More Information On The TiVo Stream And IP STB

 Place Shifting  1 Response »
May 232012
 

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120522_173112-e1337755660931.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120522_173112-e1337755628358-300x179.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo IP STB Setup Screen" title="TiVo IP STB Setup Screen" width="300" height="179" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-9603" /> Since I made href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/05/22/tivo-stream-and-ip-stb-coming-to-msos-and-retail-this-year/">my post about the forthcoming TiVo Stream and IP STB last night I’ve been getting a lot of questions, and there were a few things I wondered about myself after I had some time to digest things. So I dropped by TiVo’s booth at The Cable Show again today and gathered some more information – including the photo you see here.

As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words, and this one answers some of the questions I had, and that I heard from readers. Note that the photo is from a box running development software, so the screen and/or language therein may change before release, etc. But the underlying logic is what we should expect in the initial release. As you can see, you do not have to give up a tuner on your Premiere XL4 to use the IP STB – if you’re willing to forego Live TV, as I am. Basically you’re reserving one or two tuners in the XL4 for use by IP STB(s) elsewhere in the home. When a tuner is reserved it is not available for anything else. It is not used for recordings, it is only used for Live TV on the IP STB. Period.

Now, one question that occurred to me after I’d left the show today was if a tuner is paired with a single IP STB, or if it can be shared. Say you have one XL4 and three IP STBs – can you reserve just one tuner which would allow any one of the three IP STBs to use Live TV at a time? I’ll need to ask that.

But, that aside, you can see that you have the option to reserve 0, 1, or 2 tuners for use by IP STBs. Personally I’d go with 0 as I never use Live TV and would only want the IP STB to access my recordings or OTT content. I think this will make a number of people happy. Also, this is a settings screen on the XL4 and you can change this whenever you want. So it isn’t something you have to do at setup, etc. So if you know you want to watch Live TV in another room (the game is on, you’re sick in bed, whatever) you can reserve a tuner and then un-reserve it when you no longer need it.

Speaking of setup, there apparently really isn’t much of one on the IP STB. Setup basically involves ‘pairing’ it with the XL4 – and that’s it. There’s nothing else to setup, it pulls all of the settings it needs from the XL4. I’m told there are very few settings local to the IP STB.

I did confirm that the will not pair with the Premiere or Premiere XL at launch, only the Premiere XL4 (aka the Premiere Q for MSOs). So no Live TV on your IP STB if that’s all you have. And this isn’t a ‘soft’ thing where it isn’t officially supported but you can make it work, the software is just not there to support it on those units. However, the IP STB is a standard Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) client. It can stream content of of any Premiere unit in the home. So it does work with the Premiere and Premiere XL in as far as you’ll be able to stream your recordings via MRS. My understanding is that you will not be able to set recordings on the Premiere or Premiere XL, etc., as that requires the pairing that can only be done with the XL4. Basically whatever you can do with MRS between Premieres today you can do from the IP STB, but that’s all – for now at least. (I’m going to double check to make sure that’s accurate.)

As for pricing – again, they haven’t said yet. We don’t know if they’ll be a one-time purchase, or if there will be a subscription required, etc. Personally I expect them both to be one-time purchases with no subscription requirement. But they will need to be activated on the TiVo account so that they get the same MAK and can connect to the TiVo DVR units on the network.

I did have an idea which I suggested to TiVo – parental lock down on the IP STB. Basically ‘KidZone’ on a per-box basis. My idea is that you could put an IP STB in the kids’ room and lock it down so it can only access a wall garden of recordings and channels, just like KidZone did. You’d be able to (dis)allow functions – so the kids couldn’t delete recordings, or cancel them, or setup new recordings, etc. Whatever power you want to give them. Basically they’d have their own Nerfed virtual TiVo.

Enough about the IP STB, how about the TiVo Stream? The Stream will transcode at native resolution. So the 1080i recording remains 1080i as H.264, and the 720p recording remains 720p as H.264, etc. So it isn’t fixed, or limited to 720p, etc. And side-loading happens at better than real time. I was told ’2x’ is a good rule of thumb – so a 30 minute recording will side-load in 15 minutes, etc. But this varies depending on the bit rate of the source material. A 19mbps minimally compressed HD ATSC stream will probably take closer to real time, while a 2mbps highly compressed SD digital cable recording will likely side-load very quickly. In other words, results will vary, but it isn’t stuck with only doing real-time transcodes for side-loading.

Right now the TiVo Stream will only stream content from a TiVo DVR to one of the TiVo client apps on iOS or Android. TiVo hasn’t announced anything for other platforms at this time. I don’t know if we might see an updated version of TiVo Desktop that would support streaming to a PC, though it may make more sense to just add MRS to TiVo Desktop to allow it to stream content to a TiVo as well as from one. And PCs can handle MPEG-2, so I don’t see the need for a TiVo Stream for that.

Hopefully this news makes a few folks happy.

Lastly, this won’t be news to regular readers of this blog, but the Stream is powered by a href="http://www.zenverge.com/pro-media-processors_zn200.html">Zenverge ZN200 chip. I speculated to that effect href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2011/10/01/is-this-how-tivo-will-get-place-shifting/">last year, and TiVo href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/02/23/tivo-to-ship-place-shifting-transcoder-box-this-year/">confirmed it for me in February, but today it was officially announced via press release. The release is below: /> id="more-9602"> /> Zenverge Showcases TransAll™ technology with TiVo’s new TiVo Stream

TiVo Stream to extend TV viewing to mobile devices with the world’s first deployment of multi-screen streaming from a DVR

BOSTON, May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Zenverge Inc., a leading developer of Advanced Content Networking ICs, and TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advanced television services including digital video recorders (DVRs), announced TiVo® Stream, a revolutionary product enabling streaming to tablets and smartphones with the same rich TV viewing experience TiVo customers know and love.

Based on the industry leading Zenverge TransAll™ Transcode engine, TiVo Stream will allow a viewer to seamlessly stream or download multiple live or recorded shows from a TiVo Premiere DVR to multiple devices like iPads or iPhones simultaneously. Its unique fast side-load capability is a critical element of a true on-demand experience and allows users to quickly download favorite shows to their tablets for later viewing.

This product takes advantage of the Zenverge TransFormat™, TransRate™, and TransScale™ functions to convert broadcast content into the format supported by tablets and smartphones. TransZip&treade; allows side-loading DVR content at a high speed into mobile devices for sync-n-go. Lastly, TransCrypt&treade; ensures that live and DVR content can be securely distributed in the home.

“Cable MSOs are keen to extend the whole home experience beyond the TV to include mobile devices,” said TiVo’s David Sandford, Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider Business. “Using the unprecedented quad HD transcoding capabilities of the Zenverge ZN200, we are bringing the unique TiVo experience that consumers love to the mobile screens.”

“We’re excited to work with TiVo on extending their premium TV viewing experience to second screens as they pioneer yet another blockbuster entertainment product following their success with the DVR,” said Zenverge’s Raghu Rao, Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development. “TiVo Stream will enable service providers using TiVo’s innovative advanced TV solutions to create a compelling anywhere, anytime, any device experience for their customers.”

Zenverge’s Advanced Content Networking ICs are the preferred transcoding solution for operators and box manufacturers for devices such as Gateways, DVRs, and IP/Broadcast streaming adapters.

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TiVo Stream and IP STB Coming To MSOs and Retail This Year

 Place Shifting  Comments Off
May 222012
 

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-Stream_Retail-e1337666458784.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-Stream_Retail-e1337666442285-300x148.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo Stream - Retail" title="TiVo Stream - Retail" width="300" height="148" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-9564" /> Back in February I posted about TiVo’s planned href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/02/23/tivo-to-ship-place-shifting-transcoder-box-this-year/">transcoding box and href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/02/24/tivo-to-launch-ip-only-stb-this-summer/">IP STB thin-client, without too many details. Well, href="http://2012.thecableshow.com/">The Cable Show is in Boston this week and I’m attending, and today I met with TiVo. I talked mostly with TiVo’s Public Relations Manager, Jessica Loebig, and VP & GM of Product Marketing, Jim Denney, and, along with the official announcements, I have some more info.

The ‘transcoding box’ is now officially the TiVo Stream, and it will be available to both retail customers and TiVo’s cable MSO partners later this year. The render to the left is the retail version of the box, while the one to the right is the MSO version. They’re pretty much the same except for coloring, and obviously the final labeling will change.

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-Stream_CableCo-e1337666561588.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-Stream_CableCo-e1337666541748-300x149.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo Stream - MSO" title="TiVo Stream - MSO" width="300" height="149" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9563" /> The TiVo Stream will work with the TiVo Premiere, Premiere XL, and Premiere XL4 (formerly known as the Premiere Elite, and known as the Premiere Q for MSOs). It is a very simple device with only two connections – power and Ethernet. The photos below were taken at the show, you can see the simple design and limited connectors.

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_123204-e1337668942378.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_123204-e1337667599357-150x150.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo Stream - Front" title="TiVo Stream - Front" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-9565" /> href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_123223-e1337668969125.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_123223-e1337667706752-150x150.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo Stream - Back" title="TiVo Stream - Back" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9566" /> The TiVo Stream acts like a Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) client on the network, just like another Premiere would. While the hardware is cable of transcoding four streams, it is limited to two per Premiere due to transport throughput limits on the Premiere end. So to use all four transcoding stream simultaneously you would need at least two Premieres on the network. As previously reported, the MPEG-2 streams are transcoded to H.264 for delivery to ‘second screen’ devices within the home.

The Stream supports real-time streaming as well as side-loading of content onto a mobile device for later viewing away from the network. However, copy protection does apply. It is basically Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) vs. Multi-Room Viewing (MRV). If you can stream a problem between Premieres, you’ll be able to streaming it to a second screen. And if you can copy programs between TiVos, or to a PC via TiVoToGo, you’ll be able to side-load it. But if a program is blocked from TiVoToGo it will also be blocked from side-loading. TiVo doesn’t make the rules, they just follow them. So it really depends on how draconian your MSO is.

The Stream can access ‘Live TV’ – kind of. Since it acts just like any other MRS client, and MRS only streams recordings, what happens is it triggers the Premiere to start recording the content. The Stream then accesses that recording in progress and streams it. So in the end there is a recording on the Premiere of the show you streamed ‘live’.

And, as I’ve said previously, right now the intention is to support clients within the home. So place shifting content onto your phone or tablet in another room, but not across the Internet to another location. So this will not be a Slingbox replacement, at least to start. TiVo acknowledges the interest and it is something that might come via a software update. They have looked into it, and interestingly they’ve even talked to Sling Media about remote streaming (possible now that TiVo and EchoStar have kissed and made up), but there is nothing firm at this time.

Jim Denney and I talked a bit about future plans and the transcoding eventually being ‘baked in’, and it is all but certain to happen. It is all a trade off, and right now we’re not quite at the tipping point. SoCs with transcoding baked-in are appearing but are still higher costs parts and there have been performance tradeoffs. We talked about the Broadcom BCM7425, which has dual transcode support, and TiVo has looked at the chip. And there is a newer BCM7435, which just started sampling, which has quad transcode support and a general bump in capabilities, including 8 QAM tuners. (Humax has a demo box at the show using this chip, but they don’t expect it to be available to MSOs until 1Q13.) So TiVo is looking ahead and it is all but a given that this will be baked into a future product, but I wouldn’t expect that until 2013 at the earliest.

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-IP-STB-e1337666382741.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TiVo-IP-STB-e1337666352619-300x145.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo IP STB" title="TiVo IP STB" width="300" height="145" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-9562" /> The other new set top box is the IP STB – which doesn’t have a snappy name yet, sorry. This is the baby brother to the TiVo Preview and at launch it will only work with the TiVo Premiere XL4/Q – not the TiVo Premiere or Premiere XL. STOP! Before you freak out, there is a reason, and this should change with a future update. Calm? OK. The IP STB does not have a tuner of its own, it uses a tuner from the XL4 for Live TV. In the initial release this requires dedicating a tuner in the XL4 to the IP STB. Yes, that means the tuner is not available for recordings, etc. This is done during setup, you pair the IP STB with a single Premiere XL4 and select one tuner to dedicate.

TiVo knows this is not optimal, but it is a matter of releasing something that is ‘good enough’ for market and then improving it. The plan is to have dynamic tuner allocation in a future release, whereby the IP STB would grab a free tuner for Live TV. But it is a sticky development problem to solve, so for the first release they basically avoided it by going with the dedicated tuner. It is sticky because there are a number of use cases. How can the unit reliably schedule recordings when one (or more if you have multiple IP STBs) can grab a tuner? How do you handle it if all four tuners are in use and someone wants to access Live TV on an IP STB? Etc. I’m sure lots of people have answers, but I’m also sure a lot of those answers will conflict. So TiVo needs time to work on the issue, do their usability testing, and create a good solution.

This need to dedicate a tuner is also why the Premiere and Premiere XL are not supported in the first release. They’d be reduced to single-tuner units. With the XL4 sacrificing a tuner, or even two, isn’t as big a deal. Again, this is temporary and TiVo plans to resolve this in a future update. (And just don’t even start with the “Oh, so when will that be?”, OK?)

I did ask Jim if it might be possible to pair it with an XL4 and *not* assign a tuner at all, which would mean no Live TV on the IP STB. Some users, like myself, never watch Live TV and wouldn’t miss it. I’d rather leave all four tuners free to record and use the IP STB only for watching recordings and accessing OTT content. He didn’t know if that was possible, and he’ll look into it. I think that’d be a nice setup option.

href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_124128-e1337669978215.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_124128-e1337669952731-150x150.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo IP STB - Front" title="TiVo IP STB - Front" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-9568" /> href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_124218-e1337670018826.jpg?9d7bd4" rel="lightbox"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_20120521_124218-150x112.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="TiVo IP STB - Back" title="TiVo IP STB - Back" width="150" height="112" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9569" /> As for the hardware itself, it is a small, square, trapezoidal unit in the same league as the Apple TV or a Roku box. It supports all of the standard TiVo Peanut remotes, including the TiVo Slide remote. I didn’t get the specific model number of the chip inside, but Jim said it is roughly equal in performance to the SoC in the Premiere XL4, and that performance on the IP STB can be even higher because it doesn’t have all of the other work to do with recording, etc.

The back of the box is where you’ll find all of the connectors – coax, a component break-out port, a composite A/V break-out port, HDMI, Ethernet, USB, and power. Component and composite A/V connections are accomplished via break-out cables, similar to some of the Roku models. The coax connection is not for a tuner, it is for MoCA and only MoCA. At this time the USB port is only for the Bluetooth dongle used by the TiVo Slide remote. It will not support the old TiVo 802.11g WiFi adapter as TiVo is actively discouraging the use of WiFi due to the high bandwidth demands of the box. Though there is nothing stopping you from using an external 802.11n, or even a new 802.11ac, bridge.

I did ask if the box could be used as a MoCA bridge, like the XL4, and it cannot. So you can’t use an XL4 and an IP STB to bridge Ethernet over MoCA for another room. I was thinking that if it could act as a bridge you could connect Ethernet to the XL4, use MoCA to feed an IP STB in the bedroom, and then connect other devices, like a Blu-ray player, to the Ethernet on the IP STB. But no such luck, sorry. You’d need another ECB (Ethernet to Coax Bridge).

It is the same UI you know and (probably) love from the TiVo DVR. When you access Live TV it uses the dedicated tuner on the XL4. Recordings are streamed as-is from the XL4 to the box, so they’ll be the same MPEG-2 content. Full quality, there is no transcoding. All OTT IP content, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, and YouTube, stream directly to the box over the network without touching the XL4. Cable MSO VOD, where supported, would require a tuner on the XL4, as it is delivered today via QAM and not IP.

Now, you probably want to know pricing and availability, right? Yeah, sorry. No pricing details as of yet. And the timeline is ‘in the coming months’. It looks like fall, maybe late summer if we’re lucky.

I think that’s it on these two boxes. I have more photos, if you want to see them check out href="https://picasaweb.google.com/111890035512083705389/TheCableShow2012">my Picasa gallery from the show. I’ll be adding more photos as I take them the next couple of days as well.

If there is anything else you want to know, just ask. I may have forgotten to share something, and the show has two more days so I can go back to ask more questions.

EDIT: I did go back, and I did ask more questions, and href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/05/23/more-information-on-the-tivo-stream-and-ip-stb/">I’ve posted the new info.

The Press Release is below: /> id="more-9561"> /> TIVO EXPANDS WHOLE-HOME AND MULTI-SCREEN OFFERINGS

TiVo introduces a low-cost IP set-top box to extend the full TiVo experience to additional televisions in the home

TiVo adds a low-cost transcoding accessory – TiVo Stream – enabling operators to provide streaming of linear content to tablets and mobile devices

BOSTON, MA – May 21, 2012 — TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advanced television services, including digital video recorders (DVRs), for consumers, content distributors and consumer electronics manufacturers, today announced two major enhancements to its whole-home viewing solution. Its IP set-top box, delivers the TiVo experience on secondary televisions throughout the home. TiVo Stream, provides transcoding to enable content viewing on mobile devices.

Through these new products, operators working with TiVo can give their subscribers the content they want on any screen within the home, including secondary televisions, tablets and smart phones and all through the same easy-to-use TiVo interface. For example, the IP set-top box compliments the home’s primary TiVo DVR by extending the TiVo experience onto secondary TVs including live and recorded television viewing. TiVo Stream delivers content to a customer’s tablet or mobile device, creating a cohesive viewing experience no matter how they choose to watch their programs. Both products are optimized for operator distribution, including automated provisioning and activation, and the low-capital costs that operators demand.

Tom Rogers, President and CEO, TiVo Inc. said, “Consumers not only want an enjoyable TV experience, but now demand choice and the flexibility to watch content on multiple devices and screens within the home. TiVo has worked with our operator customers to create a suite of affordable companion devices that deliver a cohesive experience regardless of the screen the customer wants to use.”

The IP set-top box works with the TiVo Premiere Q, a home’s primary gateway device, to give consumers access to live and recorded TV, operator VOD, plus broadband-delivered content on every TV in the house. This is delivered through the innovative TiVo experience consumers have come to know and love. It includes integrated MoCA to simplify home networking and multi-room applications.

TiVo Stream seamlessly delivers the content available on a consumer’s TiVo Premiere or Premiere Q DVR to alternative screens such as iPads and iPhones. Unlike similar offerings in the market, this is the first product to enable streaming or download of shows simultaneously to multiple portable devices without interrupting what’s playing on the television. The power of TiVo Stream enables users to quickly transfer shows to their mobile device for viewing outside the home.

TiVo will release both products at retail and through select cable operators. Additional details on availability for both the IP set-top box and TiVo Stream will be announced in the coming months.

TiVo unveiled details about both products during the 2012 NCTA Cable Show in Boston. For more information visit the TiVo booth #1859 located in the main exhibit hall.

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Monsoon Multimedia Lands Their Tech In Chips

 Monsoon Multimedia, Place Shifting  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monsoon-multimedia-offers-placeshifting-and-multi-screen-technologies-on-popular-semiconductor-solutions-137041073.html"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Monsoon-Multimedia-Logo-e1312186637510.jpg?9d7bd4" alt="Monsoon Multimedia Logo" title="Monsoon Multimedia Logo" width="300" height="65" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4277" /> This is something I noticed last month, but I never got around to posting about it in the lead up to my wedding, but I’m getting caught up on the backlog. Back in January href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/01/23/broadcom-and-vixs-get-their-chips-in-a-sling-er-i-mean-a-sling-in-their-chips/">I posted about the news from CES on Sling Media making deals to incorporate their place shifting tech directly into chips from ViXS and Broadcom. At the time I’d missed the news that they weren’t the only player to make such a deal, competitor Monsoon Multimedia did as well.

Similar to the Sling Media deal, Monsoon Multimedia made deals to incorporate their place shifting technology into chips from href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monsoon-multimedia-offers-placeshifting-and-multi-screen-technologies-on-popular-semiconductor-solutions-137041073.html">C2 Microsystems and href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monsoon-multimedia-and-zenverge-partner-to-deliver-placeshifting-and-dvr-functionality-to-leading-consumer-electronic-oems-137043848.html">Zenverge. Moonsoon’s tech has been ported to href="http://c2micro.com/index.php/products" class="broken_link" rel="nofollow">C2′s Jazz product line and is coming to their Tango chip line.

“Monsoon and C2 Microsystems have been working together now for more than two years,” said Gene Liu, CEO of C2 Microsystems. “Monsoon’s engines are now ported to our Jazz product line. We expect that Monsoon will enable our TV customers in China to start showing OTT streaming from their TVs to smartphones, PCs and tablets in or outside of the home. Our highly cost effective Tango chips will start featuring placeshifting this spring.”

Zenverge is incorporating Monsoon’s tech into their href="http://www.zenverge.com/products.html" class="broken_link" rel="nofollow">ZN200 Quad-Stream Transcoder. Interestingly it sounds like Monsoon Multimedia is using Zenverge’s chips in their Vulkano products.

“Monsoon is very excited about leveraging the flexible HD transcoding and encoding capabilities of the Zenverge architecture in our Vulkano placeshifting products,” said Colin Stiles, Monsoon’s EVP of Sales and Marketing. “We see great potential in adding multi-stream HD transcoding features to our streaming products and we have selected the ZN200 to provide high value solutions to our OEM customers.”

“We are very excited about the new products our customers are launching to truly enable the connected home and extremely pleased to have Monsoon as both a partner and a customer,” said Shawn Saleem, EVP of Marketing for Zenverge. “Portable devices such as the Apple iPad and iPhone, and Android tablets and cell phones, have created a significant market demand for consuming content wirelessly from multiple sources such as Over-The-Top (OTT) and broadcast. The ZN200 is being used with Monsoon’s industry leading placeshifting technology and provides the perfect solution for streaming in and outside the home.”

Monsoon developed five integrated modules for licensees to use in incorporating their tech:

Adaptive Bit-Rate Encoding continuously measures the available network bandwidth and adjusts the encoding bit rate to deliver smooth video streaming Quality of Service (QOS) over a wide range of network conditions.

Http Live Streaming (HLS) has been extended by Monsoon to support a real-time bit-rate control method of delivering live video sources via the industry standard HLS protocol, without requiring pre-encoding and caching of multiple bit-rate copies of the file.

Proprietary Streaming Protocol moves video from inside the home to outside the home with much finer granularity of the video encoding and without requiring any router set up. UDP protocol with hole punching and Network Address Translator (NAT) traversal is deployed to eliminate the need for router port forwarding.

Connection Management is a secure cloud-based service that allows clients to connect to servers without using fixed IP addresses or Domain Named Service (DNS).

Multi-Screen Client Technologies include video playback of placeshifted live TV streams, recording and trick play (pause, fast forward, rewind) on clients, and virtual on-screen remote control for set-top boxes, EPGs and sideloading. Client technologies are available on PCs, Macs, iPhones and iPads, Android smartphone and tablets, BlackBerry phones and tablets.

Between Sling’s deals and these it seems like we might be seeing place shifting in a growing number of products.

I should note that while href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/02/23/tivo-to-ship-place-shifting-transcoder-box-this-year/">TiVo’s upcoming transcoder box is using a chip from Zenverge, it does not use Monsoon’s tech. I explicitly asked about this when I talked to TiVo, just to make sure. TiVo’s box uses a home-grown solution.

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Broadcom And ViXS Get Their Chips In A Sling… Er, I Mean, A Sling In Their Chips

 Place Shifting, Sling Media  No Responses »
Jan 232012
 

href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-sling-media-broadcom-chip.html"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Sling-Media-Logo-300x150.png?9d7bd4" alt="Sling Media Logo" title="Sling Media Logo" width="300" height="150" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4318" /> I was a little disappointed by the news out of CES last week. While there were certainly a lot of cool devices, like 4K Passive 3D TVs, razor thin OLED HDTVs with actual large screens, etc., a lot of the cooler devices will take a few years to enter the realm of affordability for most consumers. But there were a few announcements I found more immediately interesting, and one, or rather two, of those were the href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-sling-media-broadcom-chip.html">twin href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-sling-vixs-01-09-12.html">announcements from Sling Media that href="https://www.broadcom.com/products/Cable/Cable-Set-Top-Box-Solutions/BCM7425">Broadcom and href="http://www.vixs.com/pressreleasedetail.php?a=364">ViXS are both incorporating their technology into their chip families.

The href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-sling-media-broadcom-chip.html">Broadcom press release specifically mentions the href="https://www.broadcom.com/products/Cable/Cable-Set-Top-Box-Solutions/BCM7425">BCM7425. That’s a MoCA 2.0 enabled chip that can simultaneously decode two HD video streams and transcode them for streaming, generally to portable devices. such a chip could be embedded in a set top box, or it could take the form of a standalone network-based transcoder that takes in the default HD streams, which are generally MPEG-2, and transcodes them to H.264 for streaming.

The href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-sling-vixs-01-09-12.html">ViXS press release speaks in more general terms about the href="http://www.vixs.com/index-ee.php/products/product/xcode">XCode chip family. The Sling Media software has been integrated with the ViXS Xtensiv software stack for the XCode chips. The XCode family has varying features; the high-end 5100 can transcode six HD streams simultaneously while the 4200 can transcode dual streams. All of them have Ethernet support, so they could be embedded in an STB or used in a network-based transcoder. They don’t appear to have MoCA support, but a separate MoCA transceiver chip could handle that, as in the TiVo Premiere Elite.

Support for Sling’s streaming technology in these chips opens the door to the potential for SlingLoaded devices from vendors other than EchoStar. I think that would be very interesting. While EchoStar’s own efforts to market SlingLoaded devices haven’t met with much success, to date they’ve been limited to the Dish Network ViP922 DVR in the US and the href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004S9OT92/?tag=tiv-20">EchoStar HDS-600RS Freesat+ DVR in the UK, licensing the tech to other vendors could be a more successful approach.

MVPDs have been showing an increasing interest in place shifting technology as a value add to attract customers. Dish, of course, already has the ViP922 and the Sling Adapter for the ViP722. DirecTV has the Nomad ‘store and forward’ network transcoding box. Various MSOs have trialed or tested place shifting hardware. Building it into their STBs, or offering a network-based add-on box to enable streaming, could be a way for MSOs to leverage the market leading Sling technology.

TiVo was href="http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2012-01/tivo-demos-ipad-video-streaming/">showing of a technology demo of just such a box at CES, though there is no indication that Sling Media’s tech was involved. Still, now that EchoStar and TiVo aren’t involved in a blood feud, perhaps they can finally combine their respective best in breed technologies. TiVo’s demo box has a single Ethernet connection and power, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was using one of the ViXS chips. I doubt it is using the Broadcom chip as that’s slated for availability in 3Q12, though if TiVo brings such a unit to market I would very much expect the production version to have MoCA to ease integration with the Premiere Elite and to make it more appealing to their cable MSO partners. I’m hoping to have more to say about what TiVo was showing as CES soon.

SlingPlayer for Android Tablets Available

 Place Shifting, Sling Media, SlingPlayer  1 Response »
Nov 212011
 

href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-slingbox-android-tablets-us.html"> src="http://www.gizmolovers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Sling-Media-Logo-300x150.png?9d7bd4" alt="Sling Media Logo" title="Sling Media Logo" width="300" height="150" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4318" /> The release of href="http://www.gizmolovers.com/2011/11/18/slingplayer-for-facebook-now-available/">SlingPlayer for Facebook reminded me that I never shared this news. I meant to post this a month ago when href="http://www.slingmedia.com/get/pr-slingbox-android-tablets-us.html">the press release came out, but got busy and didn’t get back to it. Sorry about that.

Like all recent SlingPlayer Mobile clients SlingPlayer for Android Tablets only works with the Slingbox SOLO and PRO-HD, older Slingboxes need not apply. If you have a SlingLoaded Dish Network ViP922 DVR or a Sling Adapter with your ViP722 you do not want to use this, you want the free href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sm.SlingGuide.Dish">Dish Remote Access app.

href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.slingmedia.slingPlayerTablet">SlingPlayer for Tablets is designed for Android tablets running Android 3.0 Honeycomb or later. It is not to be confused with href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.slingmedia.slingPlayer">SlingPlayer for Phones, which is meant for devices running Android 1.6 or later. Yes, Sling has produced two different clients and not one unified client that works well on both platforms. (While you can run the phone client on a tablet it isn’t optimized for the larger screens.) That means two $29.99 purchases for those with both types of devices.

I’m not sure which client is best for phones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, like the Galaxy Nexus. On the one hand some phones now have higher resolution displays – qHD or 720p – equal to many tablets, just physically smaller. And the OS has the features to support the tablet player. I suppose you can try the tablet player out and use the 15 minute return window for a refund if it doesn’t work well. Leave a comment and let us know how it works if you try it.

Back before the release Sling posted this video preview: /> width="500" height="284" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tniJpENDdOM?autohide=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>