Abstract
Still in their infancy, media adapters have largely been the territory of the early adopter, tech-savvy, power computer user. This group initially led the digital media revolution, pushing the envelope by distributing music and video over the Internet, essentially forcing the entertainment industry to deal with all forms of digital entertainment. Now these users are driving the market for the in-home distribution of content beyond the desktop to home entertainment devices located throughout the home.
With still limited worldwide availability, media adapters are only now finding their way onto the shelves of mainstream consumer electronics retailers. Media adapters are increasingly able to bypass the networked PC and directly access audio content via the Internet. This begins to raise questions about the roll of the traditional PC in the home, especially as individual devices on a network are given more intelligence.
The market is still in its early-adopter stage, and we expect a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 76% from 2004 through 2009. We segment the stand-alone media adapter market into Media Center Extenders, A/V Media Adapters, and Audio Adapters.
Discussions of content, digital rights management, connectivity, hardware compatibility/setup, competitive factors, the three market segments, consumer survey results, selected players, vendor market shares, regional segmentation, and two forecast scenarios for 2004-2009 are included.
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