The market for home-networked CE devices has been trying to move past the early adopter stage, but this has not been occurring very quickly, In-Stat says. Although In-Stat’s consumer research shows that there has been progress, the majority of consumers still only use their home network for Internet sharing.

“Improvement is still needed when it comes to consumer awareness of the new breed of PC and non-PC network-capable media devices (Media Center PCs, CE media servers, digital media adapters, digital media receivers/players, and other networked CE devices),” says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. “To date, non-PC network-enabled stationary media devices have been dominated by game consoles. However, the vast majority of non-PC network-enabled stationary devices are not currently used to stream audio and video multimedia streams from room to room.”

Research by In-Stat found that worldwide media server-capable device shipments will grow by a 43 per cent compound annual growth rate from 2006 to 2011. The worldwide market for basic media server shipments to be placed in home networks within one year is expected to grow by 62 per cent from 2006 to 2011.

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