The $100 Roku video player, often referred to as the Roku Netflix Player, or just the Netflix STB, will have to change its reputation. No longer just a client for Netflix streaming, Roku is adding Amazon Video On Demand to the system. That’s certainly a nice bonus for those who’ve purchased the system as Amazon VOD has an extensive library of newer content which is generally missing from Netflix. Unlike TiVo, which offers Amazon content as download-to-view, the Roku box will stream the video.

Picked up from Gadget Lab at Wired.

LG isn’t the only one souping up their HDTV models, Samsung is getting in on the act too. While LG is partnering with Netflix for streaming video, Samsung is partnering with Yahoo! for a wider variety of web content. Samsung will be embedding the Yahoo! Widget Engine into some of their new 2009 HDTV models. This enables the TV’s to run ‘TV Widgets’ written with XML and JavaScript, branded as ‘Internet@TV – Content Service’.

The TV’s can be networked with their built-in Ethernet ports or via a USB WiFi adapter. The TV Widgets will come from Yahoo! properties such as Flickr, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance as well as third parties like USA TODAY, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks. They claim it will be extended to include video streaming and other content.

The most interesting piece of this, I think, is that the platform is open to 3rd party developers to create their own TV Widgets. It sounds like interested developers will be able to create their own widgets and provide them to Samsung TV users with an open market. And I suspect Yahoo! will be looking to license this platform to other vendors as well.

In addition to the features reported in their press release, last week Electronista spotted a post in AVForums.com that Samsung’s new HTDVs would also have some very interesting network content support:

# Now supports playback of movies in the following formats upto 1080p: MKV/ WMV/ VOB/ AVI/ TS/ 3GP/ MPG/ ASF

# Now supports the following video codecs:

* XviD
* DivX 3.11/4.x/5.1/6.0/
* H.264 BP/MP/HP
* MPEG-1
* MPEG-2
* MPEG-4 SP/ASP
* Motion JPEG
* Windows Media Video V9
* VC1

That’s quite extensive format support. Models in the 7, 8, and 9 series will also be DivX Certified with support for DivX Video On Demand.

Press release:
Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago LG Electronics announced a deal to bring Netflix streaming content to their set-top boxes, which materialized on the BD300 Blu-ray deck. Now LG and Netflix are taking it one step further, by enabling streaming right to new LG HDTV models.

The new ‘Broadband HDTVs’ will support HD Netflix streaming directly over their built-in Ethernet connections. These new LCD and plasma HDTVs, along with five new Blu-ray players and home theater systems, will join the BD300 in LG’s Netflix-enabled lineup.

The press release is below:
Read the rest of this entry »

Welll, in just under 10 hours I should be on a plane to Las Vegas, NV for CES. The show properly is Thursday-Sunday, but there are press events Tuesday and Wednesday which I’ll be attending. During the show itself I’ll be splitting my time between working Sling Media’s booth and trying to visit other vendors as a blogger. As is usual for me, my first victim, er, target of the show will probably be TiVo. Since I’ll be working half the show my time for seeing the rest is cut in half, but I’ll try to do what I can.

Going into this CES I’m not sure what the big deal is going to be this year, if there is one. The economy is down and I haven’t really felt any particular buzz about any given area of the market. HDTVs get bigger while getting thinner and faster (refresh rates). We may see some interesting 3D technologies which will start to enter homes in the next few years. Palm is expected to announce Nova and new hardware, but I’m not excited. I was a die-hard Palm OS user for many years, since 1998, and still carry a Treo 680. But after five or more years of waiting for Palm OS 6 Cobalt Nova I just don’t feel that inspired. I’m already focused on Android as my next likely platform, and it would take a lot for Palm to sway me. Even if they produce an incredible OS, they have an uphill battle ahead to win over developers. I don’t think they have a real chance at this point to gain significant market share. And without that the developers won’t come – and the apps really make the platform.

Going forward I think the mobile market will effectively be, in no particular order, Windows Mobile Professional, BlackBerry, Symbian S60, iPhone, and Android. The original Palm OS is the walking dead, and I don’t see Nova/Palm OS II carving out enough market share to be viable. Symbian UIQ is effectively dead as SonyEricsson and Motorola have pulled out and the Symbian world is focused on the S60-based open source effort. Windows Mobile Standard (aka Smartphone) is rapidly dying as Professional-based touch screen devices move into the lower end of the market where Standard used to focus. I expect Android, which is basically just coming into the market, to post the biggest gains as more devices land. I think the LiMo/LIPS effort will falter and expect to see some of the vendors who have been working on it switch to Android. I think those five platforms will provide the bulk of the smartphone market, anything else will be a small niche.

We’ll probably see more tru2way devices on display from a number of vendors this year, but I don’t know that we’ll see anything revolutionary in that market. I’m hoping TiVo may be showing off their ‘Series4′ tru2way-enabled model, which they’re believed to have been working on for a while. And they may be showing their new DirecTV software, which I expect will be running on the HR20/21/22 DirecTV DVR Plus hardware. I’m not expecting anything else major, maybe some new content partnership announcements and perhaps plans to bring TiVo to more countries. (I’m surprised they haven’t re-launched in the UK yet with the DVB-T model actually.)

The past couple of years the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD fight provided some interest. But that was effectively over with CES2008, and officially ended when Toshiba threw in the towel in February. There aren’t likely to be any big announcements in the Blu-ray world, aside from more content partnerships like LG adding CinemaNow and YouTube to Netflix on their players. Maybe someone will be showing off higher density disc or 3D content concepts.

I’m hoping to be surprised by something at the show, something just unexpected. If you know of something I should be on the look out for, do let me know. And if you’re going to CES drop by the Sling Media booth and say hello. I believe I’m on the afternoons of Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and on Friday morning. I’m also scheduled to present for Sling Media at CntrStg on Saturday. Frankly I’m nervous as hell about that. It has been years since I’ve done a presentation or talk at a tradeshow and never at anything as big as CES.

OK, off to finish packing.

LG Electronics announced they’d be bringing Netflix to their Blu-ray players just in time for CES 2008. That support shipped in the form of the BD300, announced in July and shipped in the fall. Now, just in time for CES 2009, LG is announcing their next additions – CinemaNow and YouTube. YouTube seems like an obvious move, it is showing up on just about every connected device out there. Pretty soon I think YouTube will just be a default feature on any networked device, which should make Google happy.

But the real interesting addition here is CinemaNow, and not so much that it is being added but how it is being added. CinemaNow will be streaming to the Blu-ray players. That’s very interesting – as far as I’m aware this is the first indication we’ve had that CinemaNow was adding streaming support to their content. To date CinemaNow has been all download-based, not streaming, including on TiVo. Right now on TiVo only Disney content is available from CinemaNow, but it has been stated that additional content would be added. Since TiVo supports streaming, as used by YouTube and Netflix, I have to wonder if CinemaNow content will also be available via streaming on TiVo.

In general we’re certainly going to be seeing more of this kind of thing, adding content sources to devices to make them multi-function. Just to support Blu-ray content and to comply with the BD-Live specification a Blu-ray player has to be capable of decoding MPEG-2, H.264, and VC-1 video in high definition, as well as handing a number of audio formats. The hardware used to do this is more than capable of handling most online video formats. BD-Live requires an Ethernet connection and 1GB of local storage, which is plenty to handle streaming buffers. And the BD-J programming environment allows for complex applications. It makes a lot of sense for Blu-ray players to pick up additional features like streaming video to make them more competitive and appealing to consumers.

Press release:

Read the rest of this entry »

According to TWICE, Digeo is working on two Moxi cable DVRs. The first will be distributed through Charter later this month, to also be followed by ‘a second MSO’. It’s only four months after they announced this the first time. Back in May at The Cable Show Digeo announced that Charter would carry the Moxi 3012 HD DVR by the end of 3Q08. So they have less than two weeks to meet that goal.

Of course, back in January Digeo’s then COO, now President, Greg Gudorf told me that their cable DVR would ship by the end of 1Q08. So we’ll see how this roll out goes.

The other Moxi DVR will be a CableCARD consumer product sold at retail and expected to ship in January. That will be a year after Digeo suddenly canceled all of their planned consumer products, just days after showing them at CES and talking up the launch plans.

Details on the consumer product are thin, I’m presuming they’ll have something to say about it at CES in January. Of course, they did last year too. Unsurprisingly it will be a CableCARD-enabled DVR, and it will not be tru2way-enabled. It sounds like they’re pitching all the same features they were on the canceled products – music and photo access, content partners, home control integration, etc. For music content Digeo has lined up FineTune, Rhapsody and Sirius and they have Flickr for photos.

The one new item that I found interesting is that they’re implementing DLNA support. I’d like to see more products supporting DLNA, standards are good and DLNA has growing support across a number of products such as the Xbox 360, PS3, HP Media Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, etc.

Digeo is also apparently still working on their Moxi TV for PC software, which I was told was in beta and close to release at CES 2008 in January. Though according to TWICE they have it running on XP, Vista, and Media Center versions of Windows now, and not just XP as at CES. No word on when it might be available to consumers.

Gudorf told TWICE that Digeo is working on future products for post-July 2009 which will support tru2way. Digeo signed the tru2way accord in June. But I’m not even going to devote any mental energy to that until Digeo manages to ship something to consumers.

Digeo started talking about launching new consumer products two years ago, in September 2006. (Which I picked up, amusingly enough, from an article in TWICE.) I talked to them at CES 2007 where they were showing mock ups and no real products with the promise of shipping later in the year.

They insisted they’d ship in time for the 2007 holidays up through September. (Oddly enough, another article from TWICE. Is covering Digeo a September tradition for them?) Then in November they admitted they weren’t going to ship in 2007.

Then I talked to them again at CES 2008, and they were showing off some of the same mock-ups they’d had at CES 2007, as well as some actual products. Just a week later they canceled the products and laid off nearly half of their staff. Digeo’s Gary Gudorf talked to me the next day to offer clarifications, including that their cable MSO product would ship by the end of 1Q08, which it didn’t.

We didn’t hear anything else until April when details on the cable product emerged. And then in May they exhibited at The Cable Show and issued a press release announcing Charter’s intention to carry it. In June Digeo signed the tru2way accord.

And now here we are in September again, two years after they first announced their intention to enter the consumer DVR market, and they’re promising a box ‘expected to ship in January’. You’ll pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. Assuming they do exhibit at CES in January, I’ll check out their offerings, again. As I said when I covered them this year, I think they have some good design points. But none of it matters until they manage to get a box on retail shelves.

I hear it’ll come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.

Tipped off by EngadgetHD.

EDIT: This got some attention in AVS Forum, including from a Charter rep, who wasn’t encouraging:

Ironically yesterday I got whispers from a contact in St Louis who works with someone who’s got a beta 3012 (Don’t get hopes up, so far it seems only a few elite managers and tech ops people in St Louis have gotten to beta this unit)

Apparently it’s still got quite a few bugs, which I think is very odd, given really all they needed to do was improve on the existing hardware and leave the software alone.

At any rate I don’t expect to see them in 2 weeks, heck at the rate things are going, I’d consider us lucky if we see them before Q3 2009

I’d say I’m surprised or that this is unusual so close to a planned release – but frankly this is what I’ve come to expect from Digeo. They’ve had one product actually make it to market, the BMC9000 STB series from Motorola running the Moxi software. But that launched back in 2004 and has been out of production for a long time now. At its peak it only reached around 400,000 users, and the number of Moxi uses is believed to be much smaller now as units have been replaced with newer, non-Moxi DVR models. Unsurprisingly the main MSO to use Moxi was Charter, which, like Digeo, is controlled by Paul Allen. But even with it being ‘in the family’ Charter’s use of Moxi was minor.

Moxi’s history since they were acquired by Digeo has been one of failed execution. Early on Moxi was on their way to being a competitor in the consumer DVR space and they had some cutting edge plans, then Digeo acquired them and refocused them on cable MSOs instead of retail. Digeo acquired Moxi way back in 2002 – and in six years what have they done? One product which never achieved more than minor market penetration, and is now well out of date and discontinued. Aside from that they have a history of press releases and announced partnerships, awards won for products announced but never shipped, staff layoffs, and repeated product delays and cancellations. If they didn’t have Paul Allen backing them I don’t see how they’d still be in business. Digeo needs to ship a product, a good product, to significant numbers of users, if they want to earn consumer trust again.

Well, CES is just under five months away. I know that seems like a long time, but I’ve learned from experience that you do not want to wait until, say, November to try booking a hotel room. Not unless you’re made of money or want to stay on the other side of town and take a taxi to the show each day. Which is its own special hell, imagine literally thousands of people lining up for the taxi queue at the end of the show day, every day. You want to wait four hours for a cab? Be my guest. (Actually, tip – take one of the free shuttles to a con hotel, any one, and catch a cab there. Much quicker, but it still sucks.)

After five years running at CES I’ve decided on two important guidelines:
1. Book early.
2. If the hotel isn’t on a monorail stop, I’m not interested. (Seriously, since the monorail opened things are much better. Best way to get around.)

As you might have guessed, I just got around to registering for CES 2009 and booking my hotel. Once again I’m at the Sahara. Not the swankiest joint in Vegas, but it is on the monorail (and conveniently the other direction from the LVCC than most of the other hotels, which means most people are trying to pack into trains going the other way), the rooms are fine for me (I’m a man of simple needs – a clean room to crash in), and it is inexpensive. I’ve stayed at the Sahara the past couple of years. The Imperial Palace is also on a monorail stop and cheap, and I stayed there a few years ago, but frankly it was kind of nasty. The hallway carpeting was sticky and there was a funky odor. Ick.

This time around I’ve registered as Press/Blogger, though I have to see if Gizmo Lovers passes muster and they accept me. We’re no Engadget or Gizmodo, but I’d like to think we qualify. I’d like to be able to attend some of the press-only events that I couldn’t get into last year.

I’m looking forward to covering CES once again in January.

I’ve been meaning to post this since CES ended two weeks ago – time flies.

This was my fifth CES in a row (and I’m already thinking about next year), so maybe I’m getting a little jaded, but I was a bit disappointed this year. There didn’t seem to be any ‘hot’ item, something that everyone was talking about, some new idea that fired people up. For example, a couple of years ago a lot of people were talking about Sling Media when they launched their first Slingbox. I don’t think it was just me, since I had similar conversations with a number of people on the show floor, the monorail, etc – and it seemed to be a common sentiment. Sure, there was a 150″ TV, which was impressive, but it is really just a bigger TV. You kind of expect bigger TVs each year. Pioneer’s 9mm thick Kuro was also impressive, but it isn’t something we’ll be able to buy for a few years, if ever. So this year seemed to be more evolutionary and predictable. The only real surprise news was Warner’s Blu-ray announcement, which certainly got a lot of buzz throughout the show.

Sure, there were some cool announcements, and specifically relating to this blog, and my interests, we had TiVo’s web video announcemnt, several Sling Media announcements, etc. But it just wasn’t as big as past years with the TiVo Series3 being unveiled or the initial announcement of the SlingCatcher. Oh well, you can’t have big news every year – there’s always next year.

There was one item that I didn’t expect to inspire my techno-lust to the degree it did – the Optimus Maximus keyboard from Art. Lebedev Studio. I’ve been watching the development of this since it was first shown as a concept several years ago, and it seemed to be perpetual vapor ware. CES was my first chance to see it in person, and I expected it to be nifty, but not to be as cool as it was. Photos just don’t do it justice, the keys look great, and they really ‘pop’. The colors are bright, the graphics are sharp, and if I had $1,500 to spare I’d probably buy one. Of course, since my main personal machine is a laptop, it would be a little silly. But it is just so cool in action. Even simple things like the case of the characters displayed on the keys changing when you press shift inspires my techno-lust. I can see this kind of tech spreading as the parts become cheaper.

But the real highlight of CES for me was getting to meet people I’d only seen online previously. I got to meet Ben Drawbaugh and Steven Kim of Engadget/EngadgetHD, Charlie White and Curtis Walker of Gizmodo, and, of course, Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny (and Sling Media). There were a few people I was hoping to see that I didn’t manage to catch in the chaos, but it is nice to get to meet some folks in person. Maybe one of the years some company (like Sling perhaps?) will throw a little gathering for tech bloggers. I don’t mean a press event, but sponsor a gathering just to get everyone together in one place to finally put faces to the names. (And if someone has done this, damn, I didn’t know about it.)

I’m already looking forward to next year.

This was something out of CES that I forgot to comment on at the time, but I was reminded today by an article I stumbled over in Multichannel News. Comcast commissioned Panasonic to develop the AnyPlay Portable DVR TZ-LC100 for them. It has a folding, clamshell design that contains an 8.5″ LCD, stereo speakers, and a 60GB drive. It resembles a portable DVD player – which makes sense since it also plays CDs and DVDs. It is supposed to be available in early 2009. And I think this is just a poor idea, doomed to fail.

To be clear, I don’t think being able to take you recordings with you is a bad idea. I think systems like TiVo’s TiVoToGo and DISH Networks partnership with Archos (and the former PocketDISH players) to sync content from their DVRs to PMPs is a fine idea. No, my problem is with this implementation.

You’re taking the DVR with you. The whole DVR.

Think about that for a minute. If you’re on the road, and you have your DVR with you to watch your recordings, what’s at home recording the shows that air while you’re not there? Right, nothing. Unless you have another DVR – but then why have two? To me it doesn’t make any sense to take the DVR away with you. This player has some saving graces, in that it is basically a portable DVD player that put on some weight (for the drive), but that’s about it.

As PMPs get slicker, smaller, and more capable – see the newest offerings from Archos, not to mention the iPod Touch and iPhone – this unit is positively massive by comparison. And you know physically smaller players, which increased storage capacities, will be out by early 2009. By then we’ll probably have an iPod Touch with 32GB, or even 64GB, of flash.

In the past I’ve argued that media center PCs aren’t catching on for similar reasons. The market is moving toward laptops en masse. But if your main PC is a laptop, and it travels with you, then it doesn’t work very well as your media center DVR. So you’d need to buy another MCE PC just to be the stay-at-home DVR – which is costly if you don’t need the PC since you have the laptop.

I think Comcast would’ve been much better off working with Panasonic on something more like DISH Network’s Archos arrangement. A PMP that could be plugged into Comcast’s DVR STBs to sync content over for playback, not a unit that is a DVR itself. Either over USB, or the FireWire ports their STBs are required to have anyway. Leave the DVR at home.

I just had a brief conversation with Gaby Adam of OnPR Public Relations, Digeo’s PR firm, and Greg Gudorf, Digeo’s current COO and soon-to-be CEO, to help clarify some of the issues relating to yesterday’s announcements. I’d like to thank them both for taking the time to speak with me during what is surely a very hectic period at Digeo. Gudorf again stressed that the departure of current CEO Mike Fidler was Filder’s decision, and that various reports that he was ‘forced out’ are inaccurate. Fidler will be remaining on with Digeo for an indefinitely period to help with Gudorf’s transition into the role of CEO.

The layoffs at Digeo impact approximately half of the staff, with nearly 80 people being released, from roughly 160 employees. Most of those laid off are from areas of the company not involved in product development. Digeo is looking to refocus on the development of a few key products going forward. The products that remain in development are:
- Moxi HD DVR for Cable
- Next-gen Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR
- Moxi TV for PC software
- Moxi OCAP/Tru2Way software

The Moxi HD DVR for Cable seems to be the closest to release. It is in field trials now and Gudorf says it will be released this quarter (1Q08). The Moxi HD DVR for Cable is a new hardware platform targeting cable MSOs, and it will compete with STBs from Motorola, Cisco, et al. Gudorf did say that it is an OCAP capable platform, which makes sense given the need to be competitive with the new STBs offered by other vendors. He was unwilling to state which cable MSOs might carry the new box, instead referring me to their current MSO partners as likely candidates for the new platform.

Gudorf was unwilling to share specifics on the next-generation consumer platform at this time, deferring any feature announcements until later this year. However, he did refer to it as “the next-generation Multi-Room HD DMR”, which certainly provides a strong hint at one of the product features. He did state that it is a CableCARD system, which is what I’d expect. From our conversation it sounds like it has been in development as the intended follow-on to the original Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR, which was canceled yesterday. Reading between the lines I’d say that, due to the lengthy delay in bringing the original box to market, Digeo simply decided to drop the original product to refocus resources on the newer platform as their first retail offering. (Shades of Atari dropping the Panther for the Jaguar. I’d guess maybe two people reading this got that reference.) Based on the state of the units shown at CES and what I heard from Digeo’s reps at the show, this is almost certainly the best move. It seemed likely the unit wouldn’t make it to market until late this year, at best, and by then the platform would be eclipsed by newer systems. I tried to get some more details on the unit, such as if it would be cable-only or if, like the TiVo Series3 & TiVo HD, it would support ATSC as well. But he again deflected questions on product specifics until later this year.

The Moxi TV for PC software, the Windows XP version of which is currently in beta, will remain in beta while work on the Vista version is completed. It will be released for both XP and Vista once the Vista version is completed and goes through beta. So it doesn’t sound like there are any real changes there, aside from possibly delaying the XP version’s release for the Vista version to be completed. That seems like a smart move to me, there will be less confusion if consumers don’t have to worry about which Windows they have, or wonder why it doesn’t work on their new PC.

Work on the OCAP/Tru2Way Moxi software continues. Gudorf declined to get into specifics on the software or time frame, other than to say that it is an important platform given the direction the market is taking. I’d certainly agree.

Digeo’s previously announced relationships with Monster Cable, 4Home Media, Flickr, Finetune, Accedo Broadband, and CloverLeaf Digital all remain in place. We’ve seen details on all of these, except for the Monster Cable relationship. All that has been stated regarding that relationship, to my knowledge, is that the two companies are exploring future product development opportunities together. I tried to get more details on the relationship from Gudorf, but, other than to say Digeo is excited to be working with Monster Cable, he left any product announcements as Monster’s to make. I am quite curious as to what that relationship may produce.

Again, I’d like to thank Gaby Adam and Greg Gudorf for taking the time to speak with me, clarify Digeo’s plans, and answer my questions. While I have at times been harsh in my posts about Digeo Moxi I do believe they have a good platform and the potential to provide TiVo some real competition in the DVR market. I think they need to improve some areas of the product, based on what I’ve seen to date, and I’m hopeful that this reorganization and refocusing of their development efforts will produce those changes, resulting in an even stronger product reaching the market. I look forward to seeing what details Digeo announces later this year with regard to their next-generation Multi-Room HD DMR, and I’ll be looking for more information on the HD DVR for Cable later this quarter, as well as keeping an eye out for any changes in the Moxi TV for PC and OCAP software efforts.

If I learn of any new information I’ll be sure to share it.