XStreamHD Video

[Scott Greczkowski]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[mooneye14]

I'm still a little fuzzy on the delivery. He said AMC 16 which is at 85.0W which means another dish. Theoretically I guess they could modify the 1000.4 LNB to pick that up if Echostar wanted to. Then you pick movies and shows from a EPG or a search function and they enter a queue. Since all this is uncompressed it can't be watched as it comes through the dish, so you just wait until all the data for the show is downloaded and compiled in the server, then you pull it up? If that's the case, how long is the wait on that?

 

[branchbouncer]

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

I'll stick with Vudu, coming out on all sorts of new devices, TV's, Blu-ray players and more. I pay no monthly fees, SD movies are 2.99-3.99, HD and HDX are 4.99-5.99, PQ isn't Bluray but good enough. They aren't taking the market by storm but if they can hang in there they may do okay, Hell Vonage was supposed to be dead by now and seems to be hanging in there. Have 2 PS3's and Netflix for more viewing. Let Xtream them come out for a couple years then I'll see if it's worth it. Plus warm weather will be here again soon, and we are rarely inside unless it's raining. If all the XtreamHD rentals and fees did come to around 1,500.00 - 2,000.00, no thanks. add that to the 1500.00 I give to E*, TV isn't great- 3D or R2D2 projecting the image on my family room floor. Can spend the money elsewhere and have more fun, that's the insurance, fuel, and Beer/food for the boat all summer long

 

[mike123abc]

It would be great if they could team up with Apple in some way and deliver series from iTunes too. If they could take the series from the most popular cable channels and stream them down in HD for storage on your DVR for a subscription fee it could replace cable/DBS for a lot of people.

I wonder how many TPs it could handle.

I would also like to see more disk storage. It would be great to have 1TB for the PPV BD movies and 1TB for OTA and series I wanted.

 

[Sponge14]

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

QFT about the movie studios missing out on digital distribution like the music industry did. Look what happened to them and the situation they are in now. Sure, it's different because movie theaters are more cost effective then concerts, and then you have TV, etc. helping the movie industry.

I would imagine alot of the costs associated with the service are going to the service itself. I mean, this hardware in the home can't possibly be cheap to make, and I can't imagine renting that much bandwith on a satellite would come cheap either. Seems like the company has too much going against them so soon in the game. High hardware costs + high infrastructure costs = way too high cost for the consumer.

It is a shame that so many companies and ideas come and go before one finally sticks and makes it to be the next DVD. I truly do think that this will be one of those novelty items that only people who have too much money will consider. If it helps other technologies make it mainstream, or even if it goes mainstream itself, it would be wonderful though.

 

[kenny911]

This is not going to fly. Not only the costs but the last thing that I want is another satellite and more wiring at my house. Its 2010, these people should be finding a way to distribute this through the internet.

 

[HiDefRev]

Oh, my !

Hmmm. The guy couldn't even work his own remote controls !!! What does THAT say ????

 

[goaliebob99]

Hmmm. The guy couldn't even work his own remote controls !!! What does THAT say ????

You obviously haven't been to CES and don't know how hectic it can be on the show floor and how remotes can get moved around easily. Ive seen that happen at the dish booth, and at various tv manufacturer's booths. Especially when you have a thousand people coming through your booth every 10 min..

 

[goaliebob99]

This is not going to fly. Not only the costs but the last thing that I want is another satellite and more wiring at my house. Its 2010, these people should be finding a way to distribute this through the internet.

I kind of hear you there its kind of like an appletv on steroids. Aside from the quality, I dont know if there is going to be an advantage.. If this service came out 3 years ago, it might be a different story.

 

[jacmyoung]

Looking at the video, it almost as if he was operating a 922 with tile-like inferface we had seen in the initial 922 demonstration during the last year's CES. The current 922 seemed to have dropped this interface feature.

I agree with an earlier poster, this thing may end up been part of DISH and only then it will make sense for the business to survive. Look to me VOOM all over again.

If this thing is indeed connected to Charlie, then I can see him testing a service catering to high end users without exposing himself to too much risk. If this service shall fail in a year or so (highly likely) Charlie can buy it penny on the dollar, it may work with DISH especially if they can make the service available on all 922s by then without the need to install another satellite dish.

 

[jacmyoung]

You obviously haven't been to CES and don't know how hectic it can be on the show floor and how remotes can get moved around easily. Ive seen that happen at the dish booth, and at various tv manufacturer's booths. Especially when you have a thousand people coming through your booth every 10 min..

That being said though, the interview could have been easily edited to make it look professional. Or the guy should have done a dry run to make sure all demoed features were working properly. This is a pre-recorded interview/demonstration.