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Will The X-Box Be A TiVO Rival?
Utah-Saint writes: "The Xbox is reportedly going to be ramped up to 128 meg unified ram (up from 64) and will incorporate a chip allowing it to be used as a digital vcr (similar to tivo and replay tv) whilst using a 40gig hard-drive supplied by maxtor. http://www.xbox365.com are running the story as an exclusive 'leaked' report ..."
"Reportedly" is right -- but trust me, this is either a) happening already, b) not happening at all, or c) going to happen because some bright exec at Microsoft realizes that stumbling in front of the hype machine means being crushed beneath its wheels. Grains of salt are available in the front lobby.
Rumorous or not, this certainly doesn't sound that implausible -- if the X-Box ever arrives, most of the hardware (memory, hard drive, fast processor) would already be in place. And the equally unavailable-but-promised-rsn Indrema machines are alleged to be built with digital VCR capabilities in mind as well, at least in its second generation. (Mind you, with no first compare to just yet.) 12 months from now, digital VCR capabilities could be in every self-respecting video game system.
The 3DO failed as much because of the dearth of games when it launched as because it wasn't marketed correctly. Rather than being a multipurpose machine that can also happen to play some games, the X-Box will probably be marketed as a game machine that can also happen to do some multi-purpose things as well. And there's a world of difference between asking people to sit in front of their tvs in order to look at photo-cds and asking them to sit in front of their tvs and watch television.
That said, I hope Microsoft gets burned on this one. Call it a vendetta.
With the further proliferation of devices like Tivo, and with this X Box rumor, is it finally time for the long promised "every movie ever made" service to fruition? It would certainly be made easier with DSL, Cable, and other high speed pipes coming in plus a simple NIC on board.
That reminds me of this great game show I saw while in Paris. I don't quite remeber how they hooked people up, but the winners would go back stage and make out.. soft core make out. I was watching it, and I just couldn't believe it was actually happening. Anyone know the name of this show? Is it coming to X-Box?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
They have the code for PTV in the DishPlayer satalite unit already, so a simple port and it's on the X-Box. Makes sense.
So this is how we get around having to verify things now. End every story with:
This either is happening, is not happening, or might happen.
Thanks for clearing that up.
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It is easy enough to clone the hardware and software. The tough part is providing the program guide service. Without the program guide, the box is much less useful.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
You're forgetting an important part of "it's Microsoft and all": regardless of how good an idea it may be, Microsoft cannot and will not implement it properly. It will not be a good thing for consumers, no matter how good it may sound, not just because the name Microsoft jinxes it, but because Microsoft has a reputation for screwing this sort of thing up consistently. If they accidentally made something that was good for consumers, they'd "fix" it.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
MP3, WMA, etc playback, probably from CD-R(W)s as well.
Built-in ethernet and ability to hook up to a Windows PC for multimedia access (see above). Don't forget Win2k (and WinME I think) have Connection Sharing built-in...
MS buys chunk of broadcast time from 2nd&3rd rate cable channels in the wee hours and starts piping encrypted exclusive programming for the X-Box. Who needs Time Warner when the Golf Channel will do?
With built-in ethernet, and broadband coming to the home, Video over DSL is around the corner. MS buys Covad/Northpoint and uses them for on-demand video to the XBox.
MS aint dumb folks. That machine has a lot of horsepower that would be wasted on just games. Plus, it's built on a well-known, widely-supported architecture. Getting multimedia capabilities, networking, etc. on this thing will be trivial compared to what Sega, Nintendo or Sony have to go through.
and something goes wrong, you get the blue screen of death instead of your show???
Imagine the Nielsen ratings on THAT!
Microsoft's ratigns would compete with "Survivor"s...
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
I looked at this article and I find both propositions highly unlikely. The authors think that there will be 128 MB memory in the xbox because the dev kits shipped with 128 MB. This is does not follow. Dev systems need to have more memory than a target system to allow all of the code with debugging hooks to be tested on the target hardware. In addition, the extra 64 MB of memory would increase component cost approximately $30-40 - not very likely in a $299 retail machine. As for the digital vcr - the $500 price point makes me think not. The xbox will have to be $299 or less to succeed as a game machine. Now MS might also release an xbox+ with the larger HD and digital vcr for 500 but the vanilla xbox will be a $299 game console - not a digital vcr.
I don't know. It'd kind of be like Mac suing me for using an old Mac Classic as my door stop. Being used for something else than originally intended.
Hey MS would still be getting theres.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
To perhaps save some people the trip to the Circuit City web site to dig up some details, it looks like it's actually $299 with $100 back from CC and $100 back from TiVo if you activate their programming. I, for one, primarily find the TiVo interesting because of its digital VCR features, not because it can record every damn episode of ST:TNG that airs this week. Still might be worth it at $199, and maybe you can just sign up for a month . . .
Maybe there's a copyright on this process! (It'd serve M$ right! ;-)
You suffer from a chronic lack of imagination if you can't imagine the 2001 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas will feature a dozen imitations of TiVo. Simple, inexpensive and a natural for southeast asian factories. XBox smells like it's trying to be too much, a terrible habit a certain Redmond firm saddles itself with. By the time it comes out it'll probably be outclassed by seperate units which perform each task better. Way to go, guys.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The trick with hard drives is balancing the cost of quality control and testing against the cost of failed drives. If every drive lasts for five years, you are doing something wrong :-).
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Why build it when they've already come?
ms already has a huge installed base in the home built on open hardware and closed software. It's taken them decades to achieve this lock-in and they know this kind of installed base doesn't come easy.
Maintaining mindshare in the developer comunity, holding share in the home peecee market, useing the hardware OEMs as distrobution channels (thus hiding the true cost of the OS to the end user) all costs money and they've already spent it.
MS missed the boat in the www and it cost them big money to catchup. MS missed the boat on handhelds, and they're still spending big to wrestle some share from the king, Palm inc. They're spreading fear uncertinty and doubt about the near future of gaming consoles by talking about a 'miricle box' that, by the time it is released will be a typical peecee.
All the developers that take this bait and start developing now will find themselves at the end of next year without an xbox from microsoft and they'll say to themselves "hell, I might as well just write it for the peecee" . .and that's where micros~1 is going with this.
Excuse me, but since when has Microsoft been known for cranking out world class HARDWARE? The only M$ hardware devices I've ever bought was an overpriced mouse and my sidewinder game pad thing (though I guess the mouse did work okay). Now everyone assumes they can design and build a world class minicomputer that'll blow away these game companies who are on their 2nd-4th generation machines?
Aren't game machines all about making an outstanding piece of hardware that the developers can work with? What does MicroSoft know about doing that? Sony had been in the electronics market for decades, and still partnered with Nintendo to come up with the PSX design. Sega and Nintendo both had experience from their upright game machine days when they got into the home market. What has microsoft done?
It is hard as hell to jump into this market cold (especially where brand loyalty plays such a big part). Just ask NEC (Turbografx 16) and Phillips (CD-i) and EA/Panasonic (3DO) and so on. How much will Mr. Gates lose on this before he just decides to dump it?
David Wong
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Ok help me clarify this, Is this a Game console or a PC that hooks up to a tv? The X-box not the Tivo. The specs on this thing are very similar to my own computer setup. VERY similar for that matter. Nvidia Graphic's card, 128 ram 40 gigs of storage) Hmm wonder if I hook my computer up to a TV can I call it an X box? Course I would then be sued by Microsoft for Copyright Infrigment and thrown in jail for all time. :)
guvf vf zl fvt
I don't know if they can compete on the price and reliablity of the Tivo... And with the price of a Tivo going down to $99 this weekend (Circuit City) I think I am going to be picking one up. Now.. where was that hack tivo page.. Did they get it to play games yet?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
This reminds me of a song a very wise boss taught me years ago.
It goes like this:
Feature Creep!
Feature Creep!
Feature feature feature feature
Feature Creep!
Best sung standing on your desk with your arms in front of you, palms forward, waving in a circular motion.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about gaming consoles over coffee drinks in one of those goofy coffee bars with internet access. The dude next to us joined in our conversation, as we argued whether the X-box was going to kick the PS-2s ass or the other way around.
Basically the consensus of the conversation was that Microsoft lacks a certain ability A) deliver products on time B) deliver products that live up to their hype. We all agreed that the X-Box has some pretty lofty expectations, with that nVidia dream video card, PIII processor, DVD drive and run MS windows something or other. Now they tell us its also going to have a 40GB hard drive, twice as much memory as before! *and* act like a digital video recorder.
Come on. I'm all for progress, but this is going to be one damn expensive console. Just the memory, hard drive and processor alone, not to mention the video card are going to push the price above $300.
I know console makers often sell their boxes at a loss and make it up on the games. But lets face it. MS has a track record of generally shitty games, they really expect to make up for developing the console on games like that?
I'll believe the hype when I see it.
Spyky
Consoles and these DVCRs both have the same economic model. The boxes themselves are dirt cheap and the profits are made on the stuff around the boxes. Games in the case of consoles and the subscription service in the case of DVCRs. In theory there's a lot of overlap between the two pieces of hardware as well. Consoles would probably be overkill in hardware for the sort of rendering needed for these devices. In theory a company manufacturing a dual purpose machine might be willing to risk shaving more overhead from the machine because they'll have a dual source of income.
Personally I think you're risking 3DO syndrome in this case. The PSX2 is edging there but sticking a DVD player into a console with a DVD-ROM is so trivial whether or not to do it is a political decision instead of a technical or economic one. Until consoles hit the same point I don't think this will happen.
The X box does not yet exist.
An exclusive leaked report says that after increasing the X-Box memory from 64 to 128 meg, Micro$oft decided to further increase the features and also include the kitchen sink.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I shouldn't have to spend a lot of time explaining this one. Who here honestly believes that Micros~1 would put out a digital VCR that would allow you to share recorded shows with your friends?
A digital VCR -- or, more generally, a digital media center -- is a wonderful idea. It would allow you to record, mix, match, edit, transform, and otherwise manipulate the half-dozen or so media sources already streaming into your home (broadcast TV, cable TV, AM/FM radio, Internet). Using a single well-designed system, you could, for example:
Now, which is the more probable: That Micros~1 will create the afore-described flexible, open system that gives ordinary people the power to use media in new ways; or will they create a box that will copy-protect the fsck out of everything -- all the worst features of Macrovision and CSS -- preventing you from even copying the recordings to your own PC, and will fink on you if you try?
Pay very close attention to this one, people...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Imagine the Nielsen ratings on THAT!
Microsoft's ratigns would compete with "Survivor"s...
Well, just check the cable channel Odyssey on sunday nights and see. The last 3 sundays I've turned it over there and it has been music and the BSOD (set to not reboot even). I'm beginning to think it's a regularly scheduled program on sundays.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
(from the 3D Action Planet story about half-way down)
So on the one hand we have the great Carmack, seemingly confirming the 128MB rumours (by implying that the X-Box is somehow immune from the 128MB problem - either by actually having 128MB, or some other method), and on the other hand we have Mike Abrash's DDJ article, seemingly confirming the 64MB configuration.
Hmmm, that's actually quite amusing: Carmack & Abrash together again (albeit pointing in opposite directions).
Of course, the DDJ article could be MS misdirection. Of course, the rumours could be MS misdirection. :)
Al
Why is it that every time any news story matching /(Microsoft|The rumor mill) (announces|leaks).*about X-Box/ then it gets posted to Slashdot? First of all, the X-Box is pure vapor. It doesn't exist. And we all know Microsoft's knack for releasing vaporware products to help destroy competition. So I don't see how these stories can be considered "news."
Second, Microsoft stands in the way of everything geeks believe in: open technology, open standards. So I personally don't see how these stories can be considered "news for nerds." I would be more likely to classify it as "news for people who don't like that big, complecated, and unfriendly technology thing and need Microsoft to make it easy-to-use" (see also: the Ease-of-Use Lie).
I'm also sure we've all noticed the recent rash of Microsoft whiners who keep wailing, "Every time a Linux story is posted it's modded up, and every time a Microsoft story is posted it's modded down! Slashdot is not objective! They're all a bunch of Linux Zealots!"
Maybe there is some truth to that, but certainly not in the case of Slashdot's recent and repetitive fawning over the X-Box.
Am I alone in this sentiment?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The Xbox team had it right the first time; just do games. People will not buy a unified entertainment unit. Look what happened to all the interactive TV plans a few years back. Or the 3D0 even further back. Of course, eventually there will be a breakthrough product that will actually succeed (like the Palm Pilot succeeded in the decades-old electronic address book market), but since they're already taking a big chance with introducing a new console system, I'd stick with that.
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It looks like there's now a very good reason for buying an X-Box, aside from playing games (we must wait and see what the quality and performance are like, sometime next year). If this thing can record standard TV shows, it will actually be a benefit to the public.
Sooner or later, the VCR will have to disappear, and if we can get a cheap digital replacement, that's great. Add a DVD burner (they should be within the "affordable" range within the next couple of years) and you're set for permanent and high-quality recordings.
Yes, I know it's Microsoft and all, but I do actually think it could work. Of course, it's all speculation, but if it does become reality, it will be VERY useful and influential.
Yeah, everything from MS sounds fantastic about a year or two before release. If every rumored solution from Redmond materialized, governments could be disbanded because all the world's problems would be solved (and wouldn't they like that). The problem is, you get it and it works like shit. "Regis has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down...". I can't hardly wait.
Kill, Tux, kill!
and something goes wrong, you get the blue screen of death instead of your show???
just wondering.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
They had better ramp up! The specs sound like less than a $400 pc now.
http://www.onion.com/onion3308/realtimetv.html
God, this is hot! I wish I had submittied it as news instead of this post!
Microsoft has built huge businesses out of controlling the Windows desktop. If this X-Box DVR story is true, I'll bet it's because they smell an even meatier "desktop": the on-screen input menus for DVR channel listings. If the X-Box does become a popular game machine/DVR, it would put Microsoft in a position to control the pipe leading into the television and get their way on interactive TV and even cable modem service, assuming they add those to the X-Box's innards as well: it's simple enough to handle all the digital TV extras as a virtual software machine on a souped-up nVidia chip that isn't handling a game at that precise moment, since it doesn't involve decoding the live video stream, only the attendant datacasting. If everything else is plugged into the damn thing, why not your coaxial cable, especially if the box looks coooooool. The cable industry bent over backwards to ensure that Microsoft wouldn't control the specs for the next generation of digital set-top boxes that they sell, but X-Box could be an end-run around that.
I wonder how much the ratings for MSNBC will suddenly spike when all those X-Boxes start recording "Time and Again" by default because users can't get past the talking paper clip (or will it be a talking "couch" potato?) that's "helping" them choose shows. "Hey, where's my 'Dukes of Hazzard' wizard?!"
Check out HRRC, the Home Recording Rights Coalition.
It seems the entertainment industry is trying to get home recording of DTV and HDTV classified as "Theft of Service". Time shifting would thus be illegal.
Also, although I forget where I saw this bit, Rupert Murdoch is behind an initiative to develop satellite TV receiver/PVR combo the software for which will allow codes in the transmission that prevent fastforward. No more commercial skip.
It disgusts me the way companies focus on greed at the expense of the customer.
Pay very close attention to this one, people...
Do more than that. Write you elected officials and let them know you oppose these efforts. Write to the manufacturers and tell them you won't buy their products (it is not enough simply to not buy, let them know why you didn't.) Similarly, tell those companies that are doing a good job that they are and why. Finally, write the advertisers that use any of this technology and tell them that you won't purchase their products.
It is a scary world that the MPAA, RIAA, et al envision. Do your part to prevent it from happening.
Steve M
God damn usa companies sometimes are so anal about exporting, dumb assses
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Let's see, your gripe is that the U.S. won't sell you any Sony (Japan) or Phillips (Netherlands) Tivo units for PAL? May I respectfully suggest that your complaint ain't with us