The Lessons of Greed.

This article offers insights about personal computer (PC)-based home entertainment systems. One problem encountered by the author with his home entertainment system is that his Adelphia cable system is digital--a digital decoder is needed to watch programs--but PC video cards such as the ATI All-In-Wonder devices have analog-only tuners. He can use the ATI to watch television from an antenna, but the only channel it can see from the cable is the one the decoder is supplying. The PC sees only what the digital decoder box is tuned to, and cannot change channels under programmatic control. There are ways to change the digital channel. For instance, there is a clocked television Remote Tuner device that sends the appropriate channel change signals at selected times. Movielink is a company backed by several Hollywood studios. When it was launched, it was supposed to be the new revolution in Home Entertainment. In theory, Movielink was going to let the viewer download movies on demand. However, the motion picture industry in the U.S., due to piracy concerns, have crippled Movielink. With Movielink, the user can watch the movie on the PC, but aside from that, nowhere else.