These companies are very short-sighted. There is already a networking standard, ethernet.
"Home networking" standards have come and gone (Remember HPNA anyone? Or the early Proxim wireless gear and proposed standard?). The problem is that people inevitably want to connect things like laptops and such to their home networks, devices which already have wired and/or wireless ethernet capabilities.
What they really need to develop is a protocol and QoS for A/V equipment to intercommunicate. Good luck trying to get 10,000 companies to all agree on, and consistently implement, any sort of ubiquitous communications protocol.
These companies simply can't help themselves from breaking "standards" in situations like this. There would be an agreed-upon method to have your A/V receiver talk to your DVD player and display, for example. Except if you had all Sony gear, then there would be an "enhanced" mode that added some trivial feature. Then Panasonic would copy the concept, but with their own "enhanced mode". Then Denon would steal Sony's method and Kenwood would steal Panasonics, and soon the whole thing becomes fractured and broken.
There is a reason that most A/V gear still connects with simple cables and minimal interoperability... I don't see this changing anytime soon.
"Home networking" standards have come and gone (Remember HPNA anyone? Or the early Proxim wireless gear and proposed standard?). The problem is that people inevitably want to connect things like laptops and such to their home networks, devices which already have wired and/or wireless ethernet capabilities.
What they really need to develop is a protocol and QoS for A/V equipment to intercommunicate. Good luck trying to get 10,000 companies to all agree on, and consistently implement, any sort of ubiquitous communications protocol.
These companies simply can't help themselves from breaking "standards" in situations like this. There would be an agreed-upon method to have your A/V receiver talk to your DVD player and display, for example. Except if you had all Sony gear, then there would be an "enhanced" mode that added some trivial feature. Then Panasonic would copy the concept, but with their own "enhanced mode". Then Denon would steal Sony's method and Kenwood would steal Panasonics, and soon the whole thing becomes fractured and broken.
There is a reason that most A/V gear still connects with simple cables and minimal interoperability... I don't see this changing anytime soon.