Latest CE Pro Magazine reveals the ZeeVee ZvPro

Well looky here, the wonders that is print media isn't useless just yet -- thanks to very long lead times and an ambitious postal worker, the latest edition of CE Pro Magazine reveals the evidently soon to be announced ZvPro. The ad doesn't offer up enough details for us, but it does look like some of our biggest gripes about the original ZeVee Box are addressed. For example, now we have component and Toslink input as well as RS-232 control and an IR port -- no indication if that is an input or an output. The rack mountable device is obviously geared towards the prosumer so it isn't too much of a stretch to assume this little baby will demand a premium price -- if we were the betting type, we'd have our money on over $800. But even at that price, we're sure this box will find at least a few homes as there are plenty of people trying to figure out how to send HD over the existing coax in their home without mounting a STB on the wall below the HDTV.

[Thanks, Utah]

[Chris @ Jan 3rd 2009 9:39PM]

THIS WOULD BE HUGE!!!

A way to centrally distribute the feed from a centrally placed TIVO and Computer would rock!
Lets hope those component jacks are indeed inputs and we shall see.
Ive been dreaming and chasing a ghost when it came to finding a way to distribute HD cablebox feeds on existing coax in the same manner that we used to use good old fashioned modulators to make our own standard definition house channels.

[Erwos @ Jan 3rd 2009 9:43PM]

Agreed. Aiming towards the pro install market is a very smart move. It would also be mind-blowingly useful for corporations that want to do internal TV channel distribution.

[bill cant fart @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:50PM]

Would it be as huge as that coaxial cable sticking out of their house?

[Fernando G. @ Jan 4th 2009 3:06AM]

lol


no toilets or showers, what kind of house is this?

[Patriks7 @ Jan 4th 2009 6:57AM]

@ Fernando G.
Geeks with houses like the one above don't need to shower or use the bathroom..

[bill cant fart @ Jan 4th 2009 8:52AM]

@Patrick

Everyone poops...

[Sofunnytom @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:06PM]

removing my comment just because you fixed it is very low... it seems someone is a little embarassed....

[Ben @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:07PM]

Honestly you caught it so fast I figured you'd appreciate it since the error is no longer there.
Thanks for the correction all the same.

[Metkis @ Jan 4th 2009 2:19AM]

Awww. : )

+ to both of you!

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:25PM]

How does this work? Wouldn't your cable company come after you with a large stick for putting something extra over the coax they are feeding?

And would this let your neighbors also look at your video feed?

[Chris @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:35PM]

In response to Nick,

Up to the cable box in your home it is the cable companies ownership. After that (inside your house) it is the consumers responsibility. The cable company can't touch you there...I'm sorry if I sounded obvious to everyone else.

[Ted @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:50PM]

Unless you're feeding the signal back out to the cable plant it's not going to be a problem. This device is most likely designed to either use spectrum above 1GHZ or trap out a specific channel and re-broadcast on it.

[Agent .25i @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:30PM]

@Chris.
Actually Chris, the cable in your house DOES belong to the company as well. At least here in Canada that's the way it works. The digital signal that runs into the house requires a specific non consumer available coaxial cable RG*. As well as splitters and connectors able to handle the higher frequencies. Any change from the initial setup is not considered fraud... (Unless you split to more TV's than you pay for service on) but it does interfere with the overall noise contributing to the entire coax structure leading back to the fiber nodes, and eventually all the way to the head end signal processing.
Rogers telecommunications here in Canada is spending tonnes of time, effort and money trying to reduce the level of noise on it's system. This noise is caused from people stealing cable, using cheap Radio shack cables and splitters, or even worse, ones from the dollar store. This causes a great deal of loss for them. (Rogers) So they make a point of making sure that all the cable in the house belongs to them as well.

To ensure that it's system can remain intact.

Also to reduce the amount of leakage to stay withing the CRTC's (The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) limits
.
Leakage, is a major concern too. especially in areas where cable theft is high, and in areas where "do it yourselfers" live. (suburbs)
Exposed cable ends leak signal into the air, about two years back the CRTC, shut down Rogers broadcasting in Mississauga (city with about 650,000 people outside of Toronto) because of leakage near the Toronto International Airport causing severe interfearince with the airport towers and aircraft.

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:37PM]

@chris

I'm not making the claim that it isn't your property, but if you put anything on your coax it will naturally flow back up to the cable company's equipment... there is no way you can prevent that from happening... It wouldn't be an issue if it was neighborhood node only you, it is node < splitter > you | neighbor 1 | neighbor 2 | neighbor 3 | ...

It is why if you unlock your cable modem your entire neighborhood experiences a slowdown. You all have to share 1 node.

@ted

That makes sense...

[BigReg @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:37PM]

@Agent .25i

Yeah it doesn't work that way in the US. The service provider has no ownership of inside wiring, only up to the point of demarcation.

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:46PM]

Let me amend the 'there is no way you can prevent that' to 'you need a filter to prevent that'

And these use channel 125 and from what I have read there is a filter that comes with the ZeeVee system

[Thunderbuck @ Jan 4th 2009 5:57AM]

Ummm, Nick?

There's NO risk of "leakage" back to your neighbors' cable. The incoming cable ends at the cable box, which then has component outputs that feed into this thing.

This box then uses the existing coax in the house to distributes its own signals. IE, in 99% of installs it will sit where the cable enters the house, and divert the cable signal there. You'll ideally have a single cable-box for each TV in the house, all nicely tucked away in a cabinet in the basement. Rack-mount HD tuners, anyone?

This means that installs in apartment buildings for this thing will be a total bitch, mind you...

[Mr. Ford @ Jan 4th 2009 11:27AM]

@Thunderbuck
The existing coax in the home is typically tied in to the incoming feed. Most people don't have a closed circuit coax network in their home. Even if you have a single rg6/59 run from the demarc to a distribution unit in a closet, everything on the loop goes back to the demarc. When you go from the component out of a cable box into this, it goes back out coax for distribution. That coax plugs back in to the coax circuit that already runs to the other tv's in your home, therefore feeding back to the demarc. The way to prevent feedback without filters is to have the circuit disconnected from the demarcation point. In turn, you would have to pull individual runs to each location where you want the cable boxes to be.

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 4th 2009 5:16PM]

@thunderbuck

No, that is not how it works. With your example you would need to run 30 wires down the utility pole from the node, which would have to have a thousand interfaces... WAY too complex (and unnecessary.) If you go to the ZeeVee website and dig around you will find that it puts the digital signal on channel 150, so your TV tunes to what would otherwise be channel 150 on your cable system (but almost no cable company uses channels that high, according to ZeeVee's website.) This thing is designed to work in tandem with cable television. With that in mind, there IS A FILTER THAT COMES WITH ZEEVEE PRODUCTS THAT FILTERS OUT CHANNEL 150

[Les @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:26PM]

"unlimited video on demand from the internet"

Piracy FTW

[Rob @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:29PM]

This seems a bit high for something that's nothing more than a modulator. I know there probably was plenty of RnD involved. But, $800 for something like this is a bit too much for my taste. Cut it, in half, or better yet, reduce it to one third and I'd consider it.

[Shyam D @ Jan 4th 2009 1:10AM]

The fact of the matter is that it's not just a modulator. HD streams are digital MPEG streams that have then been modulated. One the band is far wider for an HD stream then it is for a SD stream making the analog circuit components a lot more expensive then your $30 Radio Shack Modulator for your PS. Secondly, licensing MPEG for such products is ridiculously expensive. HDCP and other such concerns have mostly killed this market off. Most ATSC Modulators are a combination of software locked to hardware that start at $10k to $15k. Since that is the case, this is a great deal. Hopefully the MPIAA won't kill it off.

Btw, the alternatives don't fair much better in terms of cost. Slingcatcher HDs with SlingBoxes works decently. It's going to cost about the same and will be less convenient. HDMI over Cat6 via Baluns is a better alternative, but that requires adding in new wiring in most cases, which could end up costing a lot more ( considering most people pay someone to put it in and contractors love to charge exponentially more for Cat 6 over Cat 5e). The baluns are not cheap either, ~ 300 - 600 range for 1 pair.

[bill cant fart @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:48PM]

I wish I was neighbors with whoever lived in that house! Free giant cable!!

[Derry Quinn @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:55PM]

Small error on Toslink? Should this be To S-Link or am I missing something? :/

[Bob Dole @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:40PM]

Really it should be TOSLINK, but lowercase is okay, I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK

[Wormbolt @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:20PM]

Now just change the name to ZiiVii and make it compatible with the Wii.

[Sublimewulf @ Jan 4th 2009 12:00AM]

Do statistics show consumers like the E (ee) Sound??????

OMG NO MORE ZII WII VII EEE VEE MEE MII MI PRODUCTS.

[BigReg @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:42PM]

If this thing is under $1000 and has two inputs (looks like it), I'm buying it as soon as it comes out. Today the only other option I know of that is similar and not nearly as sleek is a couple of slingbox pro hds and slingcatchers. One set is $600, so $1000 and no set top boxes is HUGE.

[Jeff @ Jan 4th 2009 1:06AM]

"at your all HDTVs"

Hope it wasn't submitted for print...

[nacho @ Jan 4th 2009 1:07AM]

what i see is a hardware that convert hd signal 1080p to 480i rf signal? 100% vintage old school ghostly rainy image

i don't find anything attractive on that.

[jkswiss @ Jan 4th 2009 2:12AM]

I've always found coaxials to be a little strange. Way back when coaxials were the first cables to come along, attaching your VCR to your TV. Then along came the composite cable, which separated the two audio channels from the video. Then came the component, which separated the video feed even further. Then along comes HDMI, which reverts back to the original days of combining all audio and video channels into one cable.

The extremely weird part to me and the bit I don't understand is that all this high def content that requires HDMI cables and whatnot is all delivered to me by, get this, a coaxial cable, an RJ-45 to be specific. So after the high def content gets to my box, sent all along by a coaxial, it suddenly requires an HDMI cable?? What gives?

[Taylor Barratt @ Jan 4th 2009 6:31PM]

There's likely a number of reasons for this but I'd say the biggest driving factor is HDMI provides an "uncompressed/decrypted" video signal as it were. Requiring only the cheapest of microchips to process into an image. HD data travelling over RG6 (Coax) in terms of ATSC (in this case) is compressed and therefore would require decryption at the display device to show an image. Those chips costing a bit more and also limiting, in many ways compatibility with other data streams. As it is ATSC MPEG2 isn't terribly efficent compression (and it doesn't officially, as far as I know, support 1080p either).

That said, the cable itself is capable of carrying higher resolution data.. just with a different compression method. Though this device does appear to basically create your own local HDTV cable station and your ATSC tuners (built into most HDTVs) will let you change channels to view the different sources you're feeding into the device (and it's spitting out in ATSC format on your homes COAX/RG6)

[Mr. Ford @ Jan 4th 2009 11:52AM]

"RJ-45 to be specific"
I think you meant RG-6/59. RJ-45 is a socket standard for ethernet cable.

The data sent to your home from the provider is compressed, allowing them to send multiple channels to your home over the same cable. At your home, the data is converted (decompressed) from the encrypted signal they send you, using their cable box, to a signal that your tv can use. When using cable card technology, that coax is hooked directly to your TV using said coax, and all of the decompression/decryption happens in a "cable box" built in to your tv. This somewhat proprietary system of distribution prevents you from using another company's cable box, copying HD from HDMI output, or pirating the signal via brute force, RF distribution.

"Then along comes HDMI, which reverts back to the original days of combining all audio and video channels into one cable"
Although HDMI is in one jacket, it can't be compared to a single coax cable. Coax has 2 conductors whereas HDMI has 19. It is essentially taking 9 coax cables and bundling them together. The problem with RF signal transfer is that it combines the audio and video not just in one cable but in a single pair of conductors. HDMI has enough conductors to transfer all the data from RGB/HV, SPDIF digital audio, plus HDCP encryption.

[David @ Jan 4th 2009 2:36AM]

This is nothing more than a fancy rf modulator. It is true that you could use it to distribute a signal through a home or business. You could cue up your favorite film on your PC and watch it in any room of your home or business. By simply looking at the inputs, as many of us who look at those things, you can see how the directionality flows. It's a handy device if you tend to acquire most of your media through the net. I for one, would love to be able to load my music video play list, and have it show on the displays in my home during a party. But I wouldn't pay 800 for something i could accomplish with a 200 video card, a few splitters and a roll of RG cable.

[BenDy @ Jan 4th 2009 3:48AM]

This is no new concept guys. This is definitely not aimed at the pro market. This is met to be affordable (fail there).
Just google Multi Room video.

[Carl M @ Jan 4th 2009 4:19AM]

Several of you don't seem to understand what this box is doing.

What it does is to take in uncompressed HD video & audio, compress it in real time to MPEG2, encode it into an ATSC data stream, then modulate that so that you can send it over a single coax cable to your HDTV(s), which can use its HD tuner to decode it and display it.

In fact, you should be able to gang several of these boxes together and distribute multiple channels of ATSC video to your TVs, creating your own in-home broadcasting station.

To understand this a bit better, realize that uncompressed HD video is 1920*1080*30*2 = 124 megabytes per second. Compressed video is about 20 megabits or 2.5 megabytes per second. So this box is doing a 50:1 data compression (in real time) along with the encoding & modulation. That's also why uncompressed HD video requires HDMI or 3 coaxial cables, whereas multiple channels of compressed HD video will fit onto a single coax.

If you can run 4 coaxial cables from room to room, then of course you can just run the component video plus SPDIF audio uncompressed that way. But this only gives you a single channel, and it requires 4X the wires.

[Mr. Ford @ Jan 4th 2009 11:56AM]

I hope that everyone catches the ATSC part in your description. The coax output sends the same type of signal that OTA broadcast TV uses. The receiving TV is required to have an ATSC tuner in order for this to work. If not, they will be required to have the same type of set top box that is in all of the HDTV transition commercials.

[Lewis @ Jan 4th 2009 6:50AM]

clearly this is not ready for prime-time. An interesting box, but did anyone else notice the computer inputs are not VGA connectors, they are DB-9's.

Lewis

[Mr. Ford @ Jan 4th 2009 12:00PM]

That is a little bit odd. On their website, they have a device called the Zv Box. It has HD15 in and out.

[DavidA @ Jan 4th 2009 8:55AM]

I wish this was already out, I just spent $800+ on an HDMI matrix switch to distribute HD throughout parts of my house. That didn't include the $ per run for the dual Cat5e cables and HDMI Extenders. This would have been cheaper and could have used my existing RG-6 cable.

Oh, and those that are kinda "meh" - a good 4 channel SDTV stereo modulator runs upwards of $500, I'm replacing mine with the HDMI matrix switch. Also, if it doesn't support HDCP, I really don't see the point - I can promise you that you're not going to find a modulator on the market that supports HDCP for very cheap at all.

[Tomheivers @ Jan 4th 2009 10:40AM]

Nothing new here
HD Tv by coax, we even have it!
Costs about 200 euros for the device.

Why is this even that strange?

[__smooth__ @ Jan 4th 2009 11:44AM]

I don't know what all the fuss is about. We've been using this technology forever here. All our signals are run through Coax these days. My ISP gives me 30Mb Internet, TV and phone all through the cable. The only problem is that most shows aren't on HD yet and you have to buy a seperate box (similar to this one) to decode HD signal. And even then, there are only 4 or 5 channels that actually transmit in HD. Btw, my country is Portugal.

[Mr. Ford @ Jan 4th 2009 12:05PM]

"The only problem is that most shows aren't on HD yet and you have to buy a [separate] box (similar to this one) to decode HD signal."
The purpose of this box is to take the decoded HD signal from that box, and distribute it too all HDTV's in the home. Until now, the only way to do it was with some sort of HD distribution system that would take the component output and split it into multiple component outputs. This system resulted in less than perfect picture quality, and it required you to run new cable to every HDTV in the home.

[aho @ Jan 4th 2009 7:44PM]

Some people here are dumb, at least read other people post clearly explaining how this thing work on here before you post. I'm looking at you _smooth_.

[Ryan Roat @ Jan 5th 2009 1:39PM]

>>In fact, you should be able to gang several of these boxes together and distribute multiple channels of ATSC video to your TVs, creating your own in-home broadcasting station.

I've noticed a couple references to this possibility. But another comment mentioned that the box is set to particular frequency for output onto your internal coax. Is that frequency changeable? If not, wouldn't that impose a limit of just one box on a coax systems? (I guess some buildings have multiple parallel coax feeds, but I suspect most TVs don't have more than one ATSC/QAM jack/tuner anyway.)

All that being noted, I can't believe that they'd overlook making the output frequency changeable for a rack-mount/prosumer style device, even if the original product was locked to a single frequency.

Either way, I am definitely interested in this device.

[Mr. Salty @ Jan 6th 2009 2:32PM]

Their existing product (ZvBox) is configurable for any channel up to 135 so I'd have to imagine this thing will be also.

I've been reluctant to buy HD sets for my other rooms because I didn't want to deal with the distribution issue (I currently use an SDTV modulator and also send IR over coax). This will make things a lot easier, and probably drain my bank account accordingly...

[njohnson @ Mar 11th 2009 2:43PM]

Unless they've changed they use a QAM modulator not ATSC which is a better choice for cable systems since it is waht cable companies use. You can find DTV converter boxes that have both ATSC and QAM tuners but none that have QAM qualify under the government's $40 subsidy so those won't work. Those boxes had to be "bare bones", and can't even have component outputs to qualify.

TV's also need to be "cable ready" since that means they have a QAM tuner (most don't say QAM but should say "cable ready")

And one point a number of readers (posters) seem to have missed: The main intent of this device is to broadcsat HD content to all the TV's in your home cable system. Since you can already do that for live cable programming its main application is when playing back recorded programs such as on a TIVO or other DVR or DVD player or content from the Internet.

The big problem in this application is real time MPEG-2 MP@HL encoding which until recently required a $10,000 rack monthed encoder. This device isn't just a QAM modulator. That wouldn't accomplish anything since you have no access to MPEG-2 encoded transport streams.

Ironically that's what the cable company sends to your DVR or TIVO and they store that MPEG data directly on their hard disks but it is not accessible so it can't be sent directly to a QAm modulator. The DVR's or TIVO's decode the MPEG data and send it out via HDMI and component video and s/pdif or analog audio. That's all you have access to.

A device like this can't use HDMI with HDCP becuae the HDCP license specifically prohibits it so it must use component video and go through the expensive encoding process to turn it back into a MPEG-2 transport stream so the TV receiver can receive it without an expensive box at each TV.

I hope that makes sense.