http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/ Engadget Comments for Switched On: Next steps toward the IP tuner http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
OHH! that rhymed!]]>Nov 11th 2009 7:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/ 100000 paid crap apps from apple.
Rhymes more]]>Nov 11th 2009 7:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 7:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
1. Most video sites on the Internet use Flash. So, supporting that gets you most of the video on the Internet.
2. Adobe gets to deal with the codecs. Sure, H.264 would be rad, but what about DivX, Xvid, etc, etc that people will want? If a TV maker say, "we support Flash," Adobe is the one that has to answer the codec question. It's a lot less work for the TV makers because they are probably just giving units to Adobe to support. TV makers won't actually doing any development work.

That said, I'd rather see a bunch of supported codecs with the number of codecs supported being a point differentiation. That would give more potential flexibility to the user, especially if it did Flash and a bunch of other things.]]>Nov 11th 2009 7:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 7:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
Also, while Flash is certainly King of the Hill right now, it isn't clear to me things will stay that way. With HTML5, upgrades to Flash, various fragmented MP4 approaches being pitched, streaming using HTML, phones getting more important and generally not supporting flash, etc etc things are getting a little more muddy right now.]]>Nov 11th 2009 8:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 7:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 7:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 7:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
Typical SD content on cable, encoded with MPEG-2, is 3.75Mbps (megaBITs per second)
Typical HD content on cable, encoded with MPEG-2 is 15Mbps (or more like 38.8/3 lately) for 1080i

Using h.264, the best codec available at the moment, gets you about 2:1 vs. this. So maybe 2Mbps for SD and 7Mbps-ish for HD.

Currently nobody streams at those rates. XBox, Apple TV etc all run around 4Mbps - 5Mbps. If you ignore the Vudu XL format or whatever its called anyway. Lets say 6Mbps at the top end. They do this partly by doing 24fps rather than 30, but also by using 720p (1280x720) rather than 1080i.

And even that isn't real streaming. Netflix, Hulu, etc all stream at much lower rates than that.

If you're talking current streaming bit rates from Hulu, Netflix etc, your Comcast 250GByte cap should be fine. 250GBytes = 2Terabits. At 6Mbps that's 92 hours in a month. Or about 3 hours a day.

For CURRENT usage you'll probably squeak by. In the future when everybody gets all their video this way and maybe you have multiple consumers in your household, and bitrates go up not down, and ... then this WILL be a problem.

And you shouldn't say *cough, cough* Comcast. You should say *cough, cough* Time Warner. Their caps are much much much worse than Comcast's. Try 40GB and less.]]>Nov 11th 2009 8:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 9:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 9:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 8:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 9:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 8:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 8:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 8:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
Personally, I'm going with external boxes for the foreseeable future. At least a $200-$300 box I can toss in the trash if that bet doesn't work out.]]>Nov 11th 2009 8:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Is it because I got it on BestBuy in Black Friday 2006 for $1000 when it was $1600.
Add to that the $600 PS3 that made the TV a must buy at the time.
Both required overnight lines]]>Nov 11th 2009 8:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 11th 2009 8:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 12th 2009 1:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/Nov 12th 2009 6:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/
Wow. Im hoping this turns out to be better than what we can do now with a PC.]]>Nov 12th 2009 11:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/switched-on-next-steps-toward-the-ip-tuner/http://www.liveonlinechannels.com/bl-engdgt/main.htm]]>Nov 21st 2009 11:56AM