Long Beach, Calif. – Pioneer dropped plans to launch its DigitaLibrary networked AV server more than a year after demonstrating a pre-production prototype at CES 2002.
The company said it would, however, develop a second-generation version but didn’t project a launch date. The company originally targeted late-2002 shipments for the first-generation version.
The decision followed ‘extensive beta testing’ that uncovered needed improvements determined to be ‘critical to maximum performance and customer satisfaction,’ a spokesperson said.
The $999-MAP device was to use wired Ethernet and wireless-network technologies to distribute audio, still pictures, and video from its hard drive to multiple TVs and audio systems in a house. It was also designed to stream Internet audio and video via a broadband connection from select Internet streaming services. TVs and audio systems would be connected to library ‘branches’ costing about half the price of the server.
