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Viiv Falls Flat
smilingman writes "The Washington Post (Retina Scan Required) is reporting that Intel's Viiv media center, which was supposed to revolutionize home entertainment and kill the living-room PC as we know it, fails miserably to deliver in its first incarnation. From the article: 'During a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, chief executive Paul S. Otellini unveiled Viiv -- a combination of hardware and software that would combine functions of the TV, the DVD player, the VCR and the video game console... In April, Viiv doesn't look much like that vision. On a typical Viiv box, Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion m7360y, it amounts to a smattering of free Web video clips and discounts on online music, movie and game rentals -- plus a nifty rainbow-hued Viiv sticker on the front of the computer.'"
Because I'm not.
Nothing new here to see, move along folks.
I think companies are trying to push these sorts of products out the door without fully understanding what consumers are looking for -- so far it has been nothing more than a lot of hype.
I think we have another 5 years before our living rooms become transformed.
_
Buy this t-shirt (cheap)
This situation reminds me of the problems that Microsoft has with its visions for a cheap Origami device. The ones that are coming out are quite expensive because manufacturers insist on putting Intel chips in them instead of the ones from Via that Microsoft wanted. In this case, it's likely that the manufacturers just aren't designing viiv boxes that live up to Intel's idea of what viiv should be. If Intel wants viiv done right, it's going to have to do viiv itself.
*The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.*
Viiv was always going to be more marketing that substance.
That said, what did TFA expect it to be? A free lifetime membership to download all the movies you want?
What will matter are ease of installation, looks of final box (mostly out of Intel's hands) and noise... along with costs and a few necessary features, of course.
Viiv apparently is very similar to other desktops already out there... Personally, I prefer an Open source PVR jigged to work around Macrovision and other DRM bunk. I doubt VIIV will be so kind.
Funnypics
It's pretty cool that the computer industry has matured to the point that we can actually ship vaporware!
Does Intel even know what "Viiv" is supposed to be? It is actually supposed to *be* anything? Or are they just selling random names now?
Having a nifty rainbow-hued sticker on the front of my computer is half the fun!
It seems to me that the concept of a Media Center PC is totally at odds with current corporate movements towards content protection.
Any half-decent MCPC will be able to, at a minimum, record televsion broadcasts through whatever medium the customer happens to use. This is not something that content producers or media corporations want. It grants far too much freedom to the consumer to keep high-value programs without buying them on physical media and to avoid advertising.
Also, it's very likely in the future that media producers will want to separate media playback and the home computer as much as possible. An easy way to cut down on content copying is simply to only chip purpose-built media players and not license chipped optical drives for PCs.
Media corporations have massive lobbying power, I can't see any large hardware vendor empowering the consumer in the way that a useful MCPC requires without running into large problems.
Too much hype before launch == a product that doesn't meet expectations. Simple as that.
Seriously, I never expected Viiv to be a huge success, but I at least expected that there would be some benefit that would make it worthwhile. If many high end HTPCs are better then Viiv computers (which the article suggests), but available at a lower pricepoint, then Viiv will fail. Anyone could have figured that out.
The problem with Viiv is that all the things that they're saying we'll be able to do with them are functions of software, not hardware. Since they're depending on MCE for functionality, it doesn't matter whether you have a Viiv machine, a regular Intel processor, or (god forbid) an AMD one.
This guy's the limit!
...a TV is useless if nobody broadcasts anything. A DVD player or VCR is useless if there's nothing to play or record with it. And anyone with a computer can already play computer games.
Sounds like Intel has put the cart quite a long way before the horse, and has released a platform with no worthwhile content. We'll see if the platform survives long enough to get any worthwhile content now, but I'm not hugely optimistic. Time will tell, I suppose!
Game dev and music blog
This won't be done right until Apple does it.
75% Reinvent the wheel
20% Lets play it safe so we don't scare content providers away.
3% There are quite a few geeks on the IntarWeb who are doing this, lets do it ourselves so we can milk money from the $Mass_Market_Idiots
2% I heard about this whole TV-Internet convergence thing in 1996 and I have never seen anybody else get it right, maybe we can do it!
As a bonus, we can sell Processors equiped with SFT Technology!
(Super.Fast.Television)
We will call it SaFeTy Chip!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
It seems to me that the concept of a Media Center PC is totally at odds with current corporate movements towards content protection.
And yet,even the evil giant Intel managed to get its Viiv platform on the market with little to no DRM. While this current iteration of MCPC seems to be a flop, the fact that it's available at all is a hopeful sign.
Does it support Intercast?
Viiv? how do i pronounce this? Six-Four? or Seven-Five?
Anyone remember the ads for the TVs in the 1970s that had a built-in Pong-like game and promised to do everything else? Didn't think so.
I made my own a year and a half ago. Just about to update it to a A64 3500. Eat it Intel. You are behind once again.
VIIV failed because it has no reason to exist. What is VIIV? I have scoured the internet and Intel's site to figure this out. As far as I can tell, it is a marketing message surrounding Media Center PCs. How a VIIV Media Center is better than a non-VIIV Media Center, I have no idea. Other than including the Core Duo processor, I don't even really understand what it means to be a VIIV PC. At least with Centrino (another exercize in branding from Intel), I knew it meant these 3 chips were in the computer. Now, all I know is it has a sticker.
The internet is starting to dismantle some forms of traditional marketing. Hype alone doesn't cut it any more. Intel hasn't realized that. It created something that was pure hype and now it is seeing its balloon quickly deflated.
This is not a first for Intel to try this though. MMX makes the internet go faster. Anyone remember that?
What "high value" programming are you talking about? You have to wait (5+) years for anything half-decent to make it to TV; and some of the good films just never make it. It seems that a station gets maybe 5-10 high-quality movies, edits the crap out of them to include all the ads, and then airs them year after year (e.g. The Fifth Element, Terminator 2, Something about Mary are pretty nice for me uncut, but the nerfed versions are unwatchable).
I recently watched TV for about a month, and saw the same crap they were shoing 5 years ago when I was at a Uni.
Maybe some good stuf can be gotten from HBO (which I do not have so I am not sure), but it seems that one would either have to illegally DL the good stuff or get it via NetFlicks or something.
Working at PC World, i've seen the marketing and blurb Intel are putting out about these things, and have had a nice Intel rep tell me all about the Viiv processor/PC thingies.
The flash animations he's got show you having one PC, a Viiv compatible stereo that can recieve your music wirelessly, a TV in the frontroom linked to your PC so you can use it as a PVR and so on. No-one will ever set their PC up like that, especially not the John Smith from the street that decides he wants a nice new PC.
The only thing Viiv offers the home user is a bloody fast PC, built in wireless (On a desktop, not that useful!) and a nifty instant-standby button that's not quite instant but about 5 seconds, very good for a PC to be honest. But is it this nice "platform" they advertise it as? No. What about all the Viiv compatible kit (See stereo above) that's meant to happen? I'd like to see it out and a price tag myself.
But does it make the internet go faster? That is where Intel are vikings.
I pronounce it "dead."
All the Intel Mac Mini sitting next to my HDTV needs is access to a high-res store of movies and TV shows through the Front Row interface, and I'll be set. And subscription or a la carte, I really don't care.
Viiv's ingredients start with a dual-core Intel processor, which allows the computer to handle demanding video playback while also taking care of other chores, such as burning a CD or running a spyware scan.
Laughing my ass off. My 450 MHz K62 can do video playback and burn CDs at the same time, under Linux. Virus scanner? What's that?
Intel: constant vigilance for your precious Peeee Ceeeee is now possible and required! The war on TERRORISM will never end and you can do your 200 watt part.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...sixpack having to lay down another grand for a new box and hook the thing up to duplicate what they already have and is working for them. This is from the department of redundancy department.
You can already play a movie, listen to music and play videogames with the setups people have. They are up and running. Nothing else required. done, paid for, finis.
They would have to stop and go "Gee, I would really like to play a DVD or listen to some tunes or knock monsters out of the alien sky, but I just can't figure out how to do that with my TV, DVD player, stereo and game console! Me-0-My-0 What ever shall I do? Oh how I SO WISH a nice expensive gadget from a friendly large corporation would be produced that would let me play a movie or listen to a tune or play a video game! someday...sniff..sniff...my heart does so pine for such a gadget..sniff...."
Oh, wait, how could I forget?!! "Marketing Professionals" have "analysed the market" and "determined" that people "need" these things and they will be oh so glad to shell out another thousand dollars for it! We are SAVED from having to tote around an extra grand in our wallets! THANKEW "professional marketing experts"!
Is Intel joining Nintendo, Sony and MS in the system wars/battle for living room entretainment?
...has always been a bit alien to the PC industry.
PC types keep scratching their heads trying to figure out what people like about Apple. It never seems to cross their mind that it's because Apple at least delivers some of what it promises.
The article says: "The worst experience of all came when I tried to view Intel's own showcase of Viiv content. At first, clicking this button yielded a "Windows Media Center Edition required" error. After rebooting the computer to try again, I was presented with a lengthy license agreement and an ActiveX installation dialog. The subsequent download seemed to stall out when the HP-bundled Norton Internet Security firewall warned that "EntriqMediaServer" was a high-risk program that it should always block. Naturally, that was a Viiv component."
I cannot ever imagine that Apple would ever, ever, ever ship a product in a state like that. Words fail me. Did nobody at HP or Intel ever try actually using the product even once? Does anything think they have responsibility for what the user finds when they take the product out of the box?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No wonder it failed. VCR and no Beta? prssst.
...but I get so irked whenever I see Viiv printed like this, my brain keeps wanting to make it symmetrical but I can't do it with one v capitalized, can't they make it nice and symmetrical like via's logo? especially seeing as they're using letters that's just soo begging to be. oh and I liked the "Viiv-aciousness" in TFA
Well, slashdot's at it again. They pull out one article browbeating a new initiative that has hardly had enough time in the market to be deemed "a flop". And now, its the definitive news. I mean, heck, *I* can find "news" stories that claim Viiv will, eventually, be great. Slashdot, its gonna take more than 4 months to definitively claim that something is a flop.
Intel is pushing a technology called Treacherous Computing, which will prevent unsigned code from running on their hardware. So even if you have the source code, if you try to remove the DRM restrictions, the hardware will refuse to run the modified binary.
The Free Software Foundation admits that the anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3 will not be enough on their own to prevent the nightmare scenario where users can't trust their own computers.
People who understand the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management at a technical level (ie.Free and Open Source software developers) should warn the general public to avoid buying DRM-crippled hardware. Consumers should know about the great variety of DRM-free computers and accessories built specifically to work with Linux, the KDE desktop, and other Free and Open Source applications.
On the music side, there are plenty of websites that legally sell DRM-free, RIAA-free music by independent artists. Consumers can use an iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.
As for movies, building a Linux media center works better than the DRM-crippled offering from M$FT. Just download MythTV and run it on a computer equipped with the pcHDTV HD-3000 card and the PVR-350 card -- these will capture both standard definition (NTSC) and Digital/Hi-Definition (ATSC/HDTV) signals.
Get computers and accessories from Linux-friendly manufacturers
It seems to me that the concept of a Media Center PC is totally at odds with current corporate movements towards content protection.
Not really. If you look at the latest in greatest DRM schemes, the idea is more along the lines of making it more useful without having to crack the DRM.
For example, with a DVD you can't do anything with it except play the disk (unless you crack it). With HD-DVD, the "managed copy" infrastructure is in there so you could theoretically stream it, or copy it to your jukebox, or whathave you. Which means that legit companies could actually sell products that do this stuff -- which they can't right now.
It's somewhat contrary thinking -- but the goal of DRM is really to lock things down to the extent that it can be unlocked as needed. You see this with Apple's iTunes for example.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
The past few years we've seen several attempts to launch the obvious next steps in personal media: home media PCs and networked console games. The products the big companies like Microsoft, Microsoft, Intel, Microsoft and Sony have launched have all failed to appeal to any but existing enthusiasts. The technology seems ready, but the "operational paradigm", the UI structure, seem uninspired. It's a revolutionary leap that's born as an evolutionary step.
Could these companies, and their risk-averse cultures, just be the wrong worlds from which these new platforms need to be born? Is there a more radical product that's not getting the attention it needs to catch on because it's upstaged by the big failures, in the media and in the market?
--
make install -not war
There's TONS of high quality television programs out there. CSI, Without a Trace, Cold Case, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, House, Las Vegas, Criminal Minds, Crossing Jordan, Lost, Numb3rs, NCIS, Scrubs, The West Wing, Two and a Half Men, South Park, etc. These are fantastic shows and if you're not walking them you're missing out on some of the best television to hit the air in decades.
The worst experience of all came when I tried to view Intel's own showcase of Viiv content. At first, clicking this button yielded a "Windows Media Center Edition required" error. After rebooting the computer to try again, I was presented with a lengthy license agreement and an ActiveX installation dialog. The subsequent download seemed to stall out when the HP-bundled Norton Internet Security firewall warned that "EntriqMediaServer" was a high-risk program that it should always block.
Naturally, that was a Viiv component.
So, the Mighty Microsoft "Media Juggernaut" (as David Berlind over at ZDNet likes to call it) mixes genes with the Invincible Intel Viiv and we get: errors left and right and the anti-malware proggy telling you that a Viiv content delivery component is dangerous!
Priceless.
Say, I have a suggestion: Why doesn't Intel just worry about making better CPUs, Microsoft worry about getting an operating system out the door that your average 14-year-old can't crack from 7,000 miles away, and the both of them leaving cheap home entertainment devices to the Chinese manufacturers like Apex? Or would that be asking too much?
edits the crap out of them to include all the ads, and then airs them year after year (e.g. The Fifth Element, Terminator 2, Something about Mary are pretty nice for me uncut, but the nerfed versions are unwatchable).
Only cause you wanted to see Milla Jovovich's tastey tatties. Not that I can argue.. :D
It's at odds at the moment, but look carefully at the Trusted Computing initiative, formerly called Palladium. It's being implemented in the Intel CPU's directly, and provides DRM and authentication of software and hardware to force the use of specific software to unlock specific hardware features for specific files.
That is exactly what is needed to provide media distributor of control home recording of television shows, cable broadcasts, and media such as CD's and DVD's. It's also why, for now at least, you need Intel CPU's to do this: the separate Palladium chipsets are too expensive.
Don't expect to sell your first generation of platform (or architect). It sucks. You know it, the customers know it. Instead use it as a phototype to get feedbacks from.
Maybe something that sounded like a good idea doesn't work in real life. Maybe something that was left out in the production is essential to the success. You wouldn't know unless you start selling your product.
Concentrate on making your second generation better.
Can't result in success... Most large consumer oem products from the likes of HP/Compaq, Sony, and even Dell now ship with mediocre video hardware and enough cheap and adware ridden software to make anyone cringe.
Combine that with the fact that most viiv machines look and operate like regular desktops with a tuner built in with some pvr like functions. None I've seen in retail stores look like they'll operate well solely in the living room without a regular monitor.
Hmmm... Pie...
Really, it is.
They expected it to be Yoshi's ybox, of course! http://www.google.com/search?q=yoshi+ybox
Until we can have individual control over the DVD player, TV card, Radio etc these things are not going to work. The alternative is to have one of these per person in a family.
So instead of having one good DVD player and TV screen we have to have four of these? Don't think so.
We have to go back to the mainframe idea, one big, fast box that everyone can log into. Like multi-room audio systems. It can't be that hard to do.
The other problem is social, if each member of the family is holed up in their own room doing their own thing how is that going to affect their social skills?
Common sense is not so common
Thats like saying the turd I flushed this morning was one of the prettiest turds in decades.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It seems to me like the Media Center PC market as a whole is doomed for failure. Sure, some people will like the idea of having content stored on a hard drive that they can view on their TV, but in general, people want simplicity and reliability.
Viiv (or any Media Center for that matter) can't deliver that. 90% of consumers don't want a box that they're going to have to boot up every time they want to record a show or watch TV. They want something that is easy to hook up, fast to start up (steps are being made towards this for PCs, but I haven't seen a whole lot so far), and, most of all, easy to use.
Sure, I can use Media Center, but do you think my mother can?
The key question is what promise you are talking about. The promise of content implies co-operation with big dumb publishers. Those big dumb publishers have extracted almost every content penny out of Itunes, and left Apple with the crumbs of what they make selling hardware. The artists, as usual did not get anything. The end user gets a more restricted version of what they used to get on CD and competition gets buried if all goes according to plan.
Apple, by moving to Intel, seems to have made some of the same promisses that M$ has about how to enforce their big dumb publisher promises. The speculation is that Apple got suckered into the Intel DRM that the *AAs have promised to pour their content into. We shall see about content availability, but DRM can not and will not work on a general purpose computing device. The only reason Apple stuff has worked in the past is because they were the only snake in their pit. We shall also see how well they get along with Intel and if the new dongles will work any better than the old ones.
The HP eXPerience described above is a preview of what DRM is all about. It's not really new, as anyone who's tried to use WMP knows. The primary problem is that M$ is root and you are not. They have made a system where they can add and remove files and components but you can't. When you multiply this by the problems of non free software, which requires yet another set of rules, you get much more than the sum of your troubles. Each vendor on your system wants to be root and non of them can really co-operate because they keep their source code in a vault. The only way a general purpose computing device can work the way you want it is for you to be root. That pretty much rules out DRM for anything but set top boxes. That would make the *AAs happy enough but not as happy as eliminating general purpose computing.
Every free computer with an internet connection is a potential competitor. See Star Wreck and The internet Archive Music Files. It does not take much to make a movie and even less to make music.
DRM, at best, is a loser. At it's worst, you get what the Washington post reporter saw. The people who want copyright to last "forever less a day" and have sold you the same content on LPs, CDs and now as bits, won't ever give you a good deal. When they butt heads with Bill Gates, you get a real mess.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Also, it's very likely in the future that media producers will want to separate media playback and the home computer as much as possible. An easy way to cut down on content copying is simply to only chip purpose-built media players and not license chipped optical drives for PCs.
An easy way to piss off the market and have consumers blatantly ignore your antics, maybe. I hope the TV/Movie business has the good sense to get on the market much sooner than RIAA did with the iTMS. Right now they're busy with their own SACD vs DVD-A game. There was a study I read here somewhere recently that 24% of all males in age 16-25 in Norway were downloading TV eps. CSS on DVDs are broken. HDTV streams from the US (1080i and 720p) are readily available. HDCP is broken before it's out the door. Perhaps they might keep people from breaking ACSS, but that is irrelevant. If they don't want to deliver, the pirates will. Bandwidth is still on the rise, and the tools are getting better. This is definately a game you need to be on the field to win.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Everyone who hates apple is quick to say that apple is all just reality distortion field and expensive hardware. But apple executes. Apples has a track record of seeing potential and executing reall working visions not just fancy stickers. Consider the first accessible use of Post script for Desktop publishing. Hell consider the first __stable__ implemetation of dynamic ram (at the time of the apple two the intel world was 100% static ram (I should know I used to sell and design s-100 bus memory boards) in a real reconfigurable computer. This brought cheap low power but reconfigurable systems to the masses. Or Windows Mouse Pointers in the living room. Or consider the all those other half assed implementations of every other innovation in computing that apple managed to make "just work". The iPod only being the latest.
You can bet the video center will happen after apple shows the world how to make it work in the average home. Sure you have myth TV and tuners now, but how many people would trade in their TiVO for one of those.
You could have said the same thing about computers being sold to balance your checkbook or layout your news letter. Before Visical and MacWrite no one was going to trade in their calculator or stop going to the professional graphics company for their work. After that they had a choice where the computer made sense for many more people.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
MMX was an actual hardware improvement that did make media "go faster". It has been used and improved by Intel and AMD. Support for the features is built into the GNU compilers and processor specific Linux kernels, which most distributions have as precompiled binaries.
ViiV's main feature seems to be hardware based DRM.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
While Intel has done very well with chipsets etc, they've never had much joy with products - though they've tried quite a few of these, from web cams to usb microscopes to whatever...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
My computer, my baby it's true, does all that stuff with elan. I got your video and audio players hangin'. It also pirates the Dish satellites and I got maybe 666 channels of crap which records and pauses etc. About 160G of toons and movies downloaded from ... all over ;).
....
... Standards and Practices !
Total cost in $s = 0
Now it ain't all that simple to get it all hummin but it ain't all that hard either. How can these people, Intel etc, foist such borken crap on the public when there is free software to fucking copy
I'll calm down now, go watch and find out who the next Food network star will be, get ready to cook dinner.
PenGun
Do What Now ???
The link you had was an interesting *editorial*, but it still had no insight on what types of DRM will be enabled under VIIV.
I'm not disagreeing with the guy's opinion, but that doesn't make it insightful.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Anything thats supposed to replace current DVD/RADIO/VCR needs to be as simple to use as those are today. Windows Media Center just plain sucks to use and has DRM functions that makes it much worse than your DVD with recording capabilities. As long as media centers are a PITA to use and demands a personal admin they will fail miserably. That rules out any form of DRM, something Microsoft and the rest of the idiots fail to understand.
HTTP/1.1 400
What, how many mishaps is this? What is going on with this company?
They pushed P6 until it broke.
They pushed Netburst until it broke.
They seem to be pushing P6-2 until it breaks.
Meanwhile, everything else (e.g. VIIV) is flopping. Why is it that when a business grows to a certain size, it becomes useless? Look how small AMD is compared to intel, and compare the two companies' product lineups right now.
I think the future will be distributed and groups/corpuses will be limited in size, after the mammals (say, F/OSS) eat the eggs of the dinosaurs.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
Wow, dude. That's weird. Get out of my head.
So, can you hook me up with some of those warez you've got?
C'mon, hook a brother up.
Seriously, these companies do not have your interest at heart in anything other feeding their stockholders.
Yeah, because capitalism is bad! Down with "the corporations!" Screw the content holders, they don't have any rights over distribution of their content. Right?
What amuses me is that people go through so much trouble to program and develop ways to distribute copyrighted material, then act surprised and upset when content holders use technology in the opposite way to protect those materials. Are you guys the only ones allowed to use technology on the Internet or something?
If people can use Bittorrent to download movies, I don't see why movie makers can't make movies you can't copy. Cause and effect. But I know this doesn't jive with the freeloader movement who thinks they're entitled to everything because it's on Piratebay.
"Sufferin' succotash."
an actual hardware improvement that did make media "go faster".
It's easy to forget how important hardware support for media is. On my old computer (Athlon 1700+, 512MB RAM), the video card burned up and I had to swap in an old TNT2. I couldn't even play fullscreen video on it because the framerate dropped too low.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Who runs Intel? What are they thinking? I used to work for an Intel distributor(not just CPUs). Intel is nothing but a bunch of half-baked product jokers. They make good CPUS and excellent NICs. IDSN routers = crap, T1 Routers = crap, their modular switches from 6 years ago... crap, SSL accelerators = crap. They have turned out so many crap products only to dump them. They should either get serious about consumer product dev or quit.
I remember one meeting with the Intel Sales reps about how excited they were about trying to sell a government agency T1 routers. Their router's only supported RIP. This was eight years ago. I just laughed. At the time 3com, Cisco, and Nortel all supported RIP V1/V2, OSPF, and BGP. Their implementation of RIP stunk. These jokers couldn't get in if they had to.
Sometimes I wonder how they haven't just reverse-engineered themselves out of existence.
Onkyo has one viiv based HTPC - HDC-7. Link http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-11580-Home+Th eater+AND+ViiV+Media+Center+by+Onkyo.html/. It's available in Japan now.
Intel is run by marketdroids, AMD by engineers. Who would you put your money in?
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
It is a really bad play on the Roman numerals for 64. It seems to be bad in other espects too..
Oh well, what the hell...
my presler core 930 supposedly supports viiv. so far I don't know what it is or what it does. intel made mention of virtualization.
the viiv demo software on the intel site doesn't even install on xp.
They're using their grammar skills there.
What Intel needs to do is get a bunch of their engineers together and produce a home entertainment center reality show. Like Monster Garage, or Monster House, or American Chopper, or American Hotrod, or Unique Whips, or Pimp My Ride. But just all about the entertainment centers mobile or otherwise. Get the people with the skills, together with the gear, the nigh unlimited budget of a TV show in the context of such limited scope, find out what the "problems" are, and how they can solve the tough problems with the next generation of all in wonder devices (I've mailed ATI a nickle).
Can Intel build a custom one of a kind laptop that can tune-HD tv over the air? A tricked out home entertainment center with bluescreen and motion capture version of Virtua Fighter? A full home entertainment center with NAS that can send any ripped DVD in the collection to any computer or tv on command? No reason they can't get a year of money and data out of that.
Have we got a video? Yes we've got a video!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Will be called "Re-viiv"?
I thought Viiv was just another idiotic buzzword with no actual product. From what I had seen at the CES, Viiv is just DRM, and the only reason it "enables" high quality content is because the content provider / playback device / your dead stepmother won't play anything unless you've got the Viiv keyring.
The fact that few content providers chose to pay Intel for something that Microsoft already offers with WMV, and Apple provides with iTunes/iPod, and every other content distribution system provides in some form or another.. no surprise at all. Intel makes chips and chipsets.. that's all the world expects of them, and that's the only thing the world trusts them with. DRM is NOT their expertise.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
""DRM that Just Works" is an oxymoron."
People use to say the same thing about "Linux on the Desktop".
Good thing they're "vi" fans and not "emacs", otherwise it would be: "introducing the new 'Emacsscame'"
It seems intel is getting big on pushing "platforms" instead of hardware.
-------
Incite and flee.
Seriously, he provides a link to an article which is anti-TC, and that links to another essay which links to both (or more) sides of the question(s) including very pro-TC perspectives. So, where are your links which prove beyond any possible doubt that TC is a wonderful and pro-consumer thing? I don't see them.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
VIIV is 64 to an idiotic marketing department.
The author claims hardware support for Paladium and "Output Content Protection". He further claims that unless you have "High bandwidth Digital Content Protection, support on your display" you won't be watching any movies and that Vista will try to lock you into Windoze formats. I don't have the hardware budget to keep up with such things, so I'll take his word for it and that's hardware protection for DRM.
If you combine that with rumors of Paladium blocking "unsigned" code execution, what you end up with is systems that will only work M$ junk. Given the performance of the author's ViiV system, that means nothing is really working.
It's not really surprising that would happen. Big dumb publishers don't want free computers playing their movies. The movie industry's use of CSS and subsequent abuse of the writers of DeCSS drives that point home. Their idea is to make general purpose computers suck like your current DVD player does. Microsoft and Intel are bending over backward to please them at everyone else's expense.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
As Homer would say, "It's funny cause it's true."
GP post: MMX makes the internet go faster.
Parent: MMX was an actual hardware improvement that did make media "go faster".
Who can spot the disconnect here?
I'll back up the grandparent post. I distinctly recall claims being made about how the faster Intel processors made downloading faster. Not media playing, which they never actually advertised that I recall, nor game playing, but faster downloading.
I've always considered that one of the most deceptive and stupid ad campaigns ever run; deceptive for claiming an untruth about faster downloading, and stupid because as you say, MMX was a legitimate improvement in media playing and 3D gaming. (Or at least MMX2 was.) Seems to me those would have been even easier to concretely advertise for.
...is that Centrino was a unbelievable success. It was a similar bundle-of-stuff, but unlike Viiv, it actually made some sense.
Intel thought that they could make another bundle, put a name on it, and make gigabucks again. *sigh* I think that they were just lucky the first time.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
C'mon, did marketing sleep through this?
What's the target audience for a PC based entertainment system? Geeks. Every "early adopter" already has his DVD/VCR/Whatnot player. Every "normal" person doesn't even have a clue what viiv is, is scared away when they hear it is "some sort of computer" and buys some DVD player off the shelf.
So why didn't geeks buy it? Because they know what "DRM" means.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...is this one.
While the Mac mini is not the perfect media PC it's pretty damn good. Very small, you can buy videos directly with ITMS and it's powerful enough to PVR OTA HDTV feeds if you like (via EyeTV).
It's funny that a computer never explicitly mentioned as a media PC is so well sited to the tast while ViiV is not. I was wondering when Intel announced Viiv if we would see a Viiv box from Apple too, but I don't think they saw any profit in playing with Viiv - they have thier own path to follow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
LXIV is actually the roman numerals for 64.
Yes DRM is like jail.
But if you notice in any sort of retail store... all the products are locked up behind glass, labeled with security tags, policed by security and electronic surveillance. Why? because people would steal anything that wasn't.
Which is the point of DRM - preventing uncontrolled theft. You can do DRM well, or you can do DRM horribly, but the point of DRM is to restrict end users from mass-duplicating and distributing your work.
All the hyper-inflated hubris about how "DRM needs to just go away" is tired, childish, and ignorant. If you want free content, you can make do with ad sites like YouTube to "watch your programming;" if you want MPAA/Hollywood content, you'll need to accept that they won't hand it out freely for anyone to pirate without taking a stab at limiting their losses.
The discussion should be: "how can DRM exist in a way that doesn't trample our existing concept of fair use?" not, "when are movies and music going to be open source and pirate-ready?"
That's why he said "bad play". VI IV - 6 4.
You think it's a PC that'll act as a host, collector & source for all your media needs - serving music around your house, recording multiple TV shows and channels, and downloading clips and shows from all over the world via the Internet, playing them all on your wide-screen TV & 7.1 channel sound system. Maybe with some intelligence thrown in whereby it auto-schedules things you might like based on your previous choices, and all with a nice GUI/OSD and a simple to use remote.
They think it's an opportunity to lock you in to buying their hardware and content from their "partners", while locking out anything that conflicts with that revenue model.
And, guess what? They make the machines and the software, and they'll keep trying that strategy until they either win, or give the whole thing up as a bad joke, claiming "it failed due to rampant piracy / terrorists / paedophiles".
You make the common mistake of thinking that "want" or "need" leads directly to "product". What actually happens is "want" leads to "focus group", which leads to "marketing", which leads to "strategy", which leads to "product development", which leads on a little side trip back to "marketing" again, and finally leads to "product". By which time its real and actual purpose bears only a passing similarity to what was originally wanted.
It's still funny that they can't even get review or demo units to function properly, though. Don't they test the damn things before sending them out? It's like they really believe that the hype will swamp the disappointing reality...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Dear Intel,
If I could pronounce the name of your product, I'd probably be more likely to buy it.
"VIIV" has got to be one of the stupidest names in the history of marketing.
.... is not amused...
Wow, it's been eons since I last saw someone spell Microsoft that way !
Thank you for that refreshing trip back into 20th century.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
One word: WinModem.
I'm not kiddin. Back in the day it was nothing for your cpu to be raped from a WinModem driver that was poorly optimized [or scheduled for P5 at the time].
So having MMX to do the DSP work for the modem could make your downloads faster if only by allowing you to connect at higher speeds and still have CPU left over to run your TCP stack.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
in the 80s, best stuff was spearheaded and driven by geeks making stuff with zero managerial
DECISIONS!!
same goes with the 90s and 00s
Hence, get a clue managers, let engineers be creative, let them do their shit, look at XBMC.
In a commercial world we have managers dictating via marketing depts what features are worthy.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Media corporations have massive lobbying power, I can't see any large hardware vendor empowering the consumer in the way that a useful MCPC requires without running into large problems.
You think all the Chinese manufacturers will give a shit. If there is a market and they can make it, they'll knock them out cheaper and without the restrictions, just like they do for DVD players.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Like my Grampa out on the back forty, rocking in his chair, chawing tabaccy, while whittling a branch said, "You put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig."
Since Intel isn't spending $300 million to market Viiv, /. properller heads don't know much about it beyond the anti-intel hype.
Viiv is a platform spec kit not a CPU.
Viiv also outsold Centrino in Q1.
It's big. Very big.