I’ve said before that if getting a television running was as complicated as setting up and properly securing a home network – I’m talking about a regular TV here, not one of those monsters with more inputs and outputs than a 747 cockpit – there wouldn’t be half as much TV watching going on as there is now.  And it looks as if some people at the Gartner analyst outfit tend to agree.

They say it’s time for networking vendors to come out with gear which doesn’t require a degree in computer science.  As it stands, it’s still too complex to get a bunch of different devices talking to each other properly, too many wireless systems still have no security in place if they’re left in their factory configuration, and when you toss digital rights management into the mix, things get even trickier, as people run into problems getting their legally acquired multimedia content to play properly on their TV.  

There are signs that a shift is coming, though:  Apple’s new Apple TV device does a pretty good job of getting your multimedia content from your computer to your TV with a minimum of hassle (and a minimum of wires), and Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Home Server system looks like it’ll de-geekify the networking process further and provide even more functionality.  

Read more about the still-too-hard home networking situation at The Beeb.