CES isn't a convention - it's more like 6 conventions. It's car audio (and now video), it's photography (and digital photography) It's Consumer Electronics, and Electronic Accessories, and it's all the pipe and infrastructure stuff that glues it all together.

I spent the morning at the Digtal Hollywood conference - a series of panels on the relationship between content and technology.

The first thing that is clear is that the revolution that Tivo began is no longer an if, or even when - it's now. ABC, Comcast, TV Guide, Starcom MediaVest and the BBC all had representatives on this panel moderated by Ken rutkowsky. (www.KenRadio.com). And while they through around words like Gatekeeper (each accusing the other of being one) they also talked with great agility about Bittorrent, MP3, and Citizen Media. They all know that VOD, and IPTV are all inevitable.

The Comcast rep talked about the fact that cable feels that it's retransmission fees to broadcast networks should give them the right to offer network TV shows on a demand basis. I'd pay money to see how those negotiations are going.

The Panel seems to agree that the future is going to be driven by navigation and guidance in the new long-tail world of media storage and on demand delivery.

After hearing so much about media servers and IPTV - I ventured out onto the tradeshow floor to kick the tires. My first stop was Microsoft, where they were demo'ing the Home Media Center. Bill Gates had pitched this whole media center option hard when he delivered his Key Note the day before.

I have to say - the software seemed surprisingly elegant (ok, it's a trade show so it's fair to assume that it should work in a totally engineered environment with no outside forces). Bill Gates key note had a few glitches - which made the rounds.

Next stop was Tivo. The CEO Mike Ramsey had said this morning that he was abandoning their cable strategy and going for IPTV.

more in a bit - off to dinner - -