| Bossholio |
01-11-2005 08:41 PM |
Pc Mag Reviews Xtv.......
One of the last products I saw was not at CES ? actually it was at a show, just not the one we were covering. It was among the few that could boast a technology breakthrough. It's also something you will not, at least for now, find at Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, or Sears. XTV Network delivers high-quality video over the internet to televisions via a device no bigger than a cigar box. Unlike TV-over-IP solutions from Akimbo and DaveTV (both at CES), the set-top device does not include a hard drive. There's just one little problem: the only kind of content XTV will deliver?for now?is porn. That's right. XTV was at the porn convention. I didn't go, but got an invite to see this product at the Venetian. The release promised "broadcast-quality" video over the Internet without a hard drive. Could this company, I wondered, have solved the internet-to-TV problem that's stymied more traditional startups? I had to find out.
What did I see? Well, I can't describe exactly what I saw. I can tell you that the tiny box worked exactly as promised. Company President Charles Cast explained that the $179 box (with remote) is broadband ready (though not wireless ready) and is completely plug-and-play. He demonstrated by briefly detaching the box, reattaching it and showing how the set-top box runs a brief "system" check with your TV and broadband connection. Within moments, we were watching some of XTV's current content offerings. The image quality was indistinguishable from broadcast (no HD, for now--the bandwidth demands are simply too high). The $29.95-a-month service launches later this month with 50 channels of adult content and other things I can't even begin to go into here. During the demo, I picked up the box to examine the ports on back?there were a collection of component and RC video ports, S-Video, and the Ethernet jack. The base was quite hot, which I assumed was due to the video processor. But when I asked who built the chip, Cast and his associates wouldn't tell. They said that all the hardware and programming were proprietary.
Content aside, XTV really has something. Cast says that his company will soon be following with more mainstream shows and movies. The set-top box features a sexy, blue, glowing XTV logo on the front, but actually ships with the logo covered. I guess that's like the plain brown wrapper that covers your monthly Playboy subscription. DaveTV, Akimbo, TitanTV and others may shrug off XTV because of its porn origins, but the technology is small and simple enough to be built into existing televisions. Suddenly you have an Internet-TV-enabled set with just an Ethernet port on the back. Dontcha think there'll be other content providers clamoring to get on the XTV pipe?
Full article Here
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1750072,00.asp |
