Engadget HD goes hands-on with ZeeVee's ZvBox

Well, would you look what just arrived at Engadget HD's headquarters? Yep, that's ZeeVee's localcasting ZvBox, and it has been carefully photographed as it danced right out of its packaging. Head on over to take a look at the gallery -- a full review will be following shortly.

[OneLove @ Aug 4th 2008 11:03AM]

no one likes ZeeVee's ZvBox?

[Jon @ Aug 4th 2008 12:09PM]

I have done a lot of research on this thing but it comes down to No one like $499 ... $149-199 and i am sold ...

[Olivier @ Aug 4th 2008 1:09PM]

I am underwhelmd by this thing. My Slingbox works fine and I can watch TV anywhere outside my home.

For the same price you can get a mac mini under your tv which will do any of this. (yes including "screen casting" from another PC in your house running VLC screen capture)

$500 is just plain dumb. Either they are making too fat of a margin either the component prices are just too high and selling this to the public just doesn't make economic sense.

Watch out for $99 promotion at Woot in 6 months for this deice

[brian @ Aug 4th 2008 2:08PM]

Olivier:

Do you really want to buy 3 mac minis to cover all the TVs in your house? Do you really want yet another STB cluttering up your living room? ZvBox works across coax and allows you to watch Internet or local media on any HDTV in the house. There is nothing in the living room but a sexy, new multi-media ZvRemote. ZvBox is spouse-proof!

:-)

-Brian from ZeeVee

[ChillyCat @ Aug 4th 2008 1:54PM]

They'll be scraping inches of dust off these in no time.

No way it'll sell anywhere near 5 bills.

Overstock - dot - com future skew.

[rodalpho @ Aug 4th 2008 2:58PM]

I don't think I'd go quite [i]that[/i] far. Video distribution over QAM is a neat idea, and it'll sell for custom installations where the price won't be an issue. I like the remote design, too. Problems:

1) Price is too high for consumers to swallow. Popcornhour is $200, mac mini with OSXBMC is $500.
2) Moving data from the PC to the TV isn't a big win anymore due to wireless 802.11, particularly 802.11N. The only advantage is that it's broadcasting (within your house, anyway) versus narrowcasting. You don't need client hardware at your TV, just a QAM tuner.
3) ... but many HDTVs don't have QAM tuners these days.

[ds @ Aug 4th 2008 3:05PM]

Ok let's get a couple of things straight. To do what this box does would cost well over $1,000 if you went with alternate hardware. $500 is a bargain for what this thing can do. Anyone thinking they could get similar functions from anything near this price point are wrong.

The problem really is that few people would get a lot of value out of this thing because the value you get is directly dependent on the number of HDTVs in your home. I really can't see anyone without 3+ HDTVs considering this device. If you just have 1 there is no purpose. If you have 2, then it could definitely be useful; but for $500 people would rather buy a media box specifically for that TV. 3 or more HDTVs and you start realizing how much this device could save you in buying additional devices for each TV.

I could go on, but I guess that was my point. Target audience is really 3+ HDTV homes which puts it currently in the niche category, but for those people it really has amazing potential.

[BagOfArms @ Aug 4th 2008 3:46PM]

Screw the box. I just want the remote! For $130 you get an RF remote WITH a trackpad that's already setup to work with Windows (no pesky programming buttons to actions, etc.). The keyboard looks nice, too, but we don't know how much that is yet.

[rodalpho @ Aug 4th 2008 4:23PM]

That's a good point. I would seriously consider buying that remote if it also worked as a learning IR remote for my receiver, TiVo, etc. The remote is cool lookin'.