XStreamHD Video
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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You can have it installed or install it yourself.
XStreamHD knows that many of us technical guys would rather hook up our own stuff then have someone come in your house and monkey around behind all your equipment.
I have a slimline dish still up but don't use it for any thing. Can this dish be used for this service?
The lnb looked like an FSS lnb that Dish Network used on their SuperDishes. Would be nice if all we needed was an 18 inch dish like what was used back in the early days of Dish and Direct as those dishes can be had for real cheap.
They could stream locals over their network couldn't they? Does this service offer all the channels you can get with satellite and cable or just movies and games? I think a service like this would be great for those wanting to do gaming where there is no cable or broadband service available.
They could stream locals over their network couldn't they? Does this service offer all the channels you can get with satellite and cable or just movies and games? I think a service like this would be great for those wanting to do gaming where there is no cable or broadband service available.
I am still boggled by their price stucture. As Scott said above:
$7 to rent a movie that I can get from Blockbuster for $4.99, and not have to pay for a monthly fee, plus several hundred dollars up-front? And is the picture quality and sound going to be better than a blu-ray? Really?
And if the movies shown on their website are indicative of what they will be showing, wow.... serious waste of money.
I don't care if it is a DLNA server; I have two Dish receivers on 2 HD sets, external hard drives I can move around; plus a Sling HD Pro. Just not seeing how this succeeds.
I didn't see it as being impressive a year ago at CES, and based on the crappy movies they are ADVERTISING on their website - I am less impressed now.
$7 to rent a movie that I can get from Blockbuster for $4.99, and not have to pay for a monthly fee, plus several hundred dollars up-front? And is the picture quality and sound going to be better than a blu-ray? Really?
And if the movies shown on their website are indicative of what they will be showing, wow.... serious waste of money.
I don't care if it is a DLNA server; I have two Dish receivers on 2 HD sets, external hard drives I can move around; plus a Sling HD Pro. Just not seeing how this succeeds.
I didn't see it as being impressive a year ago at CES, and based on the crappy movies they are ADVERTISING on their website - I am less impressed now.
According to their site they will be doing cable--broadcast type programs as VOD in others words you download a show like house and watch it when you want.
According to engadget they will show first run movies 6 weeks after they hit the movie theaters.
Would be interesting to know, but even that is not unique. Vudu gets SOME movies as they are in theaters. Nothing I care to watch yet, but even this won't make up for the monthly fee yet even if they get rights to major releases.
Time will tell whether XStreamHD will acquire sufficient content, but on the surface the technical capabilities of the equipment look very nice. However I'm having a hard time seeing how this will integrate into their target market, if I understand it correctly. I'm also frustrated they can't seem to publish coherent documents that start at the big picture and work down. Instead, most of what I've seen is a handful of amateurish videos that open more questions than they answer.
If XStreamHD is targeting the higher-end A/V market where people either can afford or at least care for the video and audio quality, XStreamHD seems to have the technology that can do it. But those who are interested are probably already doing something, not having sat around waiting for XStreamHD over the past few years. My conjecture is XStreamHD needs to worry more about how they fit into existing infrastructures, rather than trying to define their own.
Some of us have media servers. Most of us in this club figured out how to handle HD content via OTA years ago, perhaps a decade in some cases. We don't need XStreamHD to be a Johnny-come-lately me-too. Most of us already have content delivered by DBS, cable or even FTA and have the means to manage it. I expect quite a number also have Blu-ray or its one time competitor. With all of these choices, it's not uncommon that we build infrastructures that attempt to seamlessly integrate as much as possible.
In my system, the online storage capacity I had a year ago dwarfs the maximum XStreamHD can do at release by nearly two orders of magnitude, and has a designed-in capability to gracefully rotate in more as technology improves. We can setup, record and manage HD from nearly 20 centrally-served sources, including multiple OTA, FTA, DN, Blu-ray, HD DVD and soon Shaw at any of the screens in the house. The most important part is each position is managed by a common interface and remote that works the same in every room even though each set up has entirely different hardware.
If I were to buy into XStreamHD, I would have to outfit a parallel server and client architecture that would do a very poor imitation of what is already there. Even if I had built a shadow of my current system, the same would still be true. So out-of-the-box XStreamHD implements a separate interface, requires another spigot to feed in the video and audio, requires a new client box at each screen position and a separate device on all the universal remotes. About all that is common is there is already GbE in every room. The only good thing is their $200 media extender seems to claim support for HP MPEG2 & H.264. That's 4:2:2 if they're telling the truth. But can it play my high-rate FTA streams?
Even after all that brain damage I can only rent video? Geez, I still watch some of my 30-year-old LaserDiscs when the material is otherwise unavailable or worse, lost. I've invested a lot of dosh into Hollywood over the years, and I have no interest in having them tell me when I can watch what I have.
If XStreamHD is targeting the higher-end A/V market where people either can afford or at least care for the video and audio quality, XStreamHD seems to have the technology that can do it. But those who are interested are probably already doing something, not having sat around waiting for XStreamHD over the past few years. My conjecture is XStreamHD needs to worry more about how they fit into existing infrastructures, rather than trying to define their own.
Some of us have media servers. Most of us in this club figured out how to handle HD content via OTA years ago, perhaps a decade in some cases. We don't need XStreamHD to be a Johnny-come-lately me-too. Most of us already have content delivered by DBS, cable or even FTA and have the means to manage it. I expect quite a number also have Blu-ray or its one time competitor. With all of these choices, it's not uncommon that we build infrastructures that attempt to seamlessly integrate as much as possible.
In my system, the online storage capacity I had a year ago dwarfs the maximum XStreamHD can do at release by nearly two orders of magnitude, and has a designed-in capability to gracefully rotate in more as technology improves. We can setup, record and manage HD from nearly 20 centrally-served sources, including multiple OTA, FTA, DN, Blu-ray, HD DVD and soon Shaw at any of the screens in the house. The most important part is each position is managed by a common interface and remote that works the same in every room even though each set up has entirely different hardware.
If I were to buy into XStreamHD, I would have to outfit a parallel server and client architecture that would do a very poor imitation of what is already there. Even if I had built a shadow of my current system, the same would still be true. So out-of-the-box XStreamHD implements a separate interface, requires another spigot to feed in the video and audio, requires a new client box at each screen position and a separate device on all the universal remotes. About all that is common is there is already GbE in every room. The only good thing is their $200 media extender seems to claim support for HP MPEG2 & H.264. That's 4:2:2 if they're telling the truth. But can it play my high-rate FTA streams?
Even after all that brain damage I can only rent video? Geez, I still watch some of my 30-year-old LaserDiscs when the material is otherwise unavailable or worse, lost. I've invested a lot of dosh into Hollywood over the years, and I have no interest in having them tell me when I can watch what I have.
That's a shame because it would let a lot of people that want some of the popular channels to go along with their local OTA channels and don't care about all the filler channels in the packages they have now. This would give them the chance to drop a big monthly payment from their current subscription service. They really should consider this IMO. Without offering some of the popular cable channels I don't see them hanging around for any length of time.
XStreamHD's model is not to replace the 1000 channels you never watch on typical DBS and cable fare. Even with the often extreme video compression these providers apply, it still takes a lot of bandwidth to do this. DTV and DN need several satellites each to downlink all of this data.
XStreamHD's model is to provide very high quality HD, say at 3-10X the data rate per HD stream. If they wanted to do this for a DTV or DN lineup, it might take 15-30 satellites. There's no way they can afford one, or even a sizable fraction of one. XStreamHD likely plans to have a very few HD streams, maybe only one, and depend on your media server to time shift the programming you want. There's no way they can afford the massive bandwidth required even for a handful of live channels and maintain their quality differentiation. Satellite transponders are expensive.
XStreamHD's model is to provide very high quality HD, say at 3-10X the data rate per HD stream. If they wanted to do this for a DTV or DN lineup, it might take 15-30 satellites. There's no way they can afford one, or even a sizable fraction of one. XStreamHD likely plans to have a very few HD streams, maybe only one, and depend on your media server to time shift the programming you want. There's no way they can afford the massive bandwidth required even for a handful of live channels and maintain their quality differentiation. Satellite transponders are expensive.
The networking with other devices would be a bonus. But what really separates this service from the on demand services that the subscription giants are already offering?
The networking features and the DVR features.
$399 sounds like a lot but when you look at the equipment its not junk, this is audiophile quality stuff plus a server grade hard drive.
I think of the satellite service feature as an add on bonus.
$399 sounds like a lot but when you look at the equipment its not junk, this is audiophile quality stuff plus a server grade hard drive.
I think of the satellite service feature as an add on bonus.
i can get true hd now with my vudu app on my new vizio sv422xvt no extra eqipment needed netflix and amozon only offer 720p vudu offers three choices 1080p 720p 480p unbelievale picture jay cee ps most movies are 3.99 480p 4.99 720p 5.99 1080p
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I miss the days when you could buy just the channels that you watched, the way I did on my old BUD C-band system. I have dish now and do not get all the channels that I would like and still pay too much. The only way to get the 15 or so channels that I watch regularly, I have to buy a package of over 250 and that is not right. I would love to see an fta box that could work with this XstreamHD system and or IPTV and sub TV service that offered all-a-cart pricing. With channels like USA, TBS, AMC, Lifetime, FMC, and Premiums. It would be nice if a person could get what he watches and only spend maybe $30.00 - $50.00 a month, and not have to pay extra for PVR and Multi-Room Service. I know AT&T has this U-Vers, if they start to offer allacart pricing and multi room DVR and bundle with phone and internet at a cost of under $90.00 a month they may come out the winner in this battle. But they do not offer this service in my area yet. Looks like this XstreamHD may compete with Netflix and x-box. We got the kids an x-box 360 for Christmas and added Netflix and that is a good value for only $9.00 a month we get to watch unlimited movies with the X-box in HD 1080p and get one DVD a time by mail... that comes out to about 5 DVDs a month. Granted the movies that you can stream are not new releases but they keep adding them so you always have something new to watch. The x-box can also be set up with my media center PC to send content to all my tvs and cmputers much like this system.
One thing Vudu lacks is a HR audio to go with their HDX. Sure the newer setups on vudu offer DD+, but what xstream is offering is a true lossless audio to go with the 1080p picture. I still think xstream is out of line in the pricing arena though.
