http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/ Engadget HD Comments for Some XStreamHD details emerge, some still fuzzy http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/
Obviously they are going to use a trickle delivery mechanism to get content onto the box, and local LAN RTP/RTSP streaming to ancillary STBs from the central receiver.

No-one at the consumer level pulls content using sat modems, there just isn't a business case for implementing turbo internet anymore.

Good god if you're going to post news at least read up on the technology you're dealing with. NACK implosion wrt network scalability for consumer rollouts is fundamental knowledge when it comes to data delivery over satellite.

Interesting that they are reinventing the wheel for so many pieces of their puzzle. I would venture to say rather stupid, as well, given the failure rate of systems doing this in the past (Moviebeam, Cyberstar, iBlast, Geocast, ...).]]>Dec 13th 2007 4:10PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/
Still, I suspect it is main a context issue and it is going to work very much like Moviebeam - or DirecTV and DISH Networks 'On Demand' offerings for that matter. Content will be pre-loaded onto the server in the home, and users will only be able to select from that small library of 'current' titles. Perhaps there will be an ability to pre-select what is loaded, so you can tell it which upcoming titles you wish to be able to view.]]>Dec 13th 2007 4:14PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/13/some-xstreamhd-details-emerge-some-still-fuzzy/
One instance where that would make sense would be in the case of a higher-bitrate data carousel carrying say the top 5 movies chunked up to facilitate 'instant on'. The carousel iterations may require a minimum of 5 minutes at datarate x for the box to aquire enough data chunks to start playback without fear of hitting a buffer underrun. My experience in this has been that this concept is a pipedream.

The other possibility is that they continuously trickle content to the box and send metadata announcements in an ancillary channel that has a announce time of 5 minutes. The maximum lead time from receiving the entire file to the first decode of new metadata would then be 5 minutes.

Pre-selecting items from a carousel is novel yet not original. The advantage is that the user can manage content. The disadvantage is that the lead time to obtain item B when eliminating item A is not decreased. Best to give them the illusion of queue management by simply hiding what they see on the OSD, and not what is on the drive (so when they change their minds, that 'old' content is suddenly instantly available).

This box is just another Moviebeam push device. Too late to market and doomed to failure -- unless they plan to implement broadband on the box from the get-go to dynamically populate the box using sat for popular content and broadband for user-NVOD.]]>Dec 13th 2007 4:31PM