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Are Streaming Media Players a Passing Fad
DeviceGuru writes "In-Stat is questioning whether dedicated streaming media players like the Roku player, Boxee Box, and Google TV boxes will be around for long. The reason, says In-Stat, is that IP-streamed video is becoming a standard feature of TVs and Blu-ray players. Passing fad? Not according to this blog post at DeviceGuru, which argues that we're talking about a disruptive market, not a mature one, and that TVs and Blu-ray players can't possibly provide the flexibility to serve as the platform for delivering rapidly evolving technologies to the early adopters who represent the testbed for all this innovation."
Apparently ending questions with a question mark is also a passing fad.
next question
Not.
XBMC rules
If ISPs keep capping the amount you can pull per [time unit], yeah, they will become a passing fad.
My Blu-Ray player displaced my Roku (which I sent to a family member for use with Netflix). The only thing I used the Roku for was Netflix, and since my Blu-Ray player does Netflix (and Pandora) there was no need for the Roku.
If I had a second TV and wanted a cheap streaming device, I might look at Roku again, but at $70 for a Roku-HD versus $99 for a Blu-Ray player with Netflix, I'd probably go for the Blu-Ray player so I can play disks too.
if a linux computer can be packed into a unit the size of an overlarge usb key
the same functionality can be flashed into a bluray player or tv to change the standard/interface/codec/whatever is required.
New IP stack? New Codec? New flash based website with it's own API? these can all be written into an amazingly small bit of flash that can reside inside any disc player or television.
will the makers WANT to write such firmware on a per model basis? that's the real question... they'd much rather sell you a new tv then write software for a sale that already closed at best buy 6 months ago.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Your new TV set contains a computer that performs the functions provided by the external box. The firmware for that computer can be reprogrammed. The external box is there only for TVs that can't do that. Soon, all TVs being sold will be able to do that. The boxes will exist only for people who want the function without buying a new TV. Has that business ever been a growth market for any industry where it happens? No.
Ergo, the external box that provides functions that any new TV can provide is not a growth market and is likely a doomed market.
Next question, please.
I don't see how they'll disappear with the stranglehold the industry has currently; at least not in the short term. Netflix is great, but many of it's items are dated... I love iTunes and the integration with my mostly-Apple network, but is too expensive as an all-in-one solution. For now, I'm using a hybrid setup:
Basic cable + 12 TB of ripped material in a Drobo. Perfectly organized in iTunes, it's leaps and bounds above Netflix.
Yes, certainly. Why can't the hardware in these boxes be located in the television itself. The tuner hardware is. Only reason it wouldn't be is BS like cable companies that see integration as an attack on a revenue stream (i.e. cable cards and digital cable standards). Once it can support some standard interface everyone uses (HTML5?) then there won't be a need for a set top box. Right now you see a lot of crap interfaces as they don't have standards. For instance, my netflix client on my Blu ray player is horrible but on my 360 its great. Comes down to power and how the app is designed. If its done via HTML5 or something similar then everyone will get the same "good" interface.
New, disruptive markets eventually become mature, established markets.
Sure they can, once it has become a mature, established market. Stuff like Hulu in North America and BBC iPlayer in the UK have rapidly established themselves as de-facto standards, and the technology is now becoming well understood and implemented in a similar way by multiple providers.
Devices like DTV boxes can receive and apply software updates and devices like TiVo and satellite receivers have been using that trick to keep current for over a decade now, so why wouldn't televisions with integrated streaming capabilities be able to do the same?
I have a Roku and an Apple TV. I will not be surprised if these things become a commodity at some point; but we are not there yet by any means. These boxes have quite different portfolios of available content, and very different styles of operation. I like them both. I like having both. I find them far superior to the on-demand services offered by my cable provider (Comcast). I never, ever watch broadcast cable anymore: I obtain all of my content via these external boxes, and always commercial free.
"In-Stat is questioning whether dedicated streaming media players like the Roku player, Boxee Box, and Google TV boxes will be around for long. The reason, says In-Stat, is that IP-streamed video is becoming a standard feature of TVs and Blu-ray players. Passing fad?
Ummm derr? Streaming video is just software. There is nothing magical about the box that plays these. Of course it'll all end up in one box.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
geez, so which is it?
Blu-ray players are supposed to be dead in the consumer market.
and TV's? does that mean cable? - no thanks.
personally I love the interface and usability of my Roku, It's my first choice for streaming netflix over the Playstation or the Wii
What if you could write software for your TV? I started learning Javascript because I have a TV that can be programmed with it, and I want to be able to stream music from my fileserver to it, instead of having to hook up a separate box. The TV already plays Netflix just fine, and has apps avaiable (although I haven't used them) for Hulu, Amazon, Blockbuster, Vudu, Vimeo, etc, etc. As far as I can tell, the TV is basically a display with a builtin Linux computer that runs apps written in Javascript.
Yahoo isn't the only one, BTW.
Nathan's blog
I'd say dedicated devices for video (i.e. T.V. and blueray players). Set top boxes are also somewhat silly and limited. What we really need are small computer systems for entertainment that use gestures and a Minority Report-like UI. All of this needs to be open source, so we don't have to suck on idiotic interfaces and features sets that cow tow to the entertainment industry's idea of a great set of features (i.e. no time shifting, no space shifting, and pay through the nose).
I remember when TV's had VCR's built in.
TVs and Blu-ray players can't possibly provide the flexibility to serve as the platform for delivering rapidly evolving technologies
They could if they ran something like Linux under the hood.
One problem I've long had with the idea that this functionality will migrate into TVs is that traditionally TV firmware has been next to impossible to update.
IPTV protocols are numerous and evolving fast -- there is not now, nor do we really expect there to be any time soon, a hard-and-fast standard for it. If you don't have the ability to easily update the software then it will stop working within a few years.
Now, my TVs have mostly been paragons of reliability, but one thing I cannot say about the TV manufacturers is that they are any good at all at complex software. Or even the very simplest software for that matter; even with the very limited software functionality in a modern TV the configuration and display of information is almost universally lousy.
And it's not just TVs. Most of these consumer electronics guys also make phones, and look what their software looks like when they do it themselves. It just sucks.
Worse, their dedication to ongoing support of hardware that has already sold is damn near zero (there is, after all, no incentive whatsoever once the warrantee periods expire). Ever see an Android phone that cannot be upgraded to the most recent Android, even if the hardware is capable? That is not only common, it is *typical*. And that is pretty much the rule across most consumer electronics. For instance: My first Blu-Ray player had one firmware update a year or so after the model was introduced, and nothing since. The player no longer works on BR discs that use certain new copy protection schemes and there will never be a fix for that, so it became a boat anchor in just two years.
These things are only a mild annoyance for a product that costs perhaps $200. For a nice TV at $2000ish it's a huge problem. Maybe some years hence when there is a real IPTV standard it will stop mattering so much, but that is not going to happen any time soon. Until it does it will be much more cost effective to buy cheap little boxes to attach to the TV.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
"TVs and Blu-ray players can't possibly provide the flexibility to serve as the platform for delivering rapidly evolving technologies to the early adopters who represent the testbed for all this innovation."
WTF does that even mean? A TV that can make an IP connection to the Internet can play streaming video just as well as any other device.
These things cost about $100 and they last a few years. After this fad it will be something else. They are disposable and serve a simple purpose. I buy one of these units today. If I get a few good years out of it I am happy
I know for myself, that between an OTA antenna, Netflix Instant, and Hulu, I have everything I need. My Netflix sub is the closest I have ever come to paying for TV.
As more and more ISPs implement caps, I think the next step is going to be a home caching server. I.e. for Netflix, you could set your monthly cap and tell it what % to use, then it would download shows from your Instant Queue to the cache server during off-peak hours. Then, streaming devices would get the data over your LAN rather than across the Internet. The only traffic generated during viewing would be the DRM exchanges to ensure you are authorized.
However, if ISPs were honest (ha!) they would exempt content that is delivered via CDN (i.e. Akamai) because the only bandwidth used is "last mile" bandwidth--the bandwidth between the CDN server and the Internet is already paid for by the CDN provider!
Every try to pass someone without wheels?
Using that logic, we should all be buying souped-up computer monitors that have computers built into them, as opposed to buying the monitor as an accessory to your computer.
My story: bought a Samsung TV at exactly the wrong time (early 2010). It had DLNA capability built in (which is buggy) and a framework for Yahoo gadgets. As soon as Samsung's new 2010 models came out, they stopped supporting the 2009 models (no fixes for buggy DLNA). They changed their app framework, so the Yahoo gadget ecosystem is now dead. I learned from the experience that it's really dumb to buy a TV for it's media-player functionality. You're better off buying a dumb TV and using a STB like a Playstation that has broader support.
I can stream media to my TV from my PC, Wii, PS3, Xbox360, any device with an HDMI out. If the built in feature of the tv's company goes wrong I would have to buy a new TV instead of a new box. Its like having to get a new car every time the tires wear out.
everything is just a passing fad.
The next kindle is supposed to sport a quad core processor. What's preventing them from tossing in an nvidia chipset out of a netbook and an HDMI port, and allowing you to play back streaming video from the amazon.com video store on your TV? Most every 36"+ flatscreen TV has an HDMI port or two on the side for just this sort of thing.
Why buy a roku box when you can get an identical device that you can take with you and read books on, too? Not practical for the living room where a dedicated device is needed, but ideal for those couples who think having a TV in the bedroom is a good idea.
moox. for a new generation.
We can stream Netflix using either our Wii or our Sony Blu-Ray player. I use the Sony, because I think the picture quality is better. They use the Wii because the UI is simpler and a lot easier to read.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
iPhone
Roku's nice and all, but they did a couple of things that really turned me off: First, they make it a mandatory to sign up an online account with them on-line in order to just use the device. Yet another account, sigh. I do not understand why I need to do this if the only thing I am using my Roku player for is streaming from my Netflix account. Next, they required collecting my credit card info as part of signing up with their online account. The credit card info gets used for purchasing content through the Roku device. But I had no intention of using it for anything besides Netflix. And there's no way to get around it, which is why I called them and forced them to give me access without any credit card info. This is ridiculous. Everyone these days seems to want the maximum information they can collect on you. I'm considering returning this device in favor of another one that's not so intrusive as to demand my credit card info right off the bat and track what I watch through yet another online account.
At $.99/GB (which it'll eventually become), who will want to stream media? Give me a local streaming server any day...
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
What will not pass is the existence of a class of devices that provide translation services between devices that fetch and store information and devices that project information. The more open the information ecology the less often we will have to replace the external box. The creation of persistent information standards (ha!) or durable devices (ha!ha!) would decrease number of needed translation boxes. What else really could?
I looked at stand alone players late last year, but went with a Blu-Ray player because it did pretty much the same things, and also up-scaled my lower res videos to 1080p, and played Blu-Ray discs and up-scaled DVDs. And at pretty much the same cost as all but the worst stand alone units.
What I got was a compromise. It will play many format files, but will not play ISO files. It will stream from a few paces on the web, but far from all that I would wish, and it will not access other computers on the local network to play their files (using sneaker-net to get around that).
The thing is, I have not found any TV, Blu-ray player or stand alone box that will do everything that I want. Even the over priced and over hyped Google TV will not access as much as I would want, it can't even play back basic non-subscription Hulu for example! So I came to understand that to get the normal full web on my new HDTV I would have to actually build a computer based appliance of my own. And will want to find a player that will upscale well to 1080p when given lower quality input. But with the absurd mindset of the content holders claiming that Hulu can stream to a PC and then to my TV, but for some insane reason it would be evil if it streamed to a Blu-ray player, a stand alone media player, or Google TV and then to my same television set, I see no good solution for what I want than to build up my own system, which looks like it will cost about the same or less than the Logitech Google TV gelded offering..
So my advice to /. readers is don't get caught up in the stand-alone appliance or built in to a TV or Blu-ray argument, that is the wrong thing to consider. Consider building your own, which will be able to access Hulu and other things currently locked out of ALL the retail offerings.
One thing worth mentioning here is that I have realized that while my Blu-Ray player can stream from a very very limited set of sites, one of those it can stream from is YouTube. And it has the ability to select from a couple of dozen of different national YouTube countries, as well as a global choice. I eventually realized that if I intercepted the DNS query for one of the less desirable national YouTube sites, I could return the URL of a local machine. And If I were to write a YouTube emulator to run on that machine then it could pretend to be YouTube to the Blu-Ray player and let me stream from a local computer. This is all still theory, but I'm wondering if any Slashdot users have taken it any farther. The DNS look-up should not be too tricky. Just a DNS "server" on a local system that looks up all requests except the YouTube target and passes the result back. then point the router to use that local machine as the DNS server. The YouTube emulation seems to be a bit more work, I'm wondering if anyone has done anything like this or knows of any existing package that would do it. Thanks.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I have WD TV boxes. They can stream online content, but can do more which I think no TV or Blu Ray device can. I can stream media from any uPnP stream, from any network share, and can plug in hard drives to it. As far as I can tell, TV's and whatnot can only stream internet content.
Say what you will about Sony, my Bluray player presented no hassles getting Netflix set up. Wish it had Hulu support, and better Youtube navigation, but for the most part I'm pretty happy with it.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I don't have a personal need for a game console. When I want to get my game on, I prefer to use my PC.
What do you do when you happen to have friends over at your place and you all want to get your game on?
on an old laptop, and for me it just wasn't worth the hassle compared to a $99 DVD player(including remote!) that boots in a matter of seconds. No, it won't do Hulu and that sucks, but compared to the expense and ongoing hassle of using a PC, the convenience is worth it.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I can plug in a hard drive to my Blu-Ray player. And it will automatically upscale the content. While I have not had a chance to do a side by side comparison, my research on the WD device indicated that it did not play several formats that my Blu-ray player will (and, in the interest of full disclosure, the Blu-ray player will not play directly from ISO files of DVDs, which I wish it would (as I already have at least one DVD that will no longer play from simple use)). The Blu-Ray players big failing is not playing from other computers on the network, but that might be bypassed by letting another computer pretend to be YouTube.
The real issue is that neither a stand alone box like the WD or a feature built into an appliance like a TV or Blu-Ray can do everything that you really want and expect from the Internet. For that you really need your own computer (even Google TV doesn't do all). So the question should be "cheap limited box, limited built in utility to a component, overpriced Google TV, or build up a PC that will do all you want?"
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So long as people have local content they want to access via their TV/ginormous monitor, there's going to be a market for streaming players. So long as TV manufacturers and content distributors discourage this functionality, there's going to be a market. Show me an open-source TV, open-source standalone programmable monitor or some really stupid draconian law, and I'll revisit this opinion.
Giving an answer with a question mark is a lot less annoying than asking a question without one.
I agree that the market is still very much developing. The day Sony and other vendors start actually supporting a wider range of native media formats on their respective devices through their half-ass "DLNA" support which is near useless, rather than forcing me to convert file formats constantly and burn power/CPU time, I will look at this as a sign of real maturity. Sony won't ever do this as far as I can tell due to conflicting interests, similar with many other BluRay and TV type hardware vendors.
Until then, I buy WD Live! media players and place throughout my home that easily handle this internally and only burn a few watts, playing whatever media format I throw at it. I stream my media from a single network share, put my daughters videos, my wife's crap Lifetime movies, and all of my movies and music galore. Everyone is happy. Remove WD and replace with whatever other smaller tech company 3rd party media player is, and solving a very similar problem that the TV/Bluray makers don't wish to tackle.
...has the streaming capabilities, but what I bought it for was the 4TB of storage I can attach to it. And the fact that there's Linux for it.
I like owning the shiny discs. I also like exercising my right to copy the movie on a hard drive and storing the disc away as a back up copy.
I do not want my TV directly getting internet services. I do not want streaming direct to my TV. I like using a Wii, Roku, Apple TV, etc. to hook up to my TV to do that for me. I hate the idea that my TV could be a security problem. TV manufacturers are not known for frequent firmware updates or their ability to understand the possible impact of being internet accessible.
Standalone streaming media players probably are a fad much like PDAs and dedicated MP3 players are/were fads. They'll eventually be integrated into other devices with additional features. Many of the bigger HDTVs already have the ability to tap streaming services (like Netflix) without a separate box. The streaming players will integrate into PCs, Bluray, or Xbox/Playstation/Wii or even into the TV itself. Heck, you may even see it integrate with smartphones. The streaming technology is still pretty young so a standalone box makes sense for now but I just can't see it remaining a standalone technology for more than a few years.
Of course if the ISPs (looking at you Comcast and AT&T) have their way with bandwidth caps, it may be a while before we get to really use streaming technology. Companies like Comcast have a built in conflict of interest when it comes to streaming technology that they don't control.
I think everyone is overlooking the fact that some of these streamers (ex. Boxee box, Popcorn Hour), are very good for local streaming. Most Blu-ray players require you to run a DLNA client on a server/workstation to encode on the fly because they don't support many formats. Plus, the interfaces are terrible if you have a huge library. They also usually have annoying fans.
Boxee box gives you the power of XMBC in a nice package, without the hassle of building your own HTPC. It's open source, available on all major platforms, and free. It supports way more formats than most DLNA Blu-ray players and has media scrapping functionality built-in. If anything, Blu-ray's are a passing fad. They still haven't caught on after so many years. Nobody wants stacks of discs that can scratch / get lost. The alternative is just so much better. Download some media (legally, of course), store it on a cheap NAS, and pick a movie in seconds from a movie wall. Local/Internet streaming is the future.
Boxee is on a 3 month update cycle. How often do you think TV manufacturers will push firmware updates? Maybe once every 6 months for the first year or two.
Finally,
Boxee box: $150-$200
New 52 inch TV: $2000+
Tivo had a brilliant idea, first to release first to implement and revolutionize the concept of DVR, and despite being better then the setups that the cable networks bundled in almost every category, got completely crushed by falsely claimed free offerings offered by the cable and satellite companies.
Most of these streaming boxes are basically low-power variants of home theater PCs. Some even include hard disks, or allow storage to be connected via USB/eSATA. I have a WD TV Live Plus, which basically runs Linux under the hood (there are even some custom firmwares, especially for legacy WDTV products, which add all sorts of stuff from bittorrent to SSH and more, not unlike what DDWRT/Tomato and other custom SOHO router firmwares add), on a bedroom TV. It connects wirelessly to my network via a cheap N dongle (some models have wireless included), and I have it pull media primarily from my Arch Linux NAS box. It has tons of codec support and handles streaming 1080p MKVs with subtitles, provided the wireless is up to snuff. If I had a Netflix subscription, it can Watch Instantly. It has an assortment of other little options as well, like being able to view picture slide shows, and an assortment of options such as Facebook integration, YouTube viewing etc... It even has DTS and can output via HDMI 1.3 (newer versions, 1.4).
These boxes are relatively cheap, easy to use even for those who lack tech know-how, and provide a great deal of flexibility and freedom in how a user accesses their media. Granted, a full on HTPC will give you more features, power, and control but that's also more expensive to do right and requires a lot more configuration. I'm not so worried about them being a fad as much as I am watching corporate greed continue to castrate their abilities. For instance, look at the native media streaming features of the PS3 and Xbox360 - they can't play nearly the amount of formats without conversion my WDTV can, much less an actual PC, nor are there the same amount of options and ability to access from different protocols (ie. SAMBA, NFS etc..). Instead, they want you to purchase content from their private stores with the DRM and prices they choose. The very same happens for all but the highest end embedded streaming functions in HDTV - they're limited to certain parners (youtube, facebook, twitter...) and certain filetypes.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that users, for the most part, are either fine with the way media is going - DRM/DLC/Consolization of convergence devices into walled gardens etc.... thus streaming boxes and whanot may move into the same niche as HTPC builders. However, so long as some of them try to provide inexpensive, quality access to your media rather than simply pushing you towards buying something, they will have a place in the household of anyone with networked storage and multi-room media needs.
In the short run, I'd be damned surprised: Disk players have been shoehorning 'value-add' features in at least since the first DVD player or video-CD player made a vague attempt at decoding a data disk full of JPEGs with an interface that wasn't wholly unusable. Such pack-in features have largely been appallingly badly executed and(since they aren't the primary advertised features, and models change all the time) there wasn't much in the way of informed-consumer pressure to make them better. I'd be rather surprised if blu-ray players with streamer pack-ins do too much better.
Long run? Umm, sure, why not? Once time works out enough of the rough edges of something, it becomes a commodity and you can save money by integrating it into the box/motherboard/chipset/whatever. Hell, if it weren't for the various DRM bullshittery being bandied about by cable outfits, TVs would probably be well on their way to devouring STBs entirely...
on an old laptop....
An old laptop is going to preform like an old laptop. Yea, I've used one too, but that's far from an optimum solution. Good for watching a show on Hulu, but even then can be a bit of a pain. A dedicated box would seem to be a better idea, and hook it up with a wireless keyboard and mouse and even a remote control (If you object to yet another remote control you likely already have or soon will have a universal remote like the Harmony that can treat the computer like another device to remote control). As to boot up time, for the last two decades I've pretty much had at least one computer that is "always on", doing things like checking my e-mail, running scheduled tasks, and the like. Might as well make the media center PC be that box, so boot time becomes a non-issue.
Another point to consider is that if you get your TV over free air and the Internet and don't want to pay Cable or satellite's outrageous fees, you have very few choices for a DVR (my count is zero but I estimate an error of up to +/- 1) unless you build your own out of a TV tuner PC add-on/add-in and easily available software. Add a DVR to a media PC for a one-time fee of less than $30 and avoid paying someone like TiVo month after month.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Streaming media is here to stay. I think that streaming media player sales will decline as more people purchase TVs, game consoles, and other devices that have streaming media capabilities built-in, but they won't totally be obsolete anytime soon. A standalone streaming media player will almost always be cheaper than a game console, and some people simply don't care about games. Often, a streaming media player also offers a better user experience than a TV/Bluray player/game console app because the manufacturer is able to focus on and support just that one thing instead of focusing on their main product and viewing the app as a side note.
TVs will have CPUs which will accept streaming box instructions to that TV, which will in turn stream media. Want GoogleTV? Zap! Your TV is now a Google TV. Apple TV instead? Zap!
Of course we'll need to buy a box to stream the box instructions to our TV.
...take over.
we're already there for some systems. an asus ion(1) atom system is 100% fanless and is 'bedroom/livingroom quiet'. I really insisted on no fans for a media player.
first gen, I used popcorn hour streamers. the pc's back then (3 yrs ago or more) were not fanless and it was 'hard' to do even SD video well on a pc (compared to the clock-perfect hardware based players).
now, even an atom an ion (needs ion for video speed on HD) can do 99% of the job of the sigma based media boxes. and I have more features than the popcorn guys will ever program (they are hoplessly bad at programming; so bad I gave up on my a100 and c200 players).
I can even watch in client-mode on myth-tv with this atom setup. some judder but not too bad, really!
give it 1-2 more years and the door will close and fanless pc's will be in every watching room (where people care about low noise levels in higher end playback systems).
programming for the sigma systems seems 'hard' based on the poor quality from PCH and other knock-offs. they don't seem to have the dedication to being bug-free and they don't seem to want to hire good talent (being asia-based, entirely, in its 'engineering', both hw and sw) to fix their bugs or add truly useful features.
so, I gave up on the media streamers. I can get by with a lowly atom today and in a year's time, things will only be better and better.
sell your media stream before next year. the value will be dropping to the $50 level (my prediction, fwiw) and they will all be throw-away/commodity boxes, like plastic linux firewalls and routers are, today.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Can anyone please tell me how to stream my music collection (mostly mp3) from my Linux PC (Kubuntu) to my Android phone. Two years ago I did an extensive search without finding a conclusive solution (there were some very complex music radio servers that I didn't figure out how to install and configure). But I see passing references to people who do just that, so please enlighten me.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
The very question is retarded, as it has been asked over and over and over about just about every audio, video, and computer technology to ever come along...and purpose use devices are still going along nicely.
Sure, find me a TV that is infinitely upgradeable for all future as yet unimagined technologies, and that will put a nail in the set top box coffin...but since that's fantasy land, it's not gonna happen. It's NICE when you buy a device to do one thing, and it also does other useful things as well, but when you want a media source that isn't supported...you're right back to a new set top box. That's the REAL WORLD.
As soon as I get an HDMI-to-bunny ears cable, that's one less box cluttering my living room, baby.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
The one weakness of these boxes is no Web surfing, IMO.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
A VCR would have been cheaper.
You mean those things from the last millenium that had the analog tuners, and output in 480i composite video or, if you paid extra, in a signal that separated chroma from luminance (that my HDTV doesn't even support)? No, you couldn't really mean that, that would be too much like trooling.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
You can use GNUMP3d (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnump3d/) under linux in conjunction with ServeStream (http://sourceforge.net/projects/servestream/) on Android. Both are open source.
Actually, not quite. Why? I own a Roku and I've noticed two things. One a lot of the streaming channels are private channels created by the community. In other words not sanctioned by the content providers. Two some of the content providers are cutting off some of these apps at the source. So either everything comes above board or there's a perpetual battle of attrition.
We have recently seen a transition for cable systems in the US to to neighborhood nodes connected by fiber to the head end also known as FTTN. This has allowed a huge expansion in the bandwidth allowed to the home - and similarly a huge expansion in the bandwidth being consumed. DSL has gotten somewhat better as well, although with most of the US still having quite a bit of very old copper lines there is a very distinct limit as to how far DSL can go.
The problem is that the bandwidth increase took maybe 10 years to propate to the homes. It took nearly that long for the connections to finally reach every home. And the neighborhood node connection is maxed out. What is the next step? Well, any configuration that involves a neighborhood node will fail to deliver significantly greater bandwidth, and that certainly include FIOS and FTTH. These implementations involve a feed to a node and fiber distribution from that node to the homes being served.
Sure, when there is 1Gb being served to the node it means that the 10 early adopters in the neighborhood can get 100Mb/sec service 24x7. But what happens when there are 1000 homes connected and every single one of them has been sold on some IPTV solution? 1Gb/1000 = 1Mb/sec which is too slow for even the best HD compression techniques today.
Can they make the connection to the node 100Gb instead of 1Gb? I believe it is possible but it will involve a similiar investment that the changeover to FTTN required and likely take another 10 years or so.
I have two Roku boxes served off a Cox connection. I figure they are good for 2-3 years absolute maximum at which point there will be no more live streaming. You will have to make a selection and download the content to the box to play later. This will keep Netflix serving media online cheaply but means Roku has to have lots of local storage to become a media server. Sure, go ahead an buy an expensive solution and it will be obsolete in 2-3 years. The Roku has the benefit of being $100 for the 1080i HD 802.11N version and $79 for the 720p 802.11g versionm cheap enough to throw away in 2-3 years when it stops working. The same fate awaits everything but the game consoles which might have enough local storage to buffer content.
I made my own, I had an old Cobalt Qube in closet I turned it into a streaming player for my television. Similar to WD TV box. It uses http://icefilms.info/ and streams over 10,000 tv shows and movies, even new episodes and movies in theaters all from icefilms.info. with my ipod touch and vnc I can use it as a remote I use RSS downloader option in uTorrent to schedule downloads of my favorite shows similar to a tivo, it auto downloads my favorite episodes and notifies me when new episodes are available. easy peasy, and no money spent, since I had the old cobalt qube I used to use as a webserver but found new life as a simple little media streamer for my television.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "commodity", but Roku seems pretty close now... (ie, it's cheap, and will soon have a huge amount of competition from similarly cheap boxes from companies like WD, Iomega, Asus, etc)
will the makers WANT to write such firmware on a per model basis? that's the real question... they'd much rather sell you a new tv then write software for a sale that already closed at best buy 6 months ago.
No, in fact, they definitely don't want to keep updating and maintaining software/firmware for their older models - as you said, there is almost no profit in it for them.
I think the motivations to do so will be competition (I'm not likely to buy another Sony TV if Sony abandons it after a year but Samsung updates theirs for 3-4 years), recurring revenue (selling/distributing new apps on old devices), and contracts (Netflix, Pandora, etc. get guarantees that the firmware updates will be published at least X times a year for Y years in exchange for using their service as an advertising/marketing point). But given the number of devices all of these CE companies release each year, that's a huge investment in maintenance/support...
What are you talking about
Discs are what you use when you can't easily use Netflix. See these advantages of discs that I've collected from previous Slashdot discussions.
It's worth noting that it makes sense to pack this functionality directly into the TV. The TV already has the decoders for a number of digital formats built in, along with the processing power to add things like menus and overlays. Adding an TCP stack to that doesn't require much. And there are no moving parts to wear out (ie., the case against integrating a DVD/BluRay player into the TV). So, it's a natural fit. Plus, NetFlix and most of the other major streaming services are available on the 3 major consoles. The WiFi on my Roku died, but instead of replacing it, I just use the Wii. If I ever update the TV, it will certainly be a model that has streaming built in to it.
The Roku box itself will fade away as its no longer needed, unless it comes up with some interesting new functionality. Something useful would be a household media server, or maybe something that caches the Netflix queue for low-bandwith users that can't stream things at a decent quality. (My parents could use that, DSL at their house maxes out at 1.5M)
There is no point in blocking things like .onion. It will never resolve unless you go out of your way to get to it with proxies and the like (using Tor in the case of .onion). I certainly could understand blocking many country level TLDs in the name of safety if one wished to do so, but this is pointless overkill as I see it.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Why can't someone make a 42" Android device with a tv tuner?
you could theoretically upgrade your streaming capability with a firmware update.
Provided that the TV manufacturer is willing to make and digitally sign a firmware update for your current TV instead of trying to sell you this year's model.
I have never had such an issue with getting to play a movie on my PC, ever. And only with BR titles, to boot. I've found it easier to rip the entire thing, then play it as an MKV rather than even bother with playing the disc.
I can't wait until everything is available streaming or through download.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
second: when did "streaming media" come to mean "streaming tv"? Streaming audio players, for example, fill a niche of their own....
Yes -- They're just crippled PCs. And before you go off on the "everything is a crippled PC anymore" slant, streaming media players are much closer.
A slim, budget PC with a compact wireless keyboard/trackpad does everything a Roku can do and more. The main fallback is the over-building of PC which produces too much heat and requires active cooling. But PCs are slimming down further and further which will enable them to fully replace uni-tasking computers so long as the *perceived* learning gap can be defeated.
"Specialty" streaming media players are a passing fad. Because devices like xbox, ps3, pc, many cell phones all do media streaming (most can stream to OR from the device) and a whole bunch of other things. Media streaming is indeed not fully mature, but it has little to do with these gimmicky and limited devices mentioned in the article.
By commodity he means that there will be no significant differences between the products, thus forcing the manufacturers to compete on price. Cheers! K
I live in Canada and Canada is scheduled to switch to all high definition digital over the air terrestrial television broadcasting on August 31 of this year (or at least in 31 major markets), with the rest given a 5 or 7 year lag before they have to be digital too. Over the air digital is clean like cable, but has definition surpassing DVD's (its all 1080i, which is between DVD's and Blu-Ray). The TV's that can receive both NTSC and ATSC, also have HDMI inputs, and into these I attach boxes (LG BD570C), which has a USB input, a Blu-Ray player, a wired internet connection, and a wireless internet connection. Besides being able to stream media from my computer to these boxes, I can receive streaming YouTube and any other net video. Its very nice to be able to pick right on screen from a selection of dozens or hundreds of movies, and stop, rewind, pause and do whatever else you want with the content. Receiving digital over the air is nice, but getting it from both the tv station and you own WIFI connection is better. Its too bad that most of the local TV stations are owned by cable companies, and most ads look like people are forced to go to cable (the service they provide), in order to get TV. Nowhere does it say that the picture you get from other the air digital is far superior to what is offered over the cable/streaming dsl providers offer. Last I looked, the picture I get from OTA looks like Blu-Ray, and what cable companies provide looks like cable tv from the 1960's.
that also makes it a no-brainer to slap it into a TV as an extra feature once the chipset gets dirt-cheap
At some point, especially when dealing with anything that touches major studio films, the cost of the licensing overwhelms the cost of the chipset.
A TV that can make an IP connection to the Internet can play streaming video just as well as any other device.
Not if the streaming video uses an encryption that the TV isn't programmed to support.
Consumers will not spend $100-$300 on a streaming media player when their next gen game console already streams
They will if they don't game. Or if the game consoles can't stream the specific site that people want to watch. [Wii specific queries snipped]
Using the Wii as a focal point on anything involving 'current' hardware is a joke.
Apart from the dedicated streaming boxes, Wii is the one that's closest to the "impulse buy" price range. Xbox 360 ($200 + $50 per year) and PLAYSTATION 3 ($300) aren't so cost-effective if you don't game. And even if you ignore the Wii, are specific web sites offering streaming video, such as MSNBC and C-SPAN, viewable on 360 and PS3?
What expense?
Buying and installing a compatible WLAN card in the decommissioned PC that will be used for XBMC, for one thing. Not everybody wants to drill holes in the wall to pull Cat-6, and not all landlords will allow it.
We all have a decommissioned PC that's plenty capable of running XBMC.
Slashdot users have one, but Slashdot users alone do not a market make. Relatives of Slashdot users may not have such a spare PC, nor do they know where to get the $30 PC-to-TV adapter. Or the PC's CPU might be so old that it can't decode 480p AVC video in real time, let alone 720p. Or the Windows license may have been transferred to a new PC, needing another $200 Windows license in order to view Netflix. (XBMC for Linux can't stream from Netflix because Moonlight doesn't support Windows Media DRM.)
What ongoing hassle?
Security updates to the Windows operating system on which XBMC runs, for one.
I'll grant you that setup can be a bit of a hassle
Which is another reason why it won't fly. People who grew up with a cable box or a VCR want simplicity comparable to a cable box or a VCR.
And meanwhile TV sets can't tune tv anymore. We have to have digital cable boxes hanging off the tv just to watch HD cable tv shows. SO which direction are we REALLY going in...?
Connect the PC to the TV, plug the USB gamepads and start a game? How do you do it with a console?
With a console, I first insert a disc containing game software that supports multiple gamepads. I could do the same with my PC, HDTV, USB hub, and four USB gamepads. But most of the game software that supports multiple gamepads is either exclusive to one console or ported to multiple consoles but not the PC, on the developers' assumption that statistically nobody has a home theater PC. Video
Try Subsonic.
...also not if the TV doesn't have the CPU or GPU to decode the content in question. Some things are a matter of hardware and other things are a matter of software. Either way, the TV manufacturer has to be interested in supporting your use case.
Even use cases that aren't terribly esoteric are shouted down by the fanboys.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Android?
If you are on the same LAN you should be able to connect via Samba.
MythTV has it's own built in DLNA server and there are standard ones like MediaTomb. A lot of these are pretty much a matter of a) install the package and b) configure the server with the build in web interface.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No. Your T.V. is a streaming media player if you have cable or satellite service. The only difference is that it has scheduled programming.
I run Ampache on a little underpowered Ubuntu box, and regularly stream to my Palm Pre phone.
There appear to be several Ampache clients for Android.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Ah, ok - well then I stand by my point ;)
http://iomega.com/iomegatv-media-center/ ...and I could probably add about 10 more links to similar products. I suppose a few of these aren't shipping yet, but many of these feature premium streaming services on their own or through a partnership with Boxee, so Roku will be joining them in the commodity streaming player wars in a matter of months...
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/WDTV/
http://usa.asus.com/Multimedia/Digital_Media_Player/OPlay_HD2/
http://delive.netgear.com/
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318
Not only streaming media players are a passing fad but also consoles and many other devices.
The future is simply everything being streamed from the cloud. And if you're skeptic about this just check out the service Onlive.
It is a gaming console that runs from the cloud. The key here is that they can stream video in real time thus allowing you to interact with the console with a gamepad or keyboard and mouse and even voice chat without any percived delay.
Any kind of service from Netflix to Boxee to an Xbox game or a PC game or even your operating system they all can be delivered this way.
You just need a always on fast internet connection and your good to go. So no need to buy a console or a media streamer or even a PC.
I'm still hoping that ending statements with a question mark is a passing fad?
Actually quite the contrary. Flash is to pass away, theres need for secure techs for broadcast, customizable players with adaptive net latency adaptability.
daap music player on the android phone. Firefly media server on your kubuntu box. Should be no configuration involved whatsoever. It works OK here from an NSLU2 running debian up to a Moto Defy. The moto found the music service without me touching a thing. I had to edit the firefly configuration to tell it where the music is but that was it.
People don't want their fries on the sandwich. They still want their food separated. The same is with many services, computer/monitor, tv/service box, microwave/oven, peanut butter/jelly.
Cable boxes prove that it is not a passing fad. TV's do NOT upgrade well. They never have. And companies love selling add ons. The TV companies baked in native tuning support ever since their WAS a TV, and yet, companies still use boxes. Even with baked in digital, the cable companies still toss out a box. This hasn't been all bad. Most people's first remote control was through a cable box hooked up to an old, un-upgradable tv. Tivo gave us pause and rewind (and hell THAT still isn't even a standard TV feature yet, and that's a must have for why most people, even with great over the air digital, still pay for a service, any service, just to get their pause button).
But let's think about it. Do most people buy a computer/monitor all in one, or separate? They buy separate. I'm not going to go into the debate about why that is, and I believe it WILL change. But it isn't changing anytime soon. Some things just don't go together in people's minds.
I8-D
Unlike VHS/DVD even Blueray (to an extent) streaming media systems need to be upgraded and upgraded often. As the streaming media technologies are usually focused on supporting the PC First then retrofitting them to work on Consoles or other "Boxes".
For large scale content like what we get on broadcast TV or movies where production is expensive and is expected to have regular releases. DRM like it or not (this is Slashdot and most of you doesn't like DRM) is a fact of life to get this content, if a company is going to spend hundreds of thousands of or a million dollars per episode, they want control over it, so they can make profit and measure the profit, yea it sucks for the consumer but it is business and part of an other discussion. But DRM needs to be updated regulatory. Also the content streaming owners tend to change hands Hulu and Netflix are big now... Who will be next. Perhaps they will start giving 1080p surround sound video next year.
The physical media doesn't need to be updates as often. I have a 3 year old blue ray player, it still works for any movie I put in it. the same with any DVD or VHS I put in my respective players. But streaming media isn't standardized and you need many services all with different formats to get enough content.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I for one have been appalled at the spread of streaming media and how thoroughly it has displaced the prior downloadable media formats. When I lived in an urban area with a physical wire providing my internet access I really didn't care. But now that I am retired and living in a rural area contending with internet access over satellite (sluggish but reliable) and a local Wi-Fi provider (fast but unreliable and grossly underconfigured) streaming media effectively means no media at all. Even Internet radio is a sometimes thing and VOIP is just a dream. So I am happy that many are able to enjoy this but for us it means the great silence. If there were an effective way of caching it so we could trickle-feed and playback that would help, but the system seems designed to make that difficult and I am too lazy anymore to work through how to code it.
The problem with these boxes and the TVs is that they are a closed platform. It you could buy an open source based TV now, I would wait in line to buy it. It would have great support and 1000s of apps and would be a wonderful platform. Even something running Android or Ios would be better than the completely closed crap that comes with these modern devices.
cp -R
i just hope question headlines are a passing fad.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Thank you. I've installed ampache on my server and after trying both Amdroid and JustPlay which wouldn't work, I got Lullaby to work on my phone. Great.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Agree. I have a Roku and an Apple TV (on different TVs). Love them both. I also use WMC on my PC for local broadcast and display it on the big TV via XBox 360. When Hulu Plus becomes available for Xbox I'll likely stop bothering with the DVR altogether and use Xbox and Roku for Hulu. If I managed to get the Roku to play my WMC recordings without a lot of hassle and make it easy for the Mrs., I'd probably skip Hulu.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
So the suggestions so far include A. discs, B. video on demand, and C. switching from movies to another form of entertainment that requires more imagination than movies, and none of them are correct. I've used my imagination in thinking up C; what answer were you looking for?
But I assume [that by "home theater PC"] you mean actually having it connected to the TV.
Exactly. A cheap desktop PC in a small case with non-Intel graphics is common; such a computer connected to a TV is not common enough for the major PC game developers to take notice. To put it another way, a PC connected to a monitor big enough for three to four people is an outlier.
I have about thirty years of console games available to my PC
That's fine for the few people who can solder together a dumper for their thirty years of cartridges. But not everyone is willing to solder, and the only NES dumper is an expansion board that needs to be soldered into a working NES anyway. (Nor do I want to publicly recommend breaking the law.)
It's fine for the few times it happens.
I guess the opportunity for local multiplayer happens more often in some families than in others.
However, it would result in less money going to the media company
Not if your local public library happens not to carry a particular book, and it was first published in 1923 or later. Then you'd have to buy the book, either in paper or electronically, or do without.
so it's obviously just a weirdo commie terrorist activity which should be stamped out.
More specifically, in modern western culture, dropping all TV and switching to books might make one look like someone who reminds people that he doesn't own a TV.