Home Media Center Update:

[LonghornXP]

READ:

You can't get the internet connectivity or file sharing in the system using COAX only. If you have a network, you'll be able to tie the entire system together over CAT5 without the multiswitch. The multiple USB ports provided are there for a reason and will require such a USB 2.0 to Fast Ethernet adapter.

The entire system is plug-and-play just like any other 10/100 device. I strongly suggest using a separate switch - not a hub for the the HMC because you'll want the system to talk to itself faster than it talks to the rest of the LAN.


In any case, the demo media sharing product at Ucentric was LAN based but don't go buying support equipment until finalized. The system may support up to 7 locations whihc would require an 8 port vs. 5 port switch.

The HMC will not need a home LAN/Network or an internet connection to work for the multiroom sharing and this coax multiroom network will be closed off from tinkering. Now the server would have at least two USB2.0 ports with one of them not activated because it can only work with a D* provided network card which would only work to allow wireless multiroom viewing in the future instead of coax networking.

But for right now the system will use a coax network that would be closed off from the customer and one USB2.0 port will be active for consumer network cards for customers who want to connect to their home network.

Again speed isn't an issue because the multiroom viewing will be seperate from the connection to your home lan and your cat5 or wireless connection will only be used for sharing of files from your computer only and internet scheduling. The system will support wireless cards that are 802.11b/a/g and in a future update 802.11n.

Just make sure you all understand that multiroom viewing and your home network will be seperate.

 

[Skyboss]

Longhorn, stop!

IT IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM.

It would be impossible to offer Audio file sharing and Internet Access with a closed system, you would also need a VPN to talk to the unit directly so that tidbit of info is also wrong. The units must be plug and play complaint for such sharing and internet connectivity.

The coax option you speak of is a limited arrangement closed system. All Ucentric products are plug and play, read the damn white papers. Period. End of story. The USB ports will be active and will be used for USB-Ethernet adapters. You can make them wireless, but the speed right now is crap.

Home Media Center - Ucentric:

The Most Cost-Effective and Flexible Approaches.

Ucentric software enables all-digital distribution of media and whole-home services in an architecture that makes sense for individual partners and their unique go-to-market strategies.

With an extremely cost-effective in-home client/server architecture, Ucentric software leverages an advanced set-top box (the "server") to store content and distribute DVR and all digital entertainment services to the primary TV. Ucentric-powered and IP-based Network Media Clients ('thin' and small set-top boxes) bring the services to additional TVs in the home. Because Ucentric software enables the sharing of centralized hard drives, tuners and other resources among connected TVs, service providers including cable and satellite operators can reach multiple TVs in the home at a significantly lower capital cost, than was possible before.

Ucentric software also makes possible a retail-friendly, flexible distributed resources architecture, where clients, hard drives and tuners are leveraged throughout the home wherever they reside on the home media network. This flexibility allows partners to deploy DVR-enabled set-top boxes and then progress to whole-home deployment of DVR and other services by adding resources in an incremental manner. As consumer demand for additional storage emerges, Ucentric software allows standard, retail hard drives to be attached to the home media network at any location in the home. For heavy users, additional tuners can be flexibly added as well.

Ucentric software is portable for the timely integration of your choice of middleware and digital set-top box architectures. It includes robust Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements and secure content protection throughout the home media network. Because of the resource sharing, Ucentric client software is designed to support extremely low-cost set-top boxes, requiring minimal processing power and memory for its operating system, communications and user interface functionality.

Partners have different and evolving requirements for the physical layer connecting the in-home devices. For ultimate flexibility, Ucentric software is independent of the physical layer and can support the operator's or manufacturer's choice of either wireless or wired options as they continue to evolve on performance and price.

By shifting the edge of the network into the home, Ucentric-powered hardware leverages operators' existing network infrastructure. Ucentric software also features remote provisioning, upgrade and monitoring capabilities, enabling the efficient upgrading of Ucentric-powered hardware already in the field with additional 'whole-home' applications.

DirecTV's comments should there be an argument:

DIRECTV Debuts Home Media Center at CES Trade Show
Digital Network System Provides Seamless DVR in Every Room


Las Vegas, NV Jan 6, 2005 DIRECTV, Inc., the nation's leading and fastest-growing digital television service provider, today introduced at the International Consumer Electronics Show an advanced new receiver and networked system, the DIRECTV Home Media Center, designed to be a whole-house entertainment solution that will allow DIRECTV customers for the first time to access content-including digitally-recorded video, digital photos and digital music-seamlessly from all television sets in a household. The DIRECTV Home Media Center, which includes the most technologically advanced DIRECTV receiver developed, has digital video recorder (DVR) functionality and also supports high definition (HD) and standard definition signals.

The Home Media Center will be comprised of a main unit, with smaller units located at each additional TV networked throughout the house, to provide DIRECTV customers with DVR service on all television sets. It also provides an integrated and common consumer experience on all television sets. For example, recordings can be scheduled and viewed from any room to any room.

"DIRECTV has been at the forefront of developing and bringing new television technologies to fruition since its inception and our new Home Media Center will take the DIRECTV viewing experience to a new level," said Mitch Stern, president and CEO of DIRECTV, Inc. "By integrating the television experience into a media center, we are providing our customers with the ability to have easier access to and enjoy a full range of content throughout the home. This product was developed in response to our customers' desire to expand their DVR experience to every television."

The DIRECTV Home Media Center, which will be available by the end of this year, will allow for networking throughout the house. DIRECTV customers with the Home Media Center will be able to share, move and view content from room to room.

The networked system's advanced middleware architecture will support additional functions via its broadband connection. Examples are support for personal computer connectivity, scheduling DVR recordings from the Internet, photos from wireless phones and video-on-demand. It is also MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 compatible, and as with all DIRECTV receivers, the product software can be upgraded via satellite.

"Our goal at DIRECTV is simple: to provide the best television experience in the United States," said Stern, "And our new Home Media Center will help us get closer to that goal, as well as further distinguish DIRECTV from the competition."

You can't have that functionality and then go wireless later with an RG-6 based LAN. Sorry Charlie. I work on networks for a living and your info on this is half baked, close, but half baked. A Multiswitch/RG-6 router combination unit... That's freakin' hilarious. BTW.. You have any idea how freakin expensive the clients would be if they had to drive a multiswitch?

Just to clue you in:

If it supports this...

The system will support wireless cards that are 802.11b/a/g and in a future update 802.11n.

Then....

It's plug and play via USB to Ethernet adapters. There's no way around it.


There are only a couple of way what you are suggesting would work:

1. Dish to Stacker, Stacker to HMC, HMC single feed to 4 way coax splitter, 4 way coax splitter to Clients. Not cost effective because of stacker, router in the HMC, and dual client architecture of USB and Coax NIC.
2. Dish to HMC – 4 wires, HMC single to 4 way splitter to Clients - Not cost effective because router in the HMC, and dual client architecture of USB and Coax NIC, but more cost effective than #1 which will be used.

Most cost effective route:

Dish to HMC, HMC USB to Ethernet to home LAN provided by sub, and Home LAN to Clients. Wireless N when available, but wireless N is an open architecture so it creams your closed system theory.

The HMC will not need a home LAN/Network or an internet connection to work for the multiroom sharing and this coax multiroom network will be closed off from tinkering.

This is all you've said that is 100% true, but to unlock all it's potential you will need a LAN. The system you are refering to is the incremental growth unit where multiple DVR's are tied together not the thin client server unit which is separate. However, even in this arrangement the USB port are active and tied to a LAN for filesharing, just like the TiVo unit was supposed to be sharing TiVo drives. Probably would have been the cheapest option of all, put an MPEG 4 tuner in the HDTiVo, enable HMO in the HD TiVO's and be done with it.

Gonna miss that little guy.

 

[CPanther95]

Anybody know if the clients will have a Coax Output to feed extra slave TVs on channel 3/4?

Are the number of servers limited to 2, and do they have to be located in the same location to be fully integrated with each other?

 

[Skyboss]

Server limits are unknown, but all indications are that the limit will be two.

As for the Coax output, supposedly yes. The clients are akin to the D-Link media player units.

 

[LonghornXP]

Your not getting my point. The system will be a closed system from your home network. What this means is that any recorded content from the DVR can only be viewed and played back on other clients and not your computer. You computer can't even access the server or the client. Only the Server can access your computer to just read any music, video and photos on your computer.

This closed system means that your connection to the home network is seperate to the connection via coax/cat5/wireless to other client boxes. The Ucentic handles this as an open system but the two aspects of media playback are indeed closed.

D* wants quality control over DVR recording and playback and to get this they need it closed off. Even when this system goes wireless for DVR playback they would provide a special wireless card that can only be used for DVR playback and another wireless card that you the customer provides will be used to connect to your home network. Again quality, control and security of content over the lines is a requirement of D*s and this can only be done by having that aspect closed off. You can't copy and crack security if your computer can't even access the server. This can all be done with plug and play and easy setup.

Just remember that you will have two connections. One closed connection between the server and its authorized client boxes. The other connection is an open connection to your home network and computers and this connection doesn't allow access to the contents of the server but that connection would allow the server the view and playback music, video and photo files from your computer(s).

Also the 802.11a/b/g and n support will be for the wireless connection to your home network. Now for customers who have the system installed using coax when D* goes wireless you will stay the same. When they go wireless that would be for new installations and even that wireless connection will be a special wireless card provided by D* and this card will be some form of 802.11n but even with this new connection you still need to provide your won wireless card to connect to your home network.

Just remember that D* will not install a wireless card to connect to your home network and they won't support it either. That would be the choice of the customer and the customers job to maintain that connection to the home network. Now any problems that arise from watching a recorded show in another room D* will support.

 

[DTV TiVo Dealer]

The HMC DIRECTV CES demo included access to your PC network. The DIRECTV/Ucentric/NDS server played recorded video/audio on a kids BR PC.

-Robert

VE Advanced Digital Technology Dealer

 

[DTV TiVo Dealer]

Server limits are unknown, but all indications are that the limit will be two.

As for the Coax output, supposedly yes. The clients are akin to the D-Link media player units.

I don't think the server stacking limit is two. I believe you can stack more than two servers.

-Robert

VE Advanced Digital Technology Dealer

 

[bi0drain]

802.11 attacks on proprietary media

Scenarios from a tech standpoint
Remeber kismet sniffs raw 802.11, and would see the stream, however

scenario 1
AES / WPA Based 802.11 system with an elective SSID / per iface /instance key

scenario 2
AES / WPA Based 802.11 system with an adhoc mode configuration

Strong signed client auth will be used.

Take it from a wireless cracker, this will be a secure dvr, no packet replay / raw packet logging will take place

most likely the following
MAC FILTERING CHECK
AES CHECK
KEY SIGNING CHECK
OE CHECK

 

[Skyboss]

I don't think the server stacking limit is two. I believe you can stack more than two servers.

-Robert

VE Advanced Digital Technology Dealer

I would agree with that. You should be able to daisy chain them as much as needed.

This closed system means that your connection to the home network is seperate to the connection via coax/cat5/wireless to other client boxes. The Ucentic handles this as an open system but the two aspects of media playback are indeed closed.

D* wants quality control over DVR recording and playback and to get this they need it closed off. Even when this system goes wireless for DVR playback they would provide a special wireless card that can only be used for DVR playback and another wireless card that you the customer provides will be used to connect to your home network. Again quality, control and security of content over the lines is a requirement of D*s and this can only be done by having that aspect closed off. You can't copy and crack security if your computer can't even access the server. This can all be done with plug and play and easy setup.

This is why a separate switch would be used. The system talks to itself and only goes out looking for info on the LAN/WAN such as media files and to check the remote server as needed for when you set up a recording via the internet. Using the COAX system you describe siginificantly hampers the flexibility described and what has been demonstrated, and is contrary to the systems intent. Like I said, the coax system you describe is the multi DVR system with Ucentric middleware. It still requires an fast ethernet switch to share as the HMO does for TiVo. It's all in the box setup and the type of access it permits. The HMO option with TiVo has limited access even though you connect it to your LAN like any other device.

What this means is that any recorded content from the DVR can only be viewed and played back on other clients and not your computer. You computer can't even access the server or the client. Only the Server can access your computer to just read any music, video and photos on your computer.

That's in the hardware/middleware/software control features and has nothing to do with the way it's connected to the LAN. Each client will be able to access picture and audio storage locations mapped in the setup process. You also can't in the furture just stick a wireless adapter on to the USB ports. You still need an access point/switch to control the flow between the units. All the USB port provides is a way to hook on a wireless interface unit. It will support 7 clients and going coax for that is just insane. The idea is to drive future install costs down through wireless connectivity between the server and clients, and start with them low in homes with an existing LAN. Coaxial set up does no such thing, it only adds to the confusion and install costs.

As far as control and reliability, the system you describe is more complicated and will introduce 10 times more problems than a simple plug and play system over fast ethernet (wired or wireless). If someone is going to hack the system, their going to hack the system regardless where the WAN (or wireless) access is located in the chain. Using a coaxial system of connection with a single LAN/WAN point to the storage device provides you with no gain in that regard. Cheaper and more controllable to load the security and access control, and supply a cheap $29 - 5 port switch to the sub and place access control software on each client and the server than it is to go through a major multiswitch/router design overhaul.

If companies were worried about Ethernet security and product reliability they'd never sell anything that could connect to it... Ever. And the last time I checked they were selling LAN devices left and right including media sharing devices, video conferencing equipment and storage devices. This is simply an extension of that. All the technology is in the server. The clients are nothing more than file players. Going beyond just a file player is asking for reliability problems.

You get two options:

A multi-DVR setup with middleware using Ethernet sharing (TiVo HMO Like).

A server with clients connected via Ethernet with flexibility for wireless when it's fast enough.

 

[ShadowEKU]

Well lets plan for the future now. Just to make sure I understand this you said in the future you might need the following below.

Server
1 HD client
1 SD client
Now what I'm not sure about is if you might have another 2 SD clients in the future or just one more SD client.

What I need to know is if you will have in the future 3 SD clients or just two SD clients.

The reason I ask is because 5 boxes versus 4 total makes a big deal. If you need 5 boxes you would need to get another server as that fifth box.

So if you need five rooms you would be best getting a server instead of your one HD client box so you would have two total servers plus 3 SD client boxes.

Your best bet with this system would be to rent it and see what you can trade in towards programming credits.

Now if you only need 4 total rooms even in the future you would get one server, one HD client and two SD client boxes.

You can always rent this and get programming credits for whatever you may have to trade-in.

You can also use any programming credits to use towards the outright purchase of the HMC setup.

Now if you want to buy it upfront this would be about what it would cost you without getting any programming credits but you would need a one year agreement of course.

Server would cost about 500 bucks. You would get the two SD client boxes for free. The HD client boxes would cost you anywhere between free and 100 or so bucks. For your system I would think that about 600 would be the right price. Also keep in mind that because most will be renting it D* would be making more thus reducing their price per unit thus resulting in lower purchase prices for customers wanting to buy it outright. The more this product takes off the cheaper it would be to buy in the future.

2 SD clients... total of 4 tvs... 2 HD 2 SD...

thanks for the answers

 

[tmbstone]

So I'm confused. I can burn TV shows to tape or DVD, but I cant copy them to the computer with the upcoming system? Does this mean that the record to DVD option is going to be eliminated as well? Im just trying to find an economical way to archive shows I watch without going the torrent route, now that they are going after TV shows. Some of the shows I watch I havent seen any release dates for DVDs and other ones are so expensive I dont want to pay that much for the season(Mythbusters is over $100 for season 1) Im not that concerned about HD or great quality...just want to be legal.

 

[Skyboss]

I can burn TV shows to tape or DVD, but I cant copy them to the computer with the upcoming system?

Yup. If you have a DVD recorder (stand alone) plug it in and start recording. Of course a video capture card on your computer will do.

 

[CPanther95]

Anyone feel ambitious enough to take a stab at what my "worst case scenario" will be with additional wiring required to convert my house to the HMC with what info is known?

If so, I'll detail my current setup. Something tells me I'm going to be stuck waiting 12-18 months for the wireless clients.

 

[Skyboss]

I put Ucentric on the spot and said "If you were wiring your home would you drop CAT5 or RG-6"? They replied drop CAT5, have a good switch (gigabit if you like), and isolate it from the rest of the system by using it's own switch, but allow it connectivity to the rest of your LAN or WAN. It's an answer without an answer that says the HMC and Clients are IP based products that connect to a LAN, but would be more efficient if they were isolated to their own switch so they talk to themselves faster than they talk to the rest of the LAN.

Longhorn claims to have insider info that it's RG-6 which doesn't make economic sense and doesn't do anything for simplifying the installation or reduceing the long term costs of installation, nor does it address the upgrade to wireless and the routing of the signal. Building a router or switch into the HMC Server or the multiswitch does not make economic sense. It only amplifies the cost to develop a new hybrid multiswitch or add a switch inside the HMC server itself.

The most cost effective method is to have the software control the security of the IP based devices and slap it into existing wired, and in the future wireless, networks in the homw. Based on what Ucentric was able to answer for me, this is the configuration. One should consider that most of the first adopters of this system probably already have a LAN in their home and don't need anything special to adopt it, the wireless functionality simplifies the system as more people adopt it. Short term the only people forking out the money for it will be the same ones who have foot the HD bill to this point. Long term it's a solution for DirecTV of a $500 storage/recording/tuning device with $50-100 clients vs multiple $500 HD DVR's. It will allow them a one box solution with minimal install time and significant expansion options for each home rather than spending millions each month on installer visits.

 

[vurbano]

I cant believe that D* isnt working on or with sony, toshiba or someone on a HD DVD player/recorder device which would attach directly to your HD DVR or HD HMC. What a sweet thing that would be.

 

[riggscm]

...I dont want to pay that much for the season(Mythbusters is over $100 for season 1) Im not that concerned about HD or great quality...just want to be legal.

I think you'd need the expressed written consent of Jamie and Adam to be 100% legal

 

[ad301]

...You can find shows by actor, title, director, genre, keyword, HDTV and DD5.1...

Will you be able to save these searches, akin to TiVo's Wishlists, and will you be able to schedule them to auto-record?

Thanks for all the very interesting info.

 

[LonghornXP]

Will you be able to save these searches, akin to TiVo's Wishlists, and will you be able to schedule them to auto-record?

Thanks for all the very interesting info.

I believe both can be done.

Also again to clarify with others on here the D* HMC will be a closed system when it comes to the multiroom viewing features just for recorded content. I don't care what UCentric says because they are CSRs and wrong like most CSRs.

Also the recorded content will be shared over existing coax cables in the house today. Also this system doesn't need ethernet nor wireless to work out of the box.

What I said above is the closed system. Now what isn't closed and part of the HMC features is the ability for a customer to connect the server to their home network via a wireless network card or an ethernet cable which would allow the box to be connected to the internet and also all video, music and photo playback from any computers connected to your home network. Now the wireless card connected to the server has to connect to your access point or router with the router connected to your broadband connection. The wired ethernet connected needs to be via an access point or router as well.

Again multiroom viewing between the clients and the server for recorded content "does not" need a network connection to your home network and it will use coax cables not ethernet, wireless or anything else. Now to playback computer content on client boxes the server has to be connected to your home network and once that is done the server will share the computer content to your client boxes over existing coax cables. The server would buffer incoming computer content and send it to the clients that requested it over existing coax cables. I hope I said this enough times and if you can't understand how the basics of this system will work reread it until you can.

Also what also confused people was the multiswitch and I will clarify this.

Now I don't quite know how the Voom DVR was going to work but it was going to use existing coax cables to share recorded content via the house and D*s solution will be exactly the same as the Voom solution.

Now with that said I've heard that the new multiswitch would have a basic router built into it and instead of having ethernet ports on the router it would have coax cables. Each port would assign an IP address to the cleint that requested it on that port and the router will remember this IP address and which coax port it was assigned with just like a current router does with an ethernet port. So say the client with an IP address of 192.178.10.3 wants to playback a show from the server that request would be sent from that cleint to be received by the box with an IP address of 182.178.10.1(server) so the routher would accept the signal from 10.3 and the routher would know it needs to be sent to IP address 10.1 and it would send it down the required port where the server receives it. Now the Server would send a command to the client box to allow the client box to connect directly to playback the file directly from the server just like a computer connected wirelessly could playback a file over the network stored on a desktop computer. The file being played back on the notebook is never being locally stored but being streamed.

This isn't very hard to do and just think of this as a router that does all the same things but has coax cables instead of CAT5 ports. A router doesn't really care what ports it uses it only cares that the cables can send the data from point A to point B.

Again an IP address would be assigned to port A just like a current router assigns an IP address to computer 1 and another for computer 2. If this isn't done how could that notebook even copy or read a file from computer 2. The router doesn't just need the IP address it also needs to know which port that IP address is on.

I hope this helps you all out and again this multiswitch would be the same as the 5x8 multiswitch but would also have a router but that router would never be used unless a box requests an IP address.

Edit...Also to clear another issue up. Sometime in 2006 "new" HMC customers will use wireless (802.11n version) instead of coax cables to share recorded content around the house. This wireless connection "won't" connect to your home network but you can still add a wireless card to connect to your home network to share computer content. When this occurs existing customers will not need this upgrade because they have the ability today.

Everything above should be read and any valid confusion I would be glad to read and correct but this above is as simple as it gets and if its hard to understand this isn't the topic for you.

 

[DTV TiVo Dealer]

I think DIRECTV has made several changes in the basic design development of the HMC and this is what is contributing to some of the confusion.

I was fortunate to have a one on one private meeting with the MPEG-4, HD STB and HMC engineers at CES and many things I am hearing today are quite different than was explained to me in January '05.

-Robert

VE Advanced Digital Technology Dealer

 

[Slashwt]

Prices sound very questionable for all equipment and services... First impression was it sounded very expensive, after all D* is charging for HD ST.
Thanks for all the info Longhorn