The future is on the couch

By JOSIE CLARKE

The living room as we know it is changing. The television is out and interactive home entertainment centres are in.

Couch potatoes everywhere are about to be dragged into the digital, interactive age.

The home video player, once occupying pride of place in the electronic home of 10 years ago, is increasingly looking its age as younger interlopers such as DVDs elbow it aside.

With home appliances in a state of flux, the Weekend Herald set out to discover what's in store for the consumer of the future.

Sony Style Group manager Clark Hamilton believes the television "box" is on the way to becoming a relic.

"The box as we know it is a shrinking market. You'll see it at the bach, that's all."

Instead, the modern-day lounge will increasingly come to resemble a cinema, with Digital Versatile Disc at the heart of the system and, on one wall, a plasma screen or a large canvas which reflects a projected image.

There's also a whole genre of internet-compatible "boxes" like PlayStation2 and Microsoft's Xbox.

Mr Hamilton settles into a booth at Sony's Auckland showroom - a model of the New Zealand living room as the company expects to see it in five to 10 years.

Behind him, suspended from the ceiling, is a $15,000 projector transferring a DVD movie onto a canvas screen. Speakers (five normally make up the set) dot the room. Off to the left is the heart of the system - the DVD player, complete with an amplifier and pre-amplifier which are the "brains and the muscle."

On the coffee table are the latest gadgets. The tiny dual digital video camera ($5000), which doubles as a mega pixel digital still-shot camera for e-mailing pictures, has a Memory Stick, a storage card that can store up to 64Mb of images, video, digital music or text. And of course there's PS2 now available for $899.

Dick Smith's merchandise manager, Tony Paulsen, agrees that plasma screens should reach realistic prices in five to 10 years, and that projectors are also becoming popular.

The key word is interactive, Mr Paulsen says. "We'll control what we watch, decide how we want to watch it, and interact with the television broadcaster in ordering products live on the television as we would at the moment by going to the internet."

Many of these gadgets have been on the market for months, or even years.

And don't think that only the rich and famous will be able to afford the technology. Much of it is filtering its way into standard home entertainment setups.

Some electronic gurus predict that in the next five to 10 years, 50 per cent of all televisions sold will be plasma screens.

While plasma screens cost $80,000 10 years ago, they now retail closer to $20,000.

In the future, whether consumers opt for television sets or plasma screens, all home entertainment is likely to be managed from one hub, according to Michele Teague, the general manager of sales and marketing at Pacific Retail Group, which owns Noel Leeming, Computer City and Bond & Bond.

Television, stereo, games and pay-television will be integrated into one Machine, capable of customising entertainment to a consumer's taste.

"If you don't want to watch blood-and-guts news, or have a particular interest in a sport, your system will be able to do all of that for you. It will be the ultimate for the couch potato. You'll never want to leave home."