XStreamHD Video

**Scott Greczkowski** · 01-09-2010 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by mrplow

I saw this at NAB, it looks great but it seems to me to be a lot of expense to watch Blu-ray quality movies. A second dish, another satellite receiver, cat 5 cables between receivers and monthly fees. It's just easier to keep netflix. I told them if they could get it to work with my Dish system I have now, I think they would sell more systems. They told me that it's really a niche service for extremely high end home theaters.

Its not just for watching movies, its a DLNA server which allows you to share all your media to other devices in your house. In addition it has 3 ATSC tuners so that you can watch OTA television on any of those devices.

Just think you can enjoy all of this on things such as your Playstation 3, and TV's which are DLNA compatible without the need for additional boxes / receivers.

**mrplow** · 01-09-2010 11:57 AM

It was a little confusing to me because it was part of the Echostar booth, but it's really a service for people who don't necessarily want satellite tv. It doesn't really compliment Dish service but instead replaces it. It was pretty amazing technology.

**dfergie** · 01-09-2010 12:03 PM

Actually Sling is next to Dish, XStream is in the Lower South Hall ...

They had the paper work to sign people up, I still haven't got to check out any of the info...

**Ilya** · 01-09-2010 12:16 PM

I think this will all depend on their library. If they will offer HD movies that are not available on Blu-ray from Netflix and are not currently shown on other channels, I will be interested!

**Scott Greczkowski** · 01-09-2010 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by mrplow

It was a little confusing to me because it was part of the Echostar booth, but it's really a service for people who don't necessarily want satellite tv. It doesn't really compliment Dish service but instead replaces it. It was pretty amazing technology.

Not part of Echostar at all and was not part of their booth.

They were however in the Echostar both at the NAB show as they rent satellite space from Echostar, but that is their only connection.

**navychop** · 01-09-2010 01:28 PM

Well, they are quite close to where I live. Maybe one day I'll drop by, just to see what kind of operation they have. Maybe March or so.

I just don't see a successful business plan here, but maybe I'm wrong.

**SRW1000** · 01-09-2010 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by Scott Greczkowski

From memory the movies to rent were $6.99 but that's for a full 1080p movie in the highest quality plus the lossless audio.

XStreamHD is not going to be for everyone but if you want the best quality audio and video in your house then this is a product for you. As I said before I was impressed with what I saw.

At $7 for a rental, I can't see this flying. I thought the hardware prices seemed reasonable, for a start up. I can kind of see the $10 monthly fee. But you can rent a BD for about $2 through Netflix or Blockbuster Online. It's really hard to justify a $5 premium, in addition to the monthly fee. Heck, just the monthly fee would get you about four Netflix BD rentals.

I can't see enough people signing up for this to sustain the model. Vudu is struggling, with similar pricing. While XStreamHD will likely offer higher quality, a chunk of the market won't want to deal with the dish, and the hardware is more expensive. The networking feature is another nice benefit, but there are other solutions (cheaper) to store OTA content, and most rental viewings would probably be done through the primary viewing area anyway.

I had high hopes for this, but media pricing will likely make it fail.

Scott

**Sponge14** · 01-09-2010 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by SRW1000

At $7 for a rental, I can't see this flying. I thought the hardware prices seemed reasonable, for a start up. I can kind of see the $10 monthly fee. But you can rent a BD for about $2 through Netflix or Blockbuster Online. It's really hard to justify a $5 premium, in addition to the monthly fee. Heck, just the monthly fee would get you about four Netflix BD rentals.

I can't see enough people signing up for this to sustain the model. Vudu is struggling, with similar pricing. While XStreamHD will likely offer higher quality, a chunk of the market won't want to deal with the dish, and the hardware is more expensive. The networking feature is another nice benefit, but there are other solutions (cheaper) to store OTA content, and most rental viewings would probably be done through the primary viewing area anyway.

I had high hopes for this, but media pricing will likely make it fail.

Scott

+1 Why would I want to pay $500 for the server and pro receiver, then pay $7 per movie? That's insane! You can get a ps3 as your blu-ray player for $300, then have $200 left over for your netflix, Blockbuster unlimited rental, etc. subscriptions. My Blockbuster costs me $23 a month and I can rent as many blu-rays, dvds, or games as I want. Netflix is about the same too IIRC. So I can get a PS3, plus 9 or so months of UNLIMITED rentals, just for the initial price to get started on this system.

Then take into account that devices like this have in the past, suffered from not getting movies ready for download on their release date.

Finally, let me add this up:
500 (startup) + 120 ($10 a month for the service if I understand correctly) + $105 a month for 15 movies a month (which is what I personally rent.) Now for a year of movies on this thing, you are looking at $1,880?!?!? Come on now, are people really looking at this thing to seriously put a dent in ANY other company's bottom line? Who is willing to pay $2000 a year for the convenience of not walking to their mailbox?

Yeah, it's an awesome proof of concept, and yes, it seems to have some big technology backing it up. But so did devices like the Philips CD-I, betamax, Atari Jaguar, etc. and we all see how for that got them....

**grydlok** · 01-09-2010 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by navychop

Well, they are quite close to where I live. Maybe one day I'll drop by, just to see what kind of operation they have. Maybe March or so.

I just don't see a successful business plan here, but maybe I'm wrong.

I was about to say that You and I are closer.

**SRW1000** · 01-09-2010 02:34 PM

Originally Posted by Sponge14

Finally, let me add this up:
500 (startup) + 120 ($10 a month for the service if I understand correctly) + $105 a month for 15 movies a month (which is what I personally rent.) Now for a year of movies on this thing, you are looking at $1,880?!?!? Come on now, are people really looking at this thing to seriously put a dent in ANY other company's bottom line? Who is willing to pay $2000 a year for the convenience of not walking to their mailbox?

And to put that in perspective, you could easily buy around 100 Blu-rays for that price.

I was really looking forward to this product/service, and hoping that they could do something reasonable with content pricing. It doesn't look possible, though.

Not that this is all XStreamHD's doing. Studios may be pricing their content so high that this is the best they can do. If that's the case, the studios are making a big mistake. In the long run, their movies will be distributed digitally. They really need to find a way to price it to market expectations, or it will end up being free. I'm not advocating piracy, but it's foolish to ignore the possibility, as the music industry did.

Scott