CONFERENCE PREVIEW
Looking Ahead to CES

Since the collapse of Comdex in 2004, CES has become the most important technology showcase in North America. What is interesting is that the introduction of consumer electronics into Comdex helped kill that show, and CES is all about consumer electronics. Its purpose is to get retailers excited about products that won't show up until the end of the year -- and to get retail buyers to order large volumes of those products. It also serves as one of the best views of where this market is headed.

This year's show starts Thursday in Las Vegas. For me it is an exercise in frustration, because I will see lots of stuff I want but won't be able to buy for months. But this might be a good thing, because otherwise I'd be broke by the time the show ended. This week we'll take a look at some of the big trends we will see at CES this year.

Wireless TV

If there is a central theme to this show, it is that wireless is king. I remember when all TVs were wireless: The TV quality sucked anyway, so the poor signal you got over the air seemed tolerable. It was kind of like watching radio: You simply imagined what was going on behind all of the static. With the move to cable and satellite, TVs became tethered, and the introduction of PVRs like TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) and ReplayTV increased the strength of that tether such that often we can get all of our programming in only one room of the house.

That's about to change. There will be a series of products showcased at CES that allow you to watch your programming not only from anyplace in the house but also -- thanks to the Internet, cell phones, and hand-held and laptop computers -- from anyplace in the world.

A surprising number will use a new mobile technology from TiVo to do this, while others will use Media Center PCs. There will even be after-market software for your PC that will allow it to stream video content to you wherever you are, as long as you have a good Internet connection. While I'm not yet sold on the idea of watching TV on my cell phone, I can certainly imagine using a hand-held or laptop computer for this purpose. Even a video iPod-like device that was dedicated and could cache the programming -- so I could watch it on planes or where wireless connections aren't available -- would be interesting, and there will be several of these on display.

High Resolution Photography

Digital photography is moving to the next generation. You will soon see cameras approaching 20 megapixels that substantially exceed the quality you can get with film. But still cameras won't be the whole story: The first HDTV personal video cameras also will begin to show up in the market. The file sizes for both of these products, coupled with their costs, will keep them at the very high end of the segment for a time. But I've seen some of the HDTV shots, and I have to admit that I'm hooked.

What if you could make movies that were not just TV quality but were actually better than what you see in professional movies today? The movies you can make with these cameras are so stunning that they will immediately take you back to that special vacation or historic moment. I can't begin to describe the quality. If you get to see one of the movies they create, you'll be stunned too.

Of course, you will need some way to get these huge files off the cameras and edit them. Many of the still cameras will connect wirelessly to a PC, allowing the pictures to be stored safely and freeing you from carrying a massive number of flash cards or micro drives. The HDTV cameras will be more difficult: They will generally have hard drives, and the huge files they create will make drive manufacturers quite happy. Editing these images and video is not a trivial matter, and chip companies like Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) will become the biggest cheerleaders for this trend.

Flat Panel TVs

This year flat panel TVs will hit in big numbers. With an expected price drop of 50 percent by year end, they will suddenly becoming very affordable. Plasma is out, and Sony (NYSE: SNE) has already announced it is leaving that segment (three guesses what brand of plasma TV I have). LCD is now the technology to watch. Although sometimes not as vibrant as plasma, LCD has a much longer service life, uses less power and generates less heat then a plasma set. Up until now, LCD panels basically stopped at around 30 inches, but in 2005 the big panels will show up.

Many of these will connect wirelessly to set-top boxes that contain all of the connections to the rest of your audio-visual setup. This is another new trend, and it continues the wireless theme. Because the cost of hooking these things up has become a problem, vendors are now differentiating their products to make them ever easier to set up and use, and the wireless connection means you have to worry only about the power cord. (We have yet to figure out a reliable method for sending power to an appliance of this class wirelessly.)

Expect to see a lot of these products move to using CableCard so that they can better connect to HDTV content on cable systems. CableCard allows a third-party device (such as an HDTV) to play the role of a digital cable set-top box, potentially resolving (where supported -- it's always good to check this out) the current mess in which you need at least two remote controls to watch TV.

By the way, some TVs will have hard drives in them, so that you can time-shift your programs and won't need a TiVo. Given the short service life for a hard drive used this way, this is a really dumb idea. That drive better be really easy to replace by the owner.

Personal Music Players

The fact that the iPod has been the hot item for several years running has not been lost on anyone. While there were some arguably better products available from companies like Gateway, Creative Labs, Virgin Electronics and RIO, the iPod has become the standard, and these other products haven't been superior enough to shift demand from the dominant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL).

An accessories market has sprung up around the iPod, the impact of which I'm not sure Apple fully understands. You'll see a massive number of iPod accessories. Products will allow you to integrate the iPod into your car stereo or your house (such as a slot that installs in the wall), and there will also be new speakers, headphones and cases for the iPod.

As a result, the most successful iPod competitor will be the one that can both offer a better product and make that product compatible with iPod accessories. This accessory support will be critical, and I bet Apple will break this backwards compatibility themselves with future products that will open the door to the first real competitor. We'll see.

Next Week

Next week we'll look at the products that knocked my socks off at CES, and I'll actually be able to name names. Until then, I'll be thinking of new and creative ways to be in two places at once, because that is the only way I'll be able to make all of the meetings I have at this show. Happy New Year!