[An introductory note from Harry: I'm pleased to say that Technologizer's Digital Media Central will be publishing some posts from guest bloggers over the next few weeks. The first to drop in is Ed Bott, whose work I've long admired at Ed Bott's Windows Expertise and Ed Bott's Microsoft Report, the latter of which lives on ZDnet. Ed and I are also almost-colleagues: He was managing editor of PC World a few years before I showed up there. Welcome, Ed--it's good to see your byline on Technologizer.]

If you had just two minutes to outrun a fire or tsunami and could take only what you were able to carry from your house, what would you grab first?

Assuming the family and pets were all safe, my first instinct would probably be to start stuffing hard drives into a sack. Especially the ones that contain precious family photos and videos.

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Visions of the “digital living room” having been dancing in the heads of industry leaders for over a decade, but no one solution has broken into the mainstream. Now, Apple may be preparing for a significant push based on the success of iTunes and the iPod. Or so predicts analyst Gene Munster of investment bank Piper Jaffray, which thinks that Apple will give it a shot by introducing its own brand of networked television.

Piper Jaffray’s report says that indications from Apple’s management, coupled with Apple’s DVR and TV-related patent filings and partnership with LG, have led it to conclude that Apple will introduce a connected television to the market in 2011.

The Apple TV (not to be confused with Apple TV) could be an integrated all-in-one device that combines a Blu-ray/DVD player, music playback, cable box, and DVR to synchronize recorded programming with Macs, iPhones and iPods. It may include gaming features, according to the report.

Apple would be wise to capitalize on the ecosystem that it has created around iTunes, and its strong brand. Apple has already laid the groundwork to introduce an actual television with its Apple TV digital media receiver. Synchronization has been key to Apple’s success, and Apple has made Apple TV work well with iTunes.

Piper Jaffray noted that Apple TV sales were already growing substantially, and that Apple may sell as many as 6 million units this year.

Research analysts have a mediocre record at best when it comes to predicting what Apple will and won’t do. Still, an elegant, consolidated Apple media device would simplify the tangle of wires that many of us have in our living rooms with the added bonus of a wealth of content contained in its iTunes media library.

If the price is right, it sounds like it could be a winner to me. But the real question is whether it sounds that way to Apple.

The movie retailer has teamed up with Sonic Solutions to begin offering a sale and rental download program for consumers. Approximately 10,000 movies would be available through the service, and the company is mulling a subscription based plan in the future according to reports.

Blockbuster was locked in a tit-for-tat with Netflix over online movie rentals for quite awhile, before eventually acquiescing due to financial difficulties. However, it has shown life once again and has begun to play on Netflix’s turf.

This follows another announcement from Blockbuster called the MediaPoint player, which was essentially its response to Netflix’s Roku. Of course, its rival is still further ahead in digital distribution, having deals to place its movies on TiVos, Microsoft’s Xbox 360s, and select Blu-ray players.

Blockbuster isn’t planning to be behind for long, also aiming to get its content on consumer electronic devices real soon. No word on pricing or availability yet, though.

One has to wonder if RIAA’s decision to stop suing file sharers may have anything to do with the fact that digital music is quickly becoming the format of choice among consumers. A survey released by Nielsen indicates that digital music continues to become a larger portion of the overall music pie.

A record number of both digital albums and tracks were sold during 2008, sporting increases of 32 and 27 percent respectively. 1.07 billion digital tracks were purchased, while 65.8 million albums were downloaded.

Overall, albums seem to be falling out of favor, with a 8.5 percent decrease in sales to 535.4 million units. Interesting factoid? Vinyl is back in style apparently: 1.8 milion LPs were sold during the year, nearly double that from last year.

In the digital realm, Leona Lews “Bleeding Love” took top honors in the singles category, followed by Flo Rida’s “Low” and Rhianna’s “Disturbia.” In albums, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was the best selling album, followed by Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through The Static and the soundtrack to the 2007 film Juno.

Universal Music Group continues to be the largest purveyor of digital albums and tracks, garnering market shares of 27.8 and 31.8 percent respectively.

HP has received favorable reviews for its new 1.5TB MediaSmart Server ex487, a Mac-compatible Windows Home Server that serves as a centralized hub for digital media libraries and connects to social Web services. And its launch has revived rumors that Apple could be improving its Time Capsule network storage device to perform many of the same functions..

Surprisingly, much of the praise centers on HP’s successful integration of its middleware on top of Windows Home Server. (Anyone with a memory as short as a matchstick can recall lousy software being preloaded onto HP machines in the past.) Two other variations of the server that have lower storage capacities are available; the product family’s shared specs are as follows:

· HP Media Collector: conveniently schedules the MediaSmart Server to copy and centralize digital files and libraries from networked PCs
· Media Streaming: remotely streams photos and music to any Internet-connected PC or Mac
· Server for iTunes: centralizes iTunes music libraries on the server for playback to any networked Mac or PC running iTunes
· HP Photo Publisher: easily upload photos to Facebook®, PicasaTM Web Albums and Snapfish(3)
· HP Photo Viewer: allows easy sharing of photos with friends and family
· PC Hard Drive Backup: backs up networked PCs via the Windows Home Server backup feature
· Mac Hard Drive Backup: backs up Macs running Leopard using Apple Time Machine software
· Server Backup: duplicates designated shared folders to a separate hard disk drive
· Online Backup: duplicates designated folders to Amazon’s S3 online backup service for an additional layer of protection
· Smart Power Management: can schedule times for server to go to “sleep” and “wake up,” saving on energy costs
· Processor: Intel Celeron, 2.0 GHz 64-bit. Two gigabytes (GB) of 800-MHz DDR2 DRAM now standard on MediaSmart Server

The drive bays are expandable to over 9TB. With storage being as affordable as it is, I can’t imagine why HP is not providing more storage from the get-go. My old reliable Windows XP Pro desktop has over a terabyte of storage. Then again, I built it, and am more of an early adopter than the average consumer.

The average consumer is also very likely to associate Apple with all things media. Frankly, Apple has needed to make the Time Capsule a more attractive product. Customers that are savvy enough to back up their data are likewise savy enough to know that there are some pretty cool storage alternatives. Rumored new Time Capsule features such as MobileMe support woud differentiate it from HP’s offering.

Other rumored upcoming Time Capsule features include a shared iTunes library databases for music and video, facilities to share media among Apple devices both at home and over the Internet, file-sharing, and back ups that can be remotely initiated. It may also provide for multiple hard drive configurations.

If I were an Apple customer, I would not switch back. If I was thinking about making the jump from PC to the Mac, it would probably take more than HP’s media server to stop me. In that scenario, the only other element that work really in HP’s favor would be price: The HP servers are relatively inexpensive, with the ex487 starting at $749.

That said, Apple could throw PC manufacturers a real curve ball by shipping souped up Time Capsules with Macs for a reasonable price–if not free with some higher-end models. With HP upping the ante, Apple will have to polish its products that much harder.