622 Ethernet Predictions???

[The Big Wood]

The 211 will be a client that can directly access all DVR functions on the 622 through the network, kind of like adding a third satellite tuner to the 622. Gigabit ethernet will be necessary to support HD if they even offer it.

I wonder how we're doing so far?

If HD is 19 Mb/s, then your average wired network running Cat5e should be able to handle this easily at a 100 Mb/s rating.

The earlier wireless networks may have a problem (802.11b at around 11Mb/s) versus the newer ones (802.11g at 55+Mb/s).

 

[NOHDjunkie]

If HD is 19 Mb/s, then your average wired network running Cat5e should be able to handle this easily at a 100 Mb/s rating.

The earlier wireless networks may have a problem (802.11b at around 11Mb/s) versus the newer ones (802.11g at 55+Mb/s).

Exactly. My wireless G has no problem pushing through OTA HD content recorded by my Win XP MCE computer.

(16mbs is the highest/best bitrate MCE will record)

 

[SpenceJT]

If HD is 19 Mb/s, then your average wired network running Cat5e should be able to handle this easily at a 100 Mb/s rating.

The earlier wireless networks may have a problem (802.11b at around 11Mb/s) versus the newer ones (802.11g at 55+Mb/s).

If the 19Mb/s the unaltered yet highly compressed MPEG4 stream over a 100/1000 Mb/s LAN I doubt that quality would even come into quesiton. Work in the possiblity of caching the feed to a local DVR's hard drive which would further ensure quality of signal.

 

[John Kotches]

dlsnyder says:

The 211 will be a client that can directly access all DVR functions on the 622 through the network, kind of like adding a third satellite tuner to the 622. Gigabit ethernet will be necessary to support HD if they even offer it.

No, you don't. They aren't storing raw HD, they're storing the transport streams which max out at under 20 Mbits/second. That is easily supported with multi-port routers which have switched port. Switched ports mean that each port is on its own dedicated segment/collision domain.

You can get non-blocking 16-port switches for around $150 which makes it even better.

In short, this isn't an issue and 100 Mbits/second is all that's necessary.

Regards,

 

[John Kotches]

If the 19Mb/s the unaltered yet highly compressed MPEG4 stream over a 100/1000 Mb/s LAN I doubt that quality would even come into quesiton. Work in the possiblity of caching the feed to a local DVR's hard drive which would further ensure quality of signal.

19 Mbits/second is the max for an NTSC HDTV stream which is MPEG-2. When they start sending HD as MPEG-4, it will actually go down from there.

 

[Stargazer]

That would be quite interesting if they could make an nonDVR receiver a DVR receiver over the ethernet port by hooking it up to a DVR receiver. This would be like giving the 322 DVR functionality if connected to a 625 receiver. This would be a step closer to that home node thing they were showing where you had one place where the hard drive goes to give all the rooms DVR functionality, and just add tuners to it to however many rooms with independent viewing was needed.

 

[navychop]

While we're playing Gotcha!-

It isn't NTSC HDTV stream.

-It's ATSC HDTV stream.

 

[Smith P.]

The 211 will be a client that can directly access all DVR functions on the 622 through the network, kind of like adding a third satellite tuner to the 622. Gigabit ethernet will be necessary to support HD if they even offer it.

I wonder how we're doing so far?

Gigabit ? For what ? Each HD channel have 12 Mbps in best case !
You will be OK for 5-6 streams with 100 Mbps network.

 

[ranger714]

IPTV and such...

Well, looking though the previous posts, it looks like there's quite a bit of confusion on the 622 and IPTV as well, at least in a home networking environment...

As far as using a firewall/router to separate the "Internet traffic" from "Video Traffic", well, the broadband connection just provides bandwidth, which is used for whatever... now, there are higher-level functions to keep things moving, like QoS (quality of service) limits that can tag certain types of traffic to be higher priority, this is usually what is done with both VoIP and IPTV traffic.

Basically, voice and video get higher priority because if their traffic stream is interrupted, the video or phone call will get artifacts, cut out or just stop. This is something that the providers will try to prevent, as a slight interruption in your data connection just means that Google loads in 4 seconds instead of 3 seconds, but if Monday Night Football gets choppy, then people get pissed...

That being said, i do think that the Ethernet connection on the 622 will be used, but as to when, who knows... that 320 gig hard drive is certainly pointing that DISH is planning on putting something there.

Now, for streaming content over the home network, Ethernet is definitely going to have an advantage, as it will offer up to 100 megs of full duplex speed. Wireless, even 802.11g, is still far behind in speeds, as the standard 802.11g's 54-meg connection is closer to 20-megs in actual real-world usage. This is plenty to stream one ATSC channel, or a couple NTSC, but not much more than that. The IPTV implementations have basically had the content coming from a server at the ISP, so your IPTV set-top box would tell the server through the network connection to please display channel 125, and it would start streaming channel 125. If you have multiple set-top boxes, they would each get their own stream. Even in a very high bandwidth environment (VDSL, ADSL2+, FiOS, etc) there's a definite limit to the amount of bandwidth available for video. Figure that an ADSL2+/VDSL line is running around 25-30 megs of downsteam bandwidth and FiOS is 'up to' 100 megs.

As for communications to DISH for account stuff (like PPV) i don't think they're quite there yet... they're just now implementing the DISHNet thing to share a phoneline connection amongst the receivers, so they're probably not quite to Internet connectivity yet... besides, they like the phone connection, as they get to see where you're calling from.

I'm also betting that the 211 is planned to be a ViP for Video over IP (or IPTV as everyone else calls it) set-top box, like (Amino, Humax, Pace Micro, 2Wire, MediaXcel), as the provider would stream content directly through the broadband connection right to the 211. A hard drive is not required for a STB, as i've seen one of the amino boxes which was about the size of a hockey puck...

 

[DucTape]

You like to set back and size up a room a while before you speak eh.

 

[ranger714]

You like to set back and size up a room a while before you speak eh.

mostly... ;-)

 

[jsanders]

E* doesn't seem to do anything out of the goodness of their heart. They want to make money.

I see two possibilities for them to make money.

The first one of course is some sort of VOD service. While a home router can handle 19.2Mbs, I haven't seen the local cable company do it. Mine seems to max out at 4 right now, although comcast told me on the phone they should be doing 6Mbs. Even if it could do 20Mbs, who would want all of their bandwidth being used up by their streaming DVR??

I think the previous post about targeted marketing might be more on spot. I can do that at less than real-time speeds in the background.

Personally, I think they will use it to sell information about the individual's viewing habits. How many superbowls has it been since TiVo began announcing what commercial and portion of the game was replayed the most??

There will probably be a fee if you don't have it connected to ethernet, so that they can recoop the money they would make if they sold your viewing habits.

Think about this for a moment. I have only one receiver, and I need a phone line connected to it to avoid a $5/mo fee. With one receiver I can NOT ever be an account stacker. They charge me the fee because they want to make money.

Beware of E*. They are not trustworthy!

 

[Mark_AR]

I'm in the 'Big Brother' category. I think it will be for interative content and E* spying on your viewing habits. Connected to broadband, your box can report what your watching and how long for target marketing.

A more highly evolved 'Press Select' for more information will also come along with this new connectivity. Advertisers will pay E* big bucks for the right to hawk their wares right to the people that they expect will bite.

Home Video Network Distribution as someone described above would be my next guess. Plug the ethernet or wireless adapter into a box and then a slave box would be attached to any TV's in the house so the stream could be viewed and the need for running RG6/59 to each TV would be eliminated.

*gasp*

At first, I would suspect only SD channels would be broadcast in this manner, but HD would be the next evolution. (For an added cost/upgrade fee)

Its all about money and E* taking more of your hard earned bucks.

 

[Smith P.]

If you'll see DirecTV slides from that shareholder meeting, you'll see how exactly other major player on DBS market will gather the info using broadband connection !

 

[waltinvt]

E* doesn't seem to do anything out of the goodness of their heart. They want to make money.

I see two possibilities for them to make money.

The first one of course is some sort of VOD service. While a home router can handle 19.2Mbs, I haven't seen the local cable company do it. Mine seems to max out at 4 right now, although comcast told me on the phone they should be doing 6Mbs. Even if it could do 20Mbs, who would want all of their bandwidth being used up by their streaming DVR??

I think the previous post about targeted marketing might be more on spot. I can do that at less than real-time speeds in the background.

Personally, I think they will use it to sell information about the individual's viewing habits. How many superbowls has it been since TiVo began announcing what commercial and portion of the game was replayed the most??

There will probably be a fee if you don't have it connected to ethernet, so that they can recoop the money they would make if they sold your viewing habits.

Think about this for a moment. I have only one receiver, and I need a phone line connected to it to avoid a $5/mo fee. With one receiver I can NOT ever be an account stacker. They charge me the fee because they want to make money.

Beware of E*. They are not trustworthy!

I couldn't agree more with everything you said - especially the last line.

 

[dlsnyder]

After hearing the networking gurus weigh in I will stick with my first prediction as it seems to be the easiest and least expensive to implement. A 211 (and later the 222) will be able to access all DVR functions on a 622 within a home network, including the ability to schedule and watch recordings. On the other end, the 622 will be able to use the tuners in those client units to make recordings, thereby increasing the number of simultaneous recordings possible to however many clients are connected on the network. They will probably cap it at four since only five separate STBs are allowed on one account. Dish will also know what each connected receiver is watching or recording. As a significant number of subscribers network connect their STBs Dish will be able to sell aggregated data about its subscribers, initially to ratings services like Nielsen, but also to advertisers.

I believe in following the money trail. If Dish is going to offer this networking capability for free to its subscribers then I suspect they will find some way to make an extra buck off it. This is just one way they could do it.

 

[Smith P.]

I could bet it will not happen for Dish in-house development (judjung by the all buggy versions for Dish models ), but I'm hope 2WIRE Media Portal what testing now will be the device.

 

[Bradtothebone]

My receivers all have internet connections already - it's called a phone line! E*'s not going to get my password, though.

Brad

 

[Stargazer]

High speed internet / Wi-Max - Having them sell our viewing habits is another reason why they want to get it. They couldn't make all that much per subscriber selling this information though can they?