Las Vegas, NV—This morning, a panel discussed what the home entertainment experience will be like in the near future, from the smart and connected TV to the PVR, Set-Top and PC experience. Moderated by Rick Doherty, co-founder/director dsc00244of The Envisioneering Group, panelists were Nick Chakalos, senior director/strategy & business development, Home and Networks Mobility for Motorola; JT Taylor, director of product marketing, service provider video technology group for Cisco; Duncan Bees, CTO Home Gateway Initiative; John Gildred, president, SyncTV and SVP, Pioneer; Sandip H. Mandera, worldwide product manager, digital media solutions, software & solutions group of Intel; and David Henry, director of product marketing, consumer products, NETGEAR.

No surprise, this was a group that was bullish on the future of a fully connected digital home entertainment environment. Each participant briefly described the work of their respective companies in the pursuit of this ideal, and took a closer look at what business and technological forces would be in play to make this future a reality. The general conclusion was that innovation would come from the retail side, pushing cable operators and others to adopt new services.

“We have all these capabilities but we have to find a way to bring it together for the consumer, said Gudorf. “In a retail environment you have better way of bringing features to the consumer than in an operator environment.” He discussed the “sweet spot” of retail products navigate-able with a standard remote control. “From a general consumer perspective, each box is a different user interface,” he said. “Is that the experience we want the consumer to have?” He also encouraged open standards, as a way to have manufacturers partner with one another and provide products for the retail market for the consumer.

Mandera discussed Intel’s role for “anytime/anywhere” solutions. NETGEAR’s Henry said his company’s intent was to provide the backbone in the home. “It has to be simple and easy to connect,” he said. “We’re really looking at Internet video as the key driver for connecting. We know the awareness of Internet video is there, and it’s just growing and growing. We’re excited about bringing that to the living room.”

According to Gildred, we’re starting to see more quality content going directly to digital devices. “And we want to see even more quality content,” he said. “We want to see this happen in an open standards way, not custom deals or proprietary systems. We think it’s better to standardize DRM, formats and so on, so there isn’t a monolithic system that won’t work as this grows.”

Gudorf noted that it’s a chicken and the egg: the operator model doesn’t support open platforms, although open platforms will spur growth. “What can you do now to bring this content in and having it grow throughout the home and start to prove out that consumers really want this?” he asked. “Then establishing this, it’ll become easier. But we may not be able to do thisi on the basis of an operator environment. Retail pressures–like TiVO and the introduction of DVR–will get the operators to come on board.”

Once you get the devices to talk to each other, content will take care of itself, opined one panelist. The sooner the devices can talk to each other, consumers will understand that they plug it in, it works, and their content will move around those different devices.

How long will it take to create that connected home? “The consumer will dictate adoption,” concluded Taylor. “What unmet need will we be meeting with the connected home? I do believe it’s all moving in the right direction, but I’d be hesitant to put a time frame on it.”