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Verizon Media Server and IP client hands-on
We caught up with Verizon at the booth and had a chance to spend some time with the new whole-home HD DVR and its clients, we were expecting last year. The VMS1100 media server features six tuners and a 1TB hard drive. You can connect up to five Motorola Medios+ IPC1100 IP-based set-top boxes to it to expand your DVR's reach to six TVs. Not enough for you? Well, you can actually setup two Media Servers in your house and then scale the system up to 12 TVs. The experience on the clients is nearly identical to that of the TV connected to the server. The whole thing works over IP and with built-in MoCA it'll run over the existing coax cables in your house. The user interface on the Home Media Server and clients is based on HTML5, which we're told is why it's so snappy and switches so quickly between other apps like YouTube and HSN's Shop By Remote. What's odd is that the IPC1100 client has a tuner, but it's unused. Instead, the client relies on the server's tuner for live TV. One other unused feature is the server's ability to transcode. Although, Verizon did seem to intent to leverage this down the road, perhaps to prepare transfers to a portable devices for offline viewing. An exact release date wasn't something Verizon wanted to talk about, but it's expected to roll out this year, and presumably it'll be a staged rollout as we've seen in the past. The whole-home DVR is expected to be offered as a premium over the existing offering, but exactly how much more it'll cost is unknown.
Verizon FiOS TV Media Server due in the coming months, delivers content to 3rd party devices
Fall is officially here and we're closing in on the final quarter of 2012, a time when products usually get real or fade into the vapor forever. One that we've been waiting to hear about just got a little more real as the Verizon Media Server (VMS), which Big Red teased last December and promised in 2012, got a little mention in the company's latest comments to the FCC. While attempting to persuade the FCC to standardize an IP content interface and delay the December 2012 deadline, Verizon revealed that the rollout of its new product will begin in the coming months. The full feature set of this server is still unknown, but one interesting feature is its ability to stream multiple high-def stream simultaneously to 3rd party devices connected to your home network. Of course without a industry wide streaming standard -- again, like Verizon is requesting the FCC to ratify -- who knows exactly what devices could be in the mix.
VM2Go - manage Parallels machines, run them from an iPod and more
One of the signs that you've 'made it' as a 3rd party (besides, of course, having great sales) is when other 3rd parties develop tools and apps that work with your app. In this vein, VM2Go from BriteMac (which we covered when it was in beta) is apparently the first 3rd party utility that allows you to manage your Parallels virtual machines, move them to an iPod, USB thumb drive or external hard drive and even run them from these devices. Various other tricks up VM2Go's sleeve include backing up VMs to DVD and a clean deletion of VMs and any associated desktop aliases that point to them. VM2Go offers a trial download that runs 20 times, though we can't figure out a purchase price as of this writing since their eSellerate store is currently down.
