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DVD Player as 802.11b Peripheral
sysadmn writes "Instead of building a PVR from a computer, why not let your DVD player access the computer you already have? That's the thinking behind Sonicblue's new Go-Video D2730. The just-announced DVD player will use an 802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless network connection to access content on PCs, such as photos, music and videos. The player is aggressively priced at about $250 US and is due out in first quarter 2003. Full details are on CNET."
Every product that I've ever bought from SonicBlue has been malformed and returned to sender.
The technology sounds cool, but I'll probably wait until it's available from another vendor.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I notice on home home 802.11b network that the 11mbps connection between my den PC and upstairs office PC is nowhere near fast enough to stream high quality compressed digital video (e.g. DivX). How is this player going to be able to pull it off?
m@
But how does this relate to PVR? Allowing my DVD player to access PC content doesn't allow me to PVR, as far as I can tell. The article mentioned plans to network to Replay TV, but that's not what you're saying here.
Did I miss something?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Or you could just buy a DVD player for $50 at WalMart. Is the geek-factor really worth the additional $200?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The posting is misleading. The item comes with an ethernet port, but support for 802.11b will require an additional piece of hardware. I'm not clear from the information available if it will just use a PCMCIA slot or something else.
Instead, why not just spend $50 bucks and do this on your Playstation 2?
Q Cast Player
This thing rocks, by the way.
For only 250, this would seem like a really good idea for the general public. Those that aren't going to worry about the different formats.
Sometimes the price is worth it, and 250 compared to some of the hassle seems pretty cheap to me.
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
All you have to do is make a Pringles-can antenna and drive around for a while...
This is wonderful. Now, in addition to DDOS attacks and hacking by the RIAA, we can have wardriving by the MPAA!
...
I could have sworn it was illegal (or at least against some shrinkwrap EULA mumbo-jumbo) to play a DVD over any sort of wireless link. It came up during Microsoft's massively ill-conceived tablet PC thing, I believe.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
I think they're dead wrong; look at the device this article mentions.
"The Go-Video D2730 player's software will let consumers view content on their television that's stored on their PC using a remote control for navigation. The customer will be able to stream music files and other content on the DVD player. "
Hmm, what protocol does it use for filesharing? Netbios on a WiFi network? Will it play my ogg files? My DivX? My png photos? You can put together a shuttle SV-24 with a dvd player and a 6 channel sound card for about the same price they're quoting; that's what I use at home and I'm quite happy with it (except for the fact my TV won't do more than 640x480). If I were a gambling man, I'd sell sonicblue's stock short and profit from their stupidity.
Most video cards with TV-out are cheaper than this. GF4 for example - via S-video, with optional conversion to RCA-style connector, and a booster to bypass Macrovision issues if connected to a VCR (or in my case, an old BETA machine). Combined with a PC DVD-ROM and you can play everything just fine.
Granted, wireless is pretty cool, but this seems to be not-entirely-useful in a comparative aspect... unless your computer is beyond TV proximity.
Nice thing about computers though - people may biatch about the cost, the the addons sometimes replace home electronics more cheaply. PC DVD-ROM's were a helluva lot cheaper than console ones for a loooong time, and you can play around with them more.
But honey, I swear that the DVD player just started pumping out pron on its own!
This certainly isn't the first integration of PC and TV in a consumer product. I own a SliMP3 and the Qcast Tuner software for PS2.
I wonder how long it will be before these types of devices which play media files from your PC onto your TV/stereo system are considered "mainstream".?
I think that the more of these enabling (sorry to use that cheesy buzword) media technologies there are, the better. I doubt however that the MPAA and RIAA share that view. They're bound to step in with heavy handed tactics sooner or later. Just look at how they responded to DeCSS - software which allows consumers to watch DVD's on platforms that they do not control. Seems like this is right up their litigation alley.
Just my two cents.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Sonicblue's DVD player will be able to connect to networks via an Ethernet connection. Consumers will be able to purchase 802.11b PC cards to connect the player to a PC using wireless networking
SONICblue reserves the right to automatically add, modify, or disable any features in the operating software when your ReplayTV 5000 connects to our server.
Translated:
We will sell you this box with a list of features you want but once the *AA gets congress to pass favorable laws, wins a court battle, or becomes a major shareholder in our business we will promptly castrate your box without sending you one penny in refund.
interlaced
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Actually, any image with a resolution higher than 640x480 would be wasted on most TV's... I forgot the exact resolution that a standard TV signal is, but it is approximately 640x480(in addition to being only 30hz interlaced...) Now, the more recent HDTV's and such are a different story, one I'm not very familiar with... but your standard TV wouldn't need any improvement to the image provided to it.
I've found that trying to stream anything worthwild over a .11b link is just too iffy. I often stream video files from my server to whereever I am sitting with the laptop. With the netgear card reporting a full speed connect at ~60% signal strength and 100% quality it is kind-of jerky at times. I know I'm pushing the limits of what that little wireless connect can do.
Now I can deal with it for now because I'm not expecting it to perform perfectly. However, what is going to happen when Joe Consumer picks one of these up, hooks in the wireless part and tries to stream his DVD rip collection and it gets .3FPS?
Answer: You get one very unhappy Joe Consumer.
I believe that people will expect this thing to do more then it can, and I doubt that sonic will be up front and tell people about this limitation.
Makes me think of a car dealer trying to sell a car for use on interstate highways but the car can only go 45MPH. Sure it works, but it isn't quite what you expected now is it?
Sonicblue has a history of trying to add cool features to unrefined products. The title is misleading since 802.11b requires an additional purchase. Last month I decided to get a PVR. Sonicblue's replay tv 5000 had some real cool features, but the interface sucked. Interface is extremly important in consumer applications such as a cell phone or PVR. I ended up getting a tivo after i learned that you can use usb ethernet adaptors with the series 2. Anyway, my point is sonicblue has a history of sticking some cool features in a completely unrefined product.
So all I need is a laptop with an 802.11b card and a couple of people in my neigborhood with HBO and an penchant for "The Sopranos"!!!!
If it was a dvd writer that would be different, but remember the "R" in PVR stands for Recorder, not player. I think this would be a great idea for a DVD-R, and I'd snatch it up! Unfotunately it's not, it's not even that useful as is. 11 Mb/s is awfully slow to be streaming video, but the ethernet could be an option. However, if you were going to go that route (ie running wires), it'd still be cheaper and more effective just to buy a Tuner card and send whatever to your TV via Composite or Svideo.
I think this product relies more on it's "cool" factor than it's usability. DVD Player competition is tight, and they seem to be really reaching for new features. Next I'm sure we'll start seeing dvd in Custom translucent color cases, or come with Madonna's signature for an extra $50..
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
From tests I've done in the past with DVD quality streaming, wireless networks such as 802.11b can not support the throughput required. I've had DVD's max out at 13 MB/s. 802.11b can only send 11 Mb/s not including overhead which is greater than 802.3 in the first place...
Well firstly your solution presumes that one's time is free: If you put a value on the hours you spend putting the system together, configuring all of the software, etc, suddenly it isn't economical. Rather than seeing it as a hobbyist, think "If I were to go into business making these for other people, what would I charge?". I suspect that you'd be surprized. Of course on top of all of that is the expense and availability issues in finding a "stereo component" sized computer case that integrates into an AV system (no dropping a giant beige case sputtering away with a dozen fans isn't viable).
Secondarily, it's highly likely that they're using one of the new Sigma Designs chipsets, the new one which includes some Divx support. Indeed if I were to build a PC based playback device (the only thing holding me back is the case, as previously mentioned. For fans I'd reduce that by using a Via C3 with passive cooling), I'd base it around a Sigma Designs XCard.
Yeah, people are going to be pissed when they discover the tunes they so easily ripped from their CD's via WMP won't work through the SonicBlue DVD player because it doesn't have a license for them..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I love my ReplayTV. There are two priority levels: Non-guaranteed and Guaranteed. If you guarantee a recording, it will reserve hard drive space for the show and it will record it. It won't let you set two guaranteed shows for the same timeslot. The only time you run into problems is when the network shifts the schedule slightly so that two shows overlap when they normally wouldn't.
As to finding new shows, you can do a search fairly easily, and you can browse the guide. It's trivial to tell it to record something, and also trivial to change the settings on something already scheduled.
What Replay lacks is a to-do list. So if you have a bunch of non-guaranteed things (like my wife's "Shakespeare" theme or my "Stargate" theme), it will pick the one to record using a fairly cryptic algorithm (which one starts first; which one is on a lower channel; which theme was create first).
Now I can get my DVD player hacked by wise guys.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Actually every "media" device in your house should have this capability. There should be such a thing as "storage" (i.e. hard drive) and everything from your video game console to your stereo to your video playback device and your computer should access it.
;)
Put the "consoles" in their proper perspective; computers will be great for surfing the net and ordering content. Your video playback console is great for playing back your videos, and your stereo console is great for playing back music.
The point I'm making here is everything should be contected together, but accessed in with the console that makes sense. IMO, playing tunes and watching downloaded videos on a computer stinks. Playing video games on the TV rocks, but video game consoles with their own storage devices sucks.
If 802.11b wireless is the link that ties all these together, great, but it should be seamless and painless to the user to set it up.
Oh yeah, it needs to be secure too.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
You didn't read the press release, did you? Yes, the article submission is misleading, but what this is is a DVD player with networking capabilities, so that it can not only play content from DVD's, but also from computers on your network. Pretty useful, actually. This means I don't need to put another computer in the living room in order to play my DivX movies or mp3's. Also note that it does not come with wi-fi installed; rather, it has a PCMCIA slot with a notwork card in it, and you can buy an 802.11B PCMICA card to swap it with.
What I really need is a DVD player that can stream data to my wireless computers. It would be nice to be able to continue watching a movie on my PDA when I need to take a bathroom break (slightly lower quality video would be ok)
NTSC has 525 scanlines (vertical), 25 of which are during the vertical blanking interleave, and the horizontal resolution isn't really defined. PAL has 625 scanlines. Both standards interlace scanlines. Since NTSC is an analog standard, the horizontal resolution doesn't need to be defined, and televisions and broadcasters can vary the signal as fast as they want to to add more horizontal resolution, as long as the equipment supports it. VCR's have an effective horizontal resolution somewhere below 320 pixels, though it doesn't look pixelated because it kind of smears the values (it's analog, and stored as a wave, not discrete pixels).
DVD's are 352x240, 352x480, 704x480, or 720x480 in NTSC, x576 in PAL. I've never encountered an NTSC DVD that wasn't 720x480, and I'm not sure if players even support the other resolutions (someone please correct me if I got those resolutions wrong). 4:3 aspect ratio movies are typically displayed unscaled, with 720 pixels horizontal resolution in the analog signal (if it's a good decoder and NTSC signal generator), while 16:9 movies fields are typically shrunk vertically and reinterlaced. On an HDTV or projector with a DVD player that has built-in scaling or using a line quadroupler/deinterlacer, the resolution is scaled from 720x480 to whatever the HDTV or projector uses. Some projectors can sync at resolutions up to 3500x3500, though they cost tens of thousands of dollars.
A solution to the problem with music today
Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with research firm IDC
I hear she can get you a KILLER deal on one of these!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Check out the www.xboxmediaplayer.de . It does everything that Qcast does, and more - you can play homebrew games, emulators, etc. as well. It also supports more codecs (it uses the mplayer engine), and is updated regularly with new features and bugfixes.
The total cost of a modchip for xbox is less than that of the ethernet adapter and Qcast for PS2.
BBK
I don't believe this constitutes broadcast since it's "pull" technology. i.e. the DVD player pulls the files over the WLAN. Broadcast is sending out the signal so that anyone with appropriate hardware can intercept it.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Your DVD player is in a fixed location in your house.
Your home PC is in a fixed location in your house.
I can't imagine why, other than the geekiness factor, wireless data transmission would be needed to have the DVD player and the PC communicate.
I'd run 100BaseT between the two devices and get better data throughput for less money.
I agree, it's a nice idea, but hardly "agressively priced". I would much rather see them just stick a cheap 10/100 ethernet port on the back of the unit and not charge me for the wireless technology. Such a product (more agressively priced) would appeal to more users - those who want to direct connect to their network could; those who want to go wireless could use an external device.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Glad I'm on your foes list...
Clue to Nine... This is not for watching DVD's! Really. The DVD player does, guess what, plays DVD's. It can also hook to your PC to play MP3's, show JPG's, and possibly even DIVX files.
"The only people who'd like this would be uber-geeks"
No, the Uber-Geeks already have one. The Uber-Geeks build a computer to go with every TV so that they can do what this $250 consumer device can.
"(since most people don't rip DVD's onto hard drives, and the few who do are pretty stupid), "
Then who ripped all of the DVD's available on Gnutella?? Why is ripping a DVD to your HD a bad idea?? The same could be said for MP3's using your logic. "nobody rips CD's to their HDD, and those who do are stupid."
I have Kids, Kids destroy DVD's. I rip my DVD's to the HDD and then burn them to SVCD. This alone has saved me two extra purchases of Snow White. Now when you figure that Disney DVD's only enjoy limited release, this also means that I can rip DVD's rented at Blockbuster, borrowed from a friend, etc... In many cases after the DVD/Video has ceased to be available. (And it also means that I would not have purchased Snow White again, We simply would not have that movie anymore. My daughter's favorite movie.)
I also have recorded lick videos and teaching tapes. It is much easier to use them (as they are networked) split them up into individual licks, rewind and fast-forward, etc...
Quite frankly, what other means do you have of backing up the content of a DVD?? Now, if you think back-ups are stupid, then I am simply arguing with a moron. Or perhaps you think Ceasar should get another 20 sheckles every time a DVD gets scratched, or a VCR eats a tape.
The fact that you see no use for this product is a symptom of your limited imagination, not a failure to deliver a desirable feature. Had you read the article, it has ethernet (which most people do have on their PC's.) and wireless is an option.
"money to blow on huge hard drives to store movies, broadband to download those movies"
Yep, who could afford it?? This HDD would only store some 1,000 movies in DIVX format. For shame. That's after we leave room for WinXP. One would need the resources of a Bill Gates to have an IDE RAID of these...
1,000 DVD @ $15ea. = $15,000
Really though, I can't even think of 1,000 movies I'd like to keep. But I have all the Mr. Show, South Park, and Duckman episodes. Much of this simply is not available on DVD.
As far as broadband, if you don't have it yet, please turn in your geek keys on the way out. I would keep Broadband just for the always on connection. Subtract the cost of a second phone line, etc...
So, for the Joe who has his TV hooked to his stereo, and the crappy OEM Labtec speakers still on his PC, this might be a good product for him to listen to his MP3's on his stereo, show vacation snaps from his digital camera to his friends, or even show the AVI of his wedding on the TV.
None of this requires Broadband or a Huge HDD. But most people unaccustomed to creating any thought or content of their own generally see devices like this as a tool for only enjoying others creative output.
Again, read the article before you post. I'm not even sure that this thing will play a DVD across the network, why would you need that when the darn thing is a DVD player??
~Hammy
for $250 I can buy a DVD player from a company that, admittedly, is not a huge consumer electronics corporation. And at $250, that DVD player is significantly more expensive than similarly specced (excluding the networking) players from companies like Sony, Toshiba, or Panasonic. It's only saving grace: the ability to play back video over a network.
OR
For $199 (after the two $50 rebates), I can get the 40 hour replay TV (granted, subscription required) which IS a PVR. Many of the name brand DVD players nowadays will support SVCD if you're dying to watch your MPEG-4/DiVX movies on your television. My other question: with as many different flavors of DiVX, and as many different takes on encoding the audio there-in (MP3, WMA, OGG, standard AC3), I don't really trust a hardware-based player to be able to handle any old DiVX file without some tinkering. Once I get to the point where I'm decompressing the audio and other similar exploits, I'm not as interested.
However, I stream video from my desktop (with TV tuner card) to a laptop (with TV-out) under the TV over 802.11b. I do this by mounting an NFS volume over a VPN I establish from the laptop to the desktop. My datarate is set so 1 hr of video will just fit on a 700 MB CD (in case I see a show I want to keep). I'm also running an ad-hoc (rather than access point) network, if that makes any difference. The laptop and desktop are fairly close together, but there are a few walls.
Under these conditions, I can just eek out enough bandwidth. There's more room for error if I stream over HTTP, but then I can't seek within the stream, so I stick with NFS.
Very occasionally for no apparent reason I'm unable to use the player - interference from something, I assume.
most people don't rip DVD's onto hard drives, and the few who do are pretty stupid
I dunno... I was just thinking about this the other day. Let's say an average DVD is 6 gigs and 20 bucks. You could fit 20 DVDs on a 120 gig drive. You'll spend probably $200 for the drive and rentals versus $400 for the DVDs. Throw compression into the mix, and the cost disparity goes through the roof. Throw in downloaded and homemade content, and there's plenty of reasons for wanting to access media stored on a hard drive from your TV.
Granted, 120 gigs isn't much, but 320s are just around the corner, and who knows how far we'll be in another year or two.
Storing movies on hard drives (or some other future large media) is the way to go, AFAIC. I'm sick of all this physical media. I'd much rather have a gigantic, portable, external hard drive that I can plug in anywhere and keep my whole media collection on than acres of shelf space for CDs and DVDs. Now, if only they'd build Firewire/USB2 jacks into car stereos and TVs, along with decent interfaces for accessing media drives, we'd be all set...
That's because the decoder for DivX is software based rather than dedicated hardware. Give the player a dedicated chip and it'd be easy... kinda the same way they all handle the MPEG-2 on DVDs.
Very occasionally for no apparent reason I'm unable to use the player
Very occaisionally? Is that like the shirt size "extra medium?"
Perhaps because I'm smart enough to look at a PC and realize that it would make a lousy PVR. I know what a real PVR is like (I own two TiVos), and a power-hungry PC operating off a generic program guide isn't it. A good PVR is so much more than a hard-disk VCR, but it's hard to explain to someone who hasn't lived with a good PVR such as TiVo.
So we're looking here at a DVD player that can fetch pictures and music off of a PC. Fine. What makes this any kind of step towards a PC-based PVR? All I have to do is run the video output from the graphics card to the A/V input of my receiver, and then futz with the kludgy remote control solutions, to play video from the PC to the TV. You don't need a DVD player for that. Oh, you want wireless? There are plenty of wireless audio/video transmitter devices around.
Yes, there have been a lot of attempts to turn a PC into a PVR. All of them have failed miserably so far - they're expensive, fragile, and don't come anywhere near the simplicity of use of a good purpose-built PVR with a service behind it. I'm sure that one of these efforts will come up with something that demos well, but I doubt it will appeal to a larger audience.
Yes, a PVR is full of recognizeable bits of a PC - there's a processor, a hard disk or two, video encoders and decoders, and some software. But this doesn't mean that a PC would make a good PVR, any more than a PC would make a good bedside alarm clock.
There's a lot more to a PVR than just these bits - multiple inputs and outputs, control of cable and satellite boxes, a quiet, low-power box that can sit next to your TV and doesn't cost a lot and can be dedicated to its purpose.
A PC-based video recorder has its uses. But a PVR it's not.