Ok. I've held it in enough. Why on god's green earth would anyone want touchscreen on their HTPC software? I understand for a Sideshow remote, great idea. But other than the HP Touchsmart series of PC's, why oh why would anyone want it? I'm so confused at all the rage.
I understand it demoes "oooh so cool" but does anyone see any realtime actual living usage coming with it?
Mike,
You don't have a 60" touchscreen TV in your livingroom?
I use my touchscreen whenever I want to play Music so that I don't have to turn on my big screen to browse my library, same thing with checking the latest weather or school bus cancellations. Useful, but not completely necessary.
ET
Erikt,
I have the same idea but I haven't executed it yet. I would like to get a small 10" touchscreen to sit alongside my TV. I will use the touchscreen to navigate music so I don't have to turn on my big TV and waste hours on the bulb.
A touchscreen is also nice for a kitchen PC, or maybe a PC in the workout room but I would never really want one bigger than 15"
Who knows, maybe these corporate visionaries know more than we do. Probably not though.
I agree with the consensus here, it can be useful for what I'll call walk-up computing. The Kitchen PC would seem to be the poster-child for this kind of interface where not only is a keyboard and mouse impractical, but you are also not sitting on a couch with remote in hand.
Other than touch screens though, please keep your greasy fingers of my displays. >:D
Other than touch screens though, please keep your greasy fingers of my displays. >:D
Should say "Other than touch screens though, please keep your greasy fingers of my displays! >:D "
but you guys bring up a good point, if the main reason of touch is for the kitchen type appliance, or to play music without turning on ur plasma, wouldn't a thin-client or sideshow be a better method that just seems to have been swept under the carpet?
and no, 32" is as big as i can afford right now..*tear*
I think that in a kitchen (for example) it is easier to walk-up to a touch kiosk and tap away than find the side-show remote/device find the right buttons aim it etc. etc. This works on the theory that in the kitchen I am on my feet and moving around a lot.
I was thinking about it and in a way, my touch vision is not really a 10' interface, but not a traditional 2' interface either. Things need to be large and quick and easy to read like the 10' interfaces, but left-right-up-down navigation isn't exactly right for touch applications. To be fair though, I have not yet tried either the 7MC or SageMC touch interfaces so I cannot comment on how well they work.
Another good application for touch is pairing a touch panel with a projector. This way you can access the system without warming up the projector.
You know what else would go good with a projector? A sideshow remote. oh wait. Hmmm. I'll crawl back into the stone age now.
Assuming that the sideshow remote is IR based and not RF, that idea only works if your kitchen has line of site to your HTPC. In my case, they're on different floors of the house.
I love that Ricavision "premiered" a sideshow remote back in 2006 and we still don't have one on the market. Even with sideshow remotes, there is still some information that will be easier to navigate on a larger screen with touch (ie...reading recipes in the kitchen...reading anything for that matter), and adding a single touch display in clone mode to any htpc is a real possibility and has been for quite some time.
the ricavision was both IR and RF (it was RF for the sideshow features and IR for the immediate MCE controls (up/down/left))
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Mike,
It's not one of those things I'd use in most situations, but put it in a kitchen PC setup or something like that and I can see it.
Definitely not something for the living room though in my opinion. I don't want to encourage the family to reach out and touch the screen in most cases
Brent
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