive that stores up to 120, 000 digital photos, or 24,000 songs, or 100 videos – or various combinations. Additional storage capacity can be added to the system to increase its total storage capacity to over one terabyte. Up to four external media modules, in either 120 gigabyte or 300 gigabyte capacities can be added. Once added they can be formatted to appear as a single digital media repository for storage, playback and file back-up. Users who opt to add four 300GB media modules can store 240,000 songs, 1,500 hours of home video or over 1.2 million digital photographs.

Linux-based, LE&AP is not subject to PC viruses or “crashes” that concern users of always-on PC-based systems. It therefore provides better protection for irreplaceable digital files. Users can access audio, video, and photo distribution at any time, even when their computers are turned off.

A robust networking and entertainment home solution

In addition to its entertainment capabilities, the LE&AP system can be a major benefit for home office computing. With its built-in eight-port residential gateway, it can double as a Network Addressable Storage (NAS) device for backup of important documents as well as sharing files, peripherals, and broadband Internet access. Also included: A hardware-based firewall with the latest technology to protect against Internet intruders, and the ability to handle multiple virtual private network (VPN) connections. Browser-based Network Manager software gives users complete control over their network and can even permit secure remote access to the Digital Distribution Center for retrieval of documents, files and even multimedia content downloads and streaming.

LE&AP’s media harvest and management capability guides first-time users through a wizard-based initial harvest with options for music, photos, video and important documents. It also monitors designated directories for any new content and automatically copies the content to the DDC, or lets homeowners drag and drop content directly from personal computers to the centralized, built-in storage of the DDC. Users can manage playlists through browser based access to the DDC playlist music menus. The embedded Gracenote® playlist feature offers access to hundreds of unique playlists and can instantly create a custom playlist from a single “seed” song. Music collections from multiple homeowners in a home can be collected, organized and backed-up, for enjoyment in any room in the home. For those users with a Rhapsody® subscription, at around $10 per month, a newly integrated Rhapsody support feature enables the system to access an online library of more than a million songs through the Digital Player.

A win-win for all

Acclaimed in the July, 2005 issue of Home Theater’seNewsletter by writer Darryl Wilkinson as a “ dream-come-true for those looking to benefit from digital media technology without having to master digital technology,” LE&AP offers you an effective way to illustrate the life-style benefits and flexibility of structured wiring systems to homeowners. Homeowners who already have structured wiring view LE&AP as an appealing upgrade that lets them leverage the potential of their structured wiring system. Offered at price points compatible with most homeowners’ pocketbooks, LE&AP affords an ideal solution to the quandary of storing and distributing home entertainment content. A typical system costs less than a single “high-end” AV server-type component and since it installs along with a home’s structured wiring, its cost can be amortized into the mortgage, allowing homeowners to avoid a single lump sum payout for a robust home entertainment server.