How would you change ZeeVee's ZvBox?

ZeeVee's ZvBox had a lot of potential on paper -- after all, who wouldn't be enthused about the possibility of bringing internet TV / DVDs / Blu-rays (via your PC's optical drive) and all sorts of other multimedia to the TV via the coaxial wiring already in your home? Unfortunately, the box was hamstrung by two major issues: a lofty price tag ($499) and less-than-elegant installation. Still, the unit seemed to work well enough in our testing once we got everything up and running, but we never really found a way to justify the cost. Are any of you early adopters feeling the same way? Disagree vehemently? What could ZeeVee do (or have done) in order to make the ZvBox a more compelling purchase? We know you've got it in you, so let it all out in comments below.

[Patrick @ Oct 17th 2008 6:41PM]

i would like to have heard of it before...

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 17th 2008 6:58PM]

Must be heard to surf the net with your head up your ass.

[brandon @ Oct 17th 2008 7:01PM]

@Lowest Ranked

Must be hard to type with your head up your ass.....

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 17th 2008 7:45PM]

Give me some credit, its dark in here!

[JohnTitor @ Oct 17th 2008 8:26PM]

I would change it to a PopcornHour

[Big Sam @ Oct 17th 2008 6:46PM]

Component input and cheaper of course.

[Mike @ Oct 20th 2008 12:11PM]

If it were component cables the system wouldn't work. It uses existing coax wiring which is what makes it unique. To drag component cable around the house would mean you'd be better off with a wireless mouse and keyboard and forget the ZV box all together. Plus then you would have to have splitters for all of your other tvs and it would be a mess putting all this cable in the house.

[Jeremy Mordkoff @ Nov 10th 2008 9:38AM]

component INPUT is coming.

[matt @ Oct 17th 2008 6:55PM]

The what???

[j0nd4m4n @ Oct 17th 2008 6:58PM]

I would take out that fugly remote and put in a beautiful harmony bundle with it and sell it for less.
Not possible? what product are we talking about again?

[OVerclockerX @ Oct 17th 2008 7:07PM]

A new name. I mean come one, ZeeVee's ZvBox. Try saying that 10 times faster.

[MyHeadisFed @ Oct 17th 2008 7:20PM]

Actually when you say it10X fast it sounds kind of cool.... like a record scratching followed by a snare.

[Mike @ Oct 17th 2008 7:18PM]

1. Multiple Component Inputs or easily controlled switch for different sources
2. multiple channels for whole-house video and multiple sources
3. lower cost
4. IR repeater for exisiting remotes
5. compatibility with set-top boxes cable/satellite

I have whole house video for SD; tied to TiVo, satellite, and cable boxes; modulators and IR repeaters back to head end. Unfortunately, all is SD, but has worked fine for many years.

Would be great to have similar capability with HD.

Mike

[Fanfoot @ Oct 17th 2008 7:33PM]

It shouldn't require a VGA input. If other people can hang video tuners off USB, why can't these guys? That's how they're getting their audio after all, and it would allow them to do better than VGA resolution at some point. Assuming of course that USB can actually be made to work like this...

I don't want to run my PC in 1280x720 all the time just so I can use this thing. I should be able to kick it in via a button on the remote, and it should return to normal when I stop watching.

It should be possible to watch something on the TV in the living room without having the audio pounding away in the other room where the PC is, i.e. mute the PC's speakers when remote watching is happening.

$500 is too much money for this. I've got a computer. I've even got a laptop. So if I want to watch Hulu occasionally to catch up on some show I missed I can already do that. It would be nice to watch it on the big screen, but not $500 nice. And I can do a lot of the same things this does with a SlingCatcher for $299. And likely with a simpler setup. And for the sites that are handled in a custom way like hulu, the SlingCatcher is probably easier to use to play a show...

I still don't understand how I would use this exactly. If I'm on Hulu on my laptop, its not so hard to use the mouse to push the little tiny buttons, or slide the horizontal slider to the spot I want, but on the remote, 9' away from my TV...? And with a trackpad that apparently has a lot of latency in it? Seems like at the very least you'd need to be able to zoom in on the area of the screen that you want. And even better, you'd like a host-specific front end that would let you do things like pause, and even skip forward/back, use fast-forward/rewind somehow. I don't know how, but they should look at how the SlingCatcher did this. It would certainly be nice to have the "full web" as a backup when needed, but again, not sure its worth the extra cash.

[thethirdmoose @ Oct 17th 2008 7:54PM]

You do realize that VGA is much higher bandwidth than USB, right?

[Jeremy Mordkoff @ Nov 10th 2008 9:43AM]

We are not a tuner, nor do we expect our users to have a tuner card in their PC. We move internet content from their PC to the TV, i.e. we bring the internet to your TV.

We do automatically switch your resolution to 1280x720 when you are at the TV and back to your favorite resolution as soon as you touch your keyboard.

We do mute the speakers on your PC when localcasting.

[turd ferguson @ Oct 17th 2008 7:35PM]

It looks like they spent way too much money on the remote, and not enough on the box.

[BlckHstryMth @ Oct 17th 2008 8:22PM]

Actually I've seen the labs and know one of the testers for this beastly box. It was no picnic to develop and bug test the whole system and while I agree that the installation process could have been streamlined I think it's also important to note how very few of the people commenting here are computer engineers. Yes a USB would have been more convenient than a VGA, but it would also have decreased performance and the reason to get a ZV box is performance.

[Trip @ Oct 17th 2008 8:59PM]

I'd make it support ATSC in addition to QAM. I have an OTA (antenna) setup and would love a device like this to feed video around to the various TVs in the house.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 19th 2008 8:38PM]

Not sure what you're saying. It communicates over cable. ATSC is an over the air standard, meaning you would need a transmitter (low power to avoid requiring a license?) and an antenna. Is that what you're suggesting?

QAM just means it will handle a digital cable signal. Do you mean you wish it could also use an analog channel, i.e. the whole 6MHz band?

I don't know if it can do this or not.

[Jeremy Mordkoff @ Nov 10th 2008 9:45AM]

We could do ATSC. The biggest issue is the number of frequencies available. Almost every ATSC frequency is used by most cable companies.

to fanfoot -- ATSC can be used over a cable, it's just not used by the major cable companies.

[KilgoreTrout @ Oct 17th 2008 9:22PM]

The better and cheaper alternative abound.
In my house 2 desktop + 1 htpc + 1 Nas and a couple of laptops are connected to 5 screens (ranging from 60" to 19" + 1 projector and a 7.1 sound system+ a 5.1 + a 2.1 and even to a 7" digital frame with WiFi and 2 stereo speakers, (I think I did'nt forget anything important); and I never needed or even considered to spent 500$ on the Zv.tvz..whatever.
I did it with a fast WiFi to connect PCs and HTPC, a good media extender, and even some holes in the walls and 15 mt. long HDMI cables a HDMI "black box" wireless desktops (in one case supplemented by 15 mt. long PS cables to connect the sender of the wireless k-boards and mice), some signal amplifier to broaden the range of the MS wireless k-boards and some ingenuity to make all the wiring disappear from view.
It took some work and some time too but now I'm ready to bet anything that anyone of my connections provide a better and more stable signal than any ZV Tvz or whatever is called, could ever hope to achieve.

[Jeremy Childress @ Oct 17th 2008 11:31PM]

It's a great idea, but way too expensive. I think $200 would be a good starting point.
I would like to see component and optical input as well. While I would like to distribute my pc content anywhere in my house. I would rather be able to distribute my DVR's anywhere in the house instead of being tied to a specific TV.

[zitro62 @ Oct 20th 2008 10:46AM]

I second @JohnTitor by turning into a PopcornHour!

Although I do like the fact the ZvBox broadcasts its signal to multiple TVs and the RF Remote - but I only have 2 tv's in my house and two A110 PopcornHours are still cheaper than this piece of work (that I'm not really critiquing...) And I get my movies, pictures and youTube

I'll echo some other statements on price - I would have been torn between the ZV and Popcornhour, had the ZV been even priced @ or near $300, but with $500 price tag i was comparing the zvbox to some smaller HTPC's.

the only thing ZV has going for it is multiple tvs can pick up the signal... I would love that feature on my PopcornHour (i may have to see if i can do that myself!)

[greentmn1 @ Oct 26th 2008 6:29PM]

Just finishing the basement in my house and I am currently running all necessary wire to complete all of the projects I want. Basically I want an HDTV capable TV in most rooms of my house and two in one room. I have been looking at Russound's CAM and Video Matrix to distribute the HD signals and audio throughout the house. A have a media center PC with dual cable cards in it. This would be my main video source and would need some type of media extender (or wireless laptop as I planned to use) to control what I see on the TV. The ZV's $500 price tag is much lower than the price of the Video Matrix and it allows control of what I see on the TV and each room already has two RG6 pulls. I also like that I am not limited to certain video formats as I am with media extenders as most of my movies are stored as ISO's.

The only problems I see are the latency issue that I have read about and inability to do multiple streams. I would like to see them ability to due multiple streams, I would pay for it if it was an add on pack of say $200 to $300 dollars.