Home Media Access with Heterogeneous Devices

The intensive use of social content anywhere and from any device presents new challenges for current systems and networks particularly when they are used by novice users. One of the most places where social channels are used by non-expert users and with a wide range of devices is at home. Unfortunately, current digital home systems lack of intelligent components that help terminals and users to find, configure and connect devices for using media content (video, audio, etc.) in an intuitive, transparent and optimized way. In this paper, the author discusses how the user's experience is negatively affected in existing digital home systems. Particularly, in heterogeneous environments with terminals and networks having different capabilities. The author discusses the home media access using a real-world evaluation of existing home systems. The author compares these evaluations to a Web-based approach and show how the use of the home network resources can be significantly improved for sharing and browsing media items and folders.