Molino Networks announced the Media Mogul at DEMO last week. The small unit can store 50 DVDs is $995 and the large unit with 1TB can store 200 DVDs is $2,995.
When my wife was in grad school she used to volunteer my computer repair services to her friends. After the umpteenth time being asked advice on software I had never used, I told my wife to tell her friends that I was a gynecologist and was willing to give free exams to her friends. She got the point and I was no longer barraged with tech support calls.
I apologize to Gary's wife! She knows how to use their ReplayTV box. At Broadband Plus, Gary played a voicemail from his wife asking how to reboot the ReplayTV after it froze up.
To clarify, Gary is a big fan of PVRs but thinks they should be in the cable-head not in the consumer's house. However, he also thinks we should pay for skipping commercials. That's like buying a copy of Time magazine and having to pay extra for not reading the ads.
In general, Gary is a bright guy and a hilarious presenter. He raised some good points about PVRs quality and ease of use.
In response to other comments, some people have pointed out that AT&T and other cable companies offer PVRs. The cable companies are responding to market pressure from DirecTV and Dish to offer PVR functionality integrated in to the Set Top Box. The cable companies would have preferred that PVR functionality only existing in the network/cable head-end rather than in the consumer's house. Again, this is for two reasons.
1. PVRs allow satellite TV companies to offer additional services like VOD. Cable companies hate satellite companies. Satellite companies can not offer network/head-end based PVR functionally. Therefore, the cable companies hate set-top box PVRs.
2. PVRs may eventually cut in to ad revenue and VOD revenue.
The cable companies are also annoyed that they have to pay a license fee to the content owners to offer network PVR functionality in the cable head-end when the satellite companies don't have to pay a license fee to content owners to put PVR functionality in the set top box.
This debate will mostly like end up in court and we have to make sure that the consumer wins. What does it mean for the consumer to win? The consumer must be able to continue to use their PVR for legitimate time-shifting purposes.
Let your cable companies know that you like your PVR and you want to keep using it. This must not be another Napster-like case where the industry sues the consumer electronics company for providing a product the customer wants.
In their battle against satellite companies, cable companies may end up hurting their customers. We can't let this happen.
In the words of Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, "You're an engineer, you don't have any friends."
One day at Palm, Jeff was talking to one of the engineers and the engineer was complaining "this is a stupid product, who would use it?" Jeff immediately replied "You're an engineer, you don't have any friends."
If you don't use a PDA, ask yourself how many meetings do you go to in a week? How many phone calls do you make in a week? How many different people do you call in a week?
When I was in product marketing at Cisco, I would often have 20 meetings in a week, and 25 voice messages to return at the end of a day.
PDAs are great for executives, marketing, and sales people. They are constantly interacting with other people. Engineers may spend more time in their cube cranking out the next great piece of software. The more meetings they have, the less productive they would be.
When it comes to the Windows Media market, Microsoft is more willing to support other operating systems. Real Networks is the monoploy player in the streaming market and Microsoft will do anything to make Windows Media win this market, including supporting Linux.
Last year a company called Starbak released a streaming server on Linux that supports Window Media Technology (WMT). They built the server from scratch without using any Microsoft code. They initiated OEM discussions with several companies. These large companies got nervous about a reverse engineered server and wanted Starbak to get a license from Microsoft. Suprisingly, Microsoft didn't object and licensed the technology to Starbak. Starbak lists Microsoft as a partner and they talk about Microsoft licensing WMT to Starbak.
"STARBAK has a Windows Media Technology (WMT) server license to support the delivery of WMT to the desktop over the company's proprietary embedded operating system (OS) platform. This WMT licensing event represented a first for the streaming media industry"
The proprietary embedded OS is actually Linux.
Microsoft was even willing to license the source code to other companies to port WMT to other OSes. I don't think anyone has taken them up on their offer.
I am using the NetStream 2000 TV card from Sigma Designs for TV out and hardware decoding MPEG-2. They have a linux driver for the NetStream 2000 card which also supports the NetStream 2000 TV card. You can contact Sigma at http://www.sigmadesigns.com.
I used my PlayStation 2 to play DVDs but I gave it to my cousins for Christmas. I am now in the process of building a DVD player out of old PC parts. I have the basic DVD functionality working with the NetStream 2000 TV card and I am in the process of making a user interface using Mozilla and the Flash plugin.
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Molino Networks announced the Media Mogul at DEMO last week. The small unit can store 50 DVDs is $995 and the large unit with 1TB can store 200 DVDs is $2,995.
When my wife was in grad school she used to volunteer my computer repair services to her friends. After the umpteenth time being asked advice on software I had never used, I told my wife to tell her friends that I was a gynecologist and was willing to give free exams to her friends. She got the point and I was no longer barraged with tech support calls.
Salaam
I apologize to Gary's wife! She knows how to use their ReplayTV box. At Broadband Plus, Gary played a voicemail from his wife asking how to reboot the ReplayTV after it froze up.
To clarify, Gary is a big fan of PVRs but thinks they should be in the cable-head not in the consumer's house. However, he also thinks we should pay for skipping commercials. That's like buying a copy of Time magazine and having to pay extra for not reading the ads.
In general, Gary is a bright guy and a hilarious presenter. He raised some good points about PVRs quality and ease of use.
In response to other comments, some people have pointed out that AT&T and other cable companies offer PVRs. The cable companies are responding to market pressure from DirecTV and Dish to offer PVR functionality integrated in to the Set Top Box. The cable companies would have preferred that PVR functionality only existing in the network/cable head-end rather than in the consumer's house. Again, this is for two reasons.
1. PVRs allow satellite TV companies to offer additional services like VOD. Cable companies hate satellite companies. Satellite companies can not offer network/head-end based PVR functionally. Therefore, the cable companies hate set-top box PVRs.
2. PVRs may eventually cut in to ad revenue and VOD revenue.
The cable companies are also annoyed that they have to pay a license fee to the content owners to offer network PVR functionality in the cable head-end when the satellite companies don't have to pay a license fee to content owners to put PVR functionality in the set top box.
This debate will mostly like end up in court and we have to make sure that the consumer wins. What does it mean for the consumer to win? The consumer must be able to continue to use their PVR for legitimate time-shifting purposes.
Let your cable companies know that you like your PVR and you want to keep using it. This must not be another Napster-like case where the industry sues the consumer electronics company for providing a product the customer wants.
In their battle against satellite companies, cable companies may end up hurting their customers. We can't let this happen.
If you don't believe me, you can see for yourself in this video of a Jeff Hawkins' lecture.
If you don't use a PDA, ask yourself how many meetings do you go to in a week? How many phone calls do you make in a week? How many different people do you call in a week? When I was in product marketing at Cisco, I would often have 20 meetings in a week, and 25 voice messages to return at the end of a day.
PDAs are great for executives, marketing, and sales people. They are constantly interacting with other people. Engineers may spend more time in their cube cranking out the next great piece of software. The more meetings they have, the less productive they would be.
Last year a company called Starbak released a streaming server on Linux that supports Window Media Technology (WMT). They built the server from scratch without using any Microsoft code. They initiated OEM discussions with several companies. These large companies got nervous about a reverse engineered server and wanted Starbak to get a license from Microsoft. Suprisingly, Microsoft didn't object and licensed the technology to Starbak. Starbak lists Microsoft as a partner and they talk about Microsoft licensing WMT to Starbak.
From the Starbak
"STARBAK has a Windows Media Technology (WMT) server license to support the delivery of WMT to the desktop over the company's proprietary embedded operating system (OS) platform. This WMT licensing event represented a first for the streaming media industry"
The proprietary embedded OS is actually Linux.
Microsoft was even willing to license the source code to other companies to port WMT to other OSes. I don't think anyone has taken them up on their offer.
I am using the NetStream 2000 TV card from Sigma Designs for TV out and hardware decoding MPEG-2. They have a linux driver for the NetStream 2000 card which also supports the NetStream 2000 TV card. You can contact Sigma at http://www.sigmadesigns.com.
I used my PlayStation 2 to play DVDs but I gave it to my cousins for Christmas. I am now in the process of building a DVD player out of old PC parts. I have the basic DVD functionality working with the NetStream 2000 TV card and I am in the process of making a user interface using Mozilla and the Flash plugin.
I like this idea! Get 2,000 TiVos and 2,000 VCRs. On day 1 use 1,000 TiVos to record the cameras and on day 2, use the VCRs to backup the TiVos.
2,000 x $200 = $400,000 TiVos
2,000 x $200 = $400,000 VCRs
For a $1 M you could set this up.