I don't know what chipset it uses but it should be readily available (look for Scott's thread when it was released as he typically takes pictures of the insides!) and then look up the specs from Broadcom.
The biggest problem I have seen in what he has said is he is quoting the field not the frame spec. 2 fields make a frame in the interlaced scan. The speed at which the 2 are laced together is much faster than the human eye can see.
Depends on your definition of the word 'close'...
It's hard to exactly quantify the bit rate on E that easily. They use VBR (variable bit rate) where they shift bits tween all the different channels on the tp. On 1 ch it could be 15 while a talking head pix might only be 4. This is a continuous shifting of bits tween all the chs on a tp. But it is never the rate that a Blu-Ray can output. Really can't say what the new streaming bit rates are though.
I was playing around with this a lot last month. The HD programs all came down variable but many were surprisingly steady at 8Mbps. I was very happy with the PQ. SD was MUCH better than via sat, with something that looked to my eye more like a DVD. Last night I was looking at a Care Bears Oopsie Does It with my 7yo, which was supposedly SD. But it was widescreen and I suspect mislabelled. Also great PQ.
8Mbps isn't that bad. It could be better. This is just something I think they should do. I feel that they should start putting 2 or 3 HD's at most per tp then fill in with SD then the VBR would probably work a bit better and have more bits to shift tween the HD's and worry less about the SD as most times those can get by w/ 1.5 to 2 just fine(all this in MPEG 4 Turbo 8psk).
There is no doubt that the Blu-Ray will be better. I doubt that even the dnld ppv via the net still has the bitrate that the disc has.
