The highlight of the Digital Living Room conference held this week in Foster City, Calif. was the final session, when the so-called experts on consumer entertainment products stepped aside and heard from a focus group of consumers about how they got their music, movies and games.

Although the focus group consisted of two men and two women in the 17- to 35-year-old age group, all who placed strong value on home entertainment and were pretty technology savvy, none of them owned an iPod, none of them obtained movies through the rent-by-mail service Netflix, and none were excited whatsoever by the array of new home entertainment products flooding the market.

While some of the panelists, who included a professional DJ, said they regularly downloaded music online, at least two said that buying new and used CDs from an online store like Amazon or eBay was their preferred way of getting new music. One said she transferred music to her cell phone by playing her CDs really loud and holding the phone's receiver up to the speaker. None had heard of Zune, the music player made by Microsoft Corp. "I've thought about it," one of the panelists said about the option of downloading digital music files. "But I'd rather have it on a CD." Another added, "I thought of getting an iPod, but never wanted to spend the money. I'd rather have the music on CDs."

Those members of the panel who were active gamers said they typically purchased several games a month. With regards to movies, most said they still rented from physical stores like Blockbuster, or just purchased new and used DVDs at prices they considered only slightly higher than rentals.

One theme that emerged from the focus group was not so much a reluctance to adopt new technology, but a distrust of many of the new consumer products that were appearing on the market, and of the terms of some subscription services.

The group said they generally regarded home entertainment with an attitude of "If it's not broke, don't fix it," and had grown weary of the constant product upgrade cycle that rapidly made last year's models obsolete.

In many ways, these consumers were smart to resist new product launches.

But their often old-fashioned entertainment habits (buying DVDs outright versus paying $5 - $15 per month for unlimited rentals???) also showed a failure on the part of many companies to communicate the value they offered.

One focus group member confessed that she never signed up for online services, even on a free-trial basis, because she was distrustful of the small print and the automatic billing that often followed once she provided a credit card number.

Asked what advice they'd like to pass on to the makers of this home entertainment equipment, most said they'd prefer fewer product upgrades. "Stop making things obsolete," one said. "Don't make us have to upgrade." — Andrea Orr