Patent Application
20060059274
The present invention relates to consumer electronic entertainment products and components, and particularly to home entertainment center housings for supporting and interconnecting a variety of such products and components in an arrangement suitable to the particular needs of the user.
The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies that have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or World Wide Web (Web). The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the Web or Internet reached “critical mass” and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, consumers have direct access to all matter of databases providing a wide variety of entertainment products through related distribution through the Web and like networks. Because of the ease with which entertainment media content is distributed via the Web, it has become a major source of electronic entertainment product content. Virtually all electronic entertainment databases throughout the world are accessible and able to be searched via the Web. This, of course, greatly supplements all of the other standard distribution modes of electronic entertainment media content distribution, including cable and satellite broadcasts or specific distributions of media content via satellite. In addition, specific entertainment product packages such as CDs, DVDs, VCRs and even audio tape cassette recordings are still prominent in the entertainment product marketplace.
In addition, the consumer electronic product technologies have been rapidly improving product quality and driving down costs so that greatly advanced products continually become available to consumers at lower and lower prices. As a result, home entertainment centers, including relatively high quality high definition LCD or plasma displays, DVD players and recorders and CD players and recorders, have become available to all consumers in the general public. Of course, each rapidly emerging generation of new electronic entertainment products will not necessarily render corresponding products in the previous generation as obsolete. Also, for reasons of economy or just for being comfortable with their operable existing products, the consuming public does not switch to the latest generation of electronic entertainment product overnight. The transition is much more gradual.
Because of this mixture of electronic entertainment product generations and types, it is not unusual for the customary home entertainment center or group of components to be interconnected by a mass of intertwined wires, connectors, adapters, spitters and converters that are disorganized and very hard to track down when removal or insertion of electronic components or products is desired or when a component problem arises.
The present invention provides a solution to the problem by providing an electronic entertainment center housing that organizes the mass of wiring, adapters and convertors into a user friendly arrangement that permits the insertion and removal of the electronic components supported therein, as well as the tracking of errors in the entertainment center. A housing is provided adapted to removably support a plurality of different consumer electronic products. There are a plurality of external I/O connection outlets of different types in the housing, and there is a connections spine in the housing that includes a plurality of I/O connection outlets of different types, a plurality of electrical connector paths for connecting pairs of the outlets in the spine with each other and a plurality of electrical connector paths for connecting outlets in said spine with the external outlets in the housing. At least one converter in at least one of the electrical connector paths converts an electrical signal input to one of said outlets of the connector path into a different electrical signal output from the other outlet of said connector path.
The entertainment center housing may also include an audio receiver supported within the housing, at least one of the electrical connectors paths connecting an outlet connected to the receiver with one of the external outlets, and a plurality of the electrical connector paths connecting outlets connected to the receiver respectively to outlets connected to other consumer electronic products supported within said housing. Similarly, the housing may also include a video receiver supported within the housing, at least one of the electrical connector paths connecting an outlet connected to the receiver with one of the external outlets and a plurality of the electrical connector paths connecting outlets connected to the receiver respectively to outlets connected to other consumer electronic products supported within the housing.
In accordance with another aspect of this invention, one of the external outlets connected to the outlet connected to either the audio or video receiver is in turn connected to an RF antenna.
Also, one of said electrical connector paths for connecting pairs of the outlets in the spine with each other may connect outlets of different types.
There may be included in the connector path connecting said pairs of outlets, a converter converting the connector path operable with the first outlet into a connector path operable with the second different outlet. Similarly, there may be included in the connector path connecting the outlet in the spine with an external outlet, a converter converting the connector path operable with the outlet in the spine into a connector path operable with the external different outlet. There may also be included in at least one of the connector paths, a converter for converting a signal input into an outlet in one of the connector paths into a different signal output from the other outlet in the connector path. For example, this converter may be connected to an external outlet connected to a power supply.
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Referring to
Attention is now directed to
There is an adapter 35 built into connector path 34 connecting outside power supply 32 (wall plug) via external outlet 33 through the housing wall via adapter 35 to internal outlet 36, in turn connected via wire lead 37 to a game console. Adapter 35 reduces the 120 volt power supply from the wall plug to a lower level suitable for the game console.
A memory card 44 including, for example, a set of photographs taken on a digital camera may be connected through external USB outlet 43 through the housing wall, then via connector path 45 to internal outlet 46 from which lead wire 47 connects to a video display supported in the housing on which the user may display the photographs.
Referring now to
Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.
