VIDEO: Goaliebob99 interviews XstreamHD CEO

**K9SAT** · 01-12-2008 07:36 PM

Guys, I had the opportunity while at CES to interview George Gonzales, the CEO of XstreamHD. While there is still a lot of unknowns about XstreamHD, I feel if and when this service gets off the ground if the price is right it will give Netfilx a run for its money. I specifically like the option of buying the program and having a hard copy on blu-ray delivered.

I hope that you enjoy this interview and I feel that the future is bright for Satelliteguys and XstreamHD

To download the HD version full 1080I DD 5.1 WMVHD (torrent) Click here

**K9SAT** · 01-12-2008 09:27 PM

Ok just uploaded the youtube video

Enjoy.

**Scott Greczkowski** · 01-12-2008 09:38 PM

Wow amazing.

Good interview Bob!

**mike123abc** · 01-12-2008 10:00 PM

So, how does this work exactly? If they have a satellite do they continuously repeat hit movies for the units to automatically record, and work in the lesser movies that users request? So, if you ask for movie X it says it will be available at approximately Y time/date in the future? If they had more HD space it would seem to be better, 500mb does not seem like much if you do not want to repeat movies often.

They surely are not beaming down any movie you want and you are able to start watching immediately. Assuming a Ku-FSS satellite, the entire satellite dedicated, they could probably beam down an average of 20-30 movies/hour in BD/HD-DVD quality (assuming 24 5mbyte/sec streams, 300Mbyte/min, 18GB/hour). If they were smart they could have lets say 8 TPs doing the top 200 movies, each movie would only be about 24 hours away. You would rent the day before to get it downloaded. The rest of the satellite could handle the odd requests. Given 16 streams, they could probably do 400 movies a day, your rental could take anywhere from 1-3 days. Unless of course they want to deliever unpopular movies via broadband.

But even if it takes 3+ days to get a movie it could still be faster than netflix. Especially if you have the hard drive space and can order a bunch at once and have them come in over time as you have space.

It would be a very interesting problem to find the optimal solution for. The more popular the movie the more repeats one would need. You need some very intellegent tracking software to keep track of what everyone wanted, the more a movie is wanted the faster it needs to get played, yet you do not want to keep anyone waiting forever.

**teachsac** · 01-13-2008 10:05 AM

Great job. Looks like it might be a promising product.

S~

**HokieEngineer** · 01-13-2008 12:55 PM

Mike:

They are not streaming the raw video/audio. When I talked with their VP of engineering, he said they have come up with a new, faster way to send the content to the recorder. He wouldn't go into details, but I'm thinking some sort of proprietary IPTV/data stream. He had formerly worked at Hughes Satellite and was very knowledgable. The user will then be able to choose from the movies that are already downloaded on the hard drive of the STB.

I also got the impression from him they would allow the user to preview upcoming releases (movie trailers downloaded ahead of time), and then choose which ones they are interested in. When the time comes that those titles are available in the stream, they would be saved.

It is not a video on demand service, and it will not include normal "channels". This is something you would have in conjunction with your existing service.

**gck105** · 01-14-2008 10:06 PM

I checked out their website and it looks like you set up a queue similar to Netflix and the service downloads your selections.

Looks like a cool product. $399 doesn't sound too bad for the equipment. I wonder what the content will set you back?

XStreamHD

**vurbano** · 01-15-2008 08:10 AM

Well Don Landis says the video is crap after seeing a sample so should we just forget it? What is everyone elses opinion of it?

**Slick** · 01-21-2008 01:49 AM

Could some one exsplain to me what DNLA is and I take it that this DNLA is some thing that is in most or all Blue ray players?

I am really looking forward to this because I am tired of actually having dvd's around the house I want them to be on some sort of hard drive and this sounds to be the ticket for me, Also Bob Good job on the interview.. Cya Slick