Is there potential for another commercial front end?

**athomemedia** · 08-11-2006, 10:02 AM

Hi,

I've been lurking here for a while but this is my first post. Hopefully you experienced carputer fans can help answer a couple of questions, and perhaps direct some product ideas.

A quick background - I'm a director of a small s/w development company formed a while back concentrating on home theatre PC applications. We developed a product named mediate which received good feedback but did relatively poorly commercially. The HTPC market now is all but dead given the onward march of Windows MCE.

So, we were considering porting our existing application (see http://www.athomemedia.co.uk) to an in-car environment. Our app uses a very flexible DirectX based theme engine so we could implement pretty much any user interface. Media playback is handled with DirectShow so no external programs are required - this lets us have really tight integration with alpha blended user interface overlaid during media playback.

As a preliminary step, I've prototyped a few concepts such as gesture recognition which would be easy enough to build in. The app as it stands plays music, video and picture slideshows and integrates with remotes, keyboard and mouse input. Other functionality could be added as demand increases.

I've looked around at a number of current front ends - I see lots of community projects based on Winamp or WMP but few commercial apps. Of the commercial apps only Streetdeck seems to really impress, so that really sets the benchmark for us. Then again - that's $200 - is the cost of that limiting its market or is it worth the money?

We could compete on price, but would have fewer features to start with. A draft business model would involve a free community edition for basics such as media playback but with cost options for extra functionality (e.g. Navigation, Radio). Hopefully those could be developed in collaboration with some of the other developers lurking here subject to some suitable financial agreement.

Our other thought is to develop hardware to ease vehicle integration - researching the current market has revealed lots of solutions for individual areas, but nothing comprehensive. Here, we're thinking of audio mixing, power management, dash controls, vehicle sensors & control etc.

To get going on this we really need an idea of the potential market - are we likely to have people contribute skins and plugins for a commercial product? What would it take for people to buy into a new product like this?

Apologies for the lengthy first post - any thoughts at all from the community here would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

Kind regards

Andrew Retmanski
Director
@home media limited

**ShawJohn** · 08-11-2006, 10:16 AM

It all depends on how much its likely to be, whether updates are free, whether or not it completely hides windows for the 'non savvy' user.

I imagine you'd get some assistance from some of the talented guys on here with some financial persuassion, but the vast majority of peeps on here are pretty good with a PC and so would more likely stick with the usuals like RoadRunner or Centrafuse, however, soon Centrafuse will also be a commercial product!

Who's going to pay $200 for program A when program B is just as good and is free

...That is the problem

Welcome to MP3Car BTW

**athomemedia** · 08-11-2006, 11:06 AM

Thanks for the welcome & feeback :-)

I take your point on the free s/w being tempting - but are they really competing on quality? An unfair comparison admittedly, but StreetDeck seems to wipe the floor with RR in terms of performance & functionality.

Pricewise I was thinking of somewhere in between these two extremes - basically I'm hoping to get the visual flair and animation effects of something like StreetDeck but at a much lower cost.

The fact that Centrafuse is going commercial is interesting - I'll keep an eye on that, particularly with pricing.

I think we could compete quite aggressively on price - we have a framework which is perhaps 70% complete for basic in car use so doesn't require too much additional development. The main work required is in the visual and user interface design which is where I'm hoping the community here can contribute.

The commercial aspect of it may be offputting though to some users - I've seen posts complaining about the direction Centrafuse is heading in. But having a commercial framework brings benefits too - like having licensed map libraries for example, which can work straight out of the box.

I'm guessing our target market would be people that want a huge wow factor for their car PC without having to spend hours trying to get numerous external apps to all place nicely.

More thoughts welcome...

**evandude** · 08-11-2006, 11:44 AM

If you can get the level of quality, professional feel, functionality, and ease of setup/use to the point where it's past the free frontends, to the level where it can be competitive with streetdeck, then I would expect you would have a market. The competition could very well drive both streetdeck and your software to new levels of quality and performance, too.

Obviously if you've got a background in similar software development then you know far more than most of us about what it would take, but you'd definitely have to match streetdeck on a number of features, and hopefully do some other innovative things to differentiate.

Personally, I have been under the impression that a big chunk of the cost of streetdeck is for the integrated navigation; buying a full copy of mappoint looks like $300, so one would assume that the license fee for each copy of streetdeck is also rather high. However, I also think that having GOOD navigation that is completely integrated out-of-the-box is of tremendous importance in a frontend, perhaps even more important to some people than music integration, but having it as an addon module could be reasonable since it's likely to be the most expensive part of the frontend.

Personally I think I would pay $200 for streetdeck at some point because of the level of integration and how configurable and easily usable it appears to be. However, I do think $200 is too expensive until I am really happy with my hardware and install, at which point it would be a "finishing touch"; it would be a waste to buy it and then not use it most of the time since my mp3 box spends a lot of time out of the car while i'm trying to improve my setup (I mainly just at least put it in whenever I have a long road trip coming up). so I am staying with free frontends until then. I would also like to see what improvements they make in the mean time, and if any good competition pops up, such as this, if you go through with it.

**athomemedia** · 08-11-2006, 12:24 PM

Thanks for the thoughts - some sensible advice there!

With navigation, I think you're absolutely right - it really need to be integrated and painless for the user. With a suitable commercial arrangement with one of the vendors such as Destinator or MapPoint that's definitely possible, although as you point out there will be an associated license cost which needs quantifying.

It's certainly sounding like there may be a market out there - if we can come up with the right product. Tempting...

Any other opinions?

**turbocad6** · 08-11-2006, 01:34 PM

"Our app uses a very flexible DirectX based theme engine so we could implement pretty much any user interface. Media playback is handled with DirectShow so no external programs are required - this lets us have really tight integration with alpha blended user interface overlaid during media playback."

that right there will set you apart from the rest, & may prove interesting enough that some may choose your frontend over the others... if you could display like a rear view camera feed undernieth the frontend, that would be truly unique..

basically, roadrunner is an amazing front end, don't dismiss it so easily... the problem with roadrunner is that it is not for the average joe who can barely install a program on there pc... it takes a lot of configuring/tweeking & setup, where the comercially available for sale front ends need to be "idiot proof"... & I don't mean that in a bad way, but when someone shells out a few hundred bucks they just expect it to work out of the box

roadrunner is unique in the fact that it is HIGHLY customizable, much more so than even streetdeck or centrafuse, but along with this goes of course getting your hands dirty & having to learn a lot.... no one is going to be willing to spend a few hundred bucks for just a building block... it has to be a complete & easy to use/setup option I would think...

of course there is a market out there... theres no question about that... the question is how far ahead the competition is, & how much of that market you can capture...

to have people here develop skins & plugins will all be dependant on how good your front end is.... if someone with these abilities happens to like & use your frontend, then they will naturally develop skins or pluggins for there own use, & this is what gets shared & brings on the skins &/or plugins... no one is going to just make stuff like this, unless they adopt your frontend for themselves to begin with....

you will notice that roadrunner has by far the most skins & by far the most devoloping... this is mainly because it probably has the most users, & the likelyhood of a real computer savvy person using rr is much higher than an easy to use but restricted to as-is front end...

an easy to use front end that's sold comercially may atract less computer savvy users, so don't expect to ever have the same kind of developing that rr enjoys...., but if it's unique & offers things that others don't it could verywell be a hit...

**b8bboi** · 08-11-2006, 01:51 PM

I take your point on the free s/w being tempting - but are they really competing on quality? An unfair comparison admittedly, but StreetDeck seems to wipe the floor with RR in terms of performance & functionality.

You can't be ******* serious. To me personally, RR is the best frontend out there, free or paid.
The best thing about free software is that you're generally not bound by petty legal issues. CF, I've read, is gonna have some slight problem with XM because XM doesn't like software integration (probably for fear of people recording their stuff in clear digital format?). SD has some lameass restrictions on not being able to enter address while driving. With RR, everything goes. Freeway also looks like another promising open source FE.

**Sonicxtacy02** · 08-11-2006, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by b8bboi

You can't be ******* serious. To me personally, RR is the best frontend out there, free or paid.
The best thing about free software is that you're generally not bound by petty legal issues. CF, I've read, is gonna have some slight problem with XM because XM doesn't like software integration (probably for fear of people recording their stuff in clear digital format?). SD has some lameass restrictions on not being able to enter address while driving. With RR, everything goes. Freeway also looks like another promising open source FE.

I was gonna comment on that too but passed at the chance. I guess its all about whats important to you. "out the box" capabilities or exponential enhancement. Kinda disrespectful to say a program focused on limited hardware set "wipes the floor" with a program that can be used and adapted to nearly every users need.

I guess from a "commercial" standpoint, streetdeck is a better product. But i dont think it compares to rr in terms of performance...and thats whats important to me.

**turbocad6** · 08-11-2006, 02:33 PM

open source will always apeal to the ones that really know what there doing,

along with comercialization becomes restrictions...

roadrunner will always be the king in the area of real geeks.... it would take a lot to come in ahead of that...

**evandude** · 08-11-2006, 02:40 PM

Personally, I don't think of streetdeck really being 'in competition' with roadrunner, any more than (for example) a sports car is 'in competition' with a kit-built track car. Setting the issue of cost aside, they seem to be in large part for two different markets: those who want their frontend to be well integrated and easy to use out of the box, and those who have no problem doing a lot of software tinkering to get things precisely the way they want them... A third market being those who don't want to have to tinker a lot, but also don't want to spend a lot of money on a solution; often first-timers or people who really aren't into software. It's people from this group that don't get the most out of RR (or other free frontends) because they don't spend tons of time learning and tinkering. To THESE people, streetdeck might be more likely to seem to "wipe the floor" with RR, etc, as you say.

The last couple of posters seem like people who are not afraid to get their hands dirty with RR. I agree entirely that you shouldn't dismiss RR so easily, and that it can be an awesome frontend if you put in the time to get it all set up. These guys who do so are probably not going to be your prime market, but you also don't want to step on the toes of people in that group, because if you are hoping to make this into a collaborative project in any capacity, it's people like them that could be your best friends

I think if you can strike a balance between the fully integrated but costly frontends, and the free but often complex to set up frontends (perhaps with various stages of features with appropriate prices, depending on where a customer falls on the 'DIY tweaker' >>> 'out-of-the-box functionality' scale) to satisfy people of all different backgrounds, then you could be on to something. However, this is one of those things that could just sound good on paper but be impossible to pull off well... and I'm no businessman or software developer