Streamium

Streamium products use Wi-Fi to stream multimedia content from desktop computers or Internet-based services to home entertainment devices.

Philips Media Manager, is—since SimpleCenter version 4— a free open source UPnP AV MediaServer for Windows and Macintosh that is bundled with Streamium.

[1] In 2000 Philips' consumer electronics division (business unit Audio) invented the Streamium brand for a "Connected Home".

The FW-i1000, an audio mini-system including a CD-changer and AM/FM radio, and considered to be the precursor to the Streamium product line, first shipped in June 2001.

At the January 2001 Consumer Electronics Show they announced and demonstrated the first integrated audio device connecting to "over a thousand internet radio stations".

The marketing name "Streamium" and the slogan "Don't dream it, stream-it" was coined and globally registered by Ramon de la Fuente (now at Google) who replaced Tony Cher as a product manager in 2001.

January 2003 Announced at the same event: Both the Streamium-TV and MX6000i were capable of offering video content hosted by a web-based service, the precursor of net TV.

By manipulating the navigation tree from the front panel of the Streamium-device users could select desired the service, genre, artist, album, track... From the start, Streamium-devices contained provisions (i.e. an IEEE EUI-64 containing an OUI and a MAC-address, encryption keys, product and software version codes) used to protect streams and support identification mechanisms, as well as allowing downloading of software upgrades (for bug-fixes as well as enabling new features).

On the frontpanel or through the on-screen display (OSD) of the Streamium devices, users could mark their favorites or indicate they wanted to learn more about the song being played.

Under the direction of the Streamium team, Philips CE contributed significantly to both UPnP and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and other industry efforts.

Concepts (such as those used in the Connected Home demos) would then be shown by the Streamium team in the "Philips-CE World Tour", an invitation only event at the yearly Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to a selected audience.

[9] "The Internet has transformed the way we do business," Demuynck stated, referring not only to communications and promotions but to product design as well.

In addition, a UI extension was offered (my.philips) that allowed consumers to manage their devices, external service subscriptions, favorites, as well as to add their own streams.

The PC-based UI extension was part of the lean-forward/lean-backward approach to this potentially complicated product range: In essence, the Philips service offering was a walled garden; but the fact that consumers could add and access their own favorite streams made it more of an open system.

Philips' legal team had issues with the non-assertion clause[10] that Microsoft required potential licensees to sign without prior opportunity to check the IP involved.