Wireless in living rooms is nothing new, but bringing it to the set top boxes (STBs) that power a lot of the programming you receive is only just begun. Because it takes a lot of throughput power to deliver digital video, voice and music, Airgo Networks thinks its 3rd Generation chipset is just the ticket. So it has announced a multimedia-targeted version of its silicon, called MIMO Media, for just that purpose.
Right out of the gate Airgo has partners to announce, the big one being STMicroelectronics. It holds, according to Beck, anywhere from 65 to 75 percent of the STB chipset market. “When a reference design comes from STMicro, everyone in the world develops on it. We provide the ability to plug this wireless technology in and go.”
The first actual STB with the MIMO Media chips will be the V2O Wireless Home Media Network from original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Caton Overseas of China. The company also which uses STMicro’s chips for MPEG decoding. There will be a couple of devices in V2O, including a central server and client STBs for other rooms in the house for receiving. The first version will support satellite TV; future products will be for cable and IPTV. Beck says they may also integrate the chips items like LCD TVs.
This MIMO Media tech can go beyond STBs and into any kind of home gateway like a DSL or cable modem, says Beck. Anyone who wants to provide wireless video and voice services. Infonetics projects STB unit growth to go up 50% in the next three years as Voice over IP and IP-based TV continue to grow.
The biggest problem with being an Early Adopter is waiting for all the pieces of the puzzle to catch up with each other. Wireless tech with enough horsepower to haul a lot of Standard Def video through the air can be problematic.
These dudes appear to be moving up on the next stage — moving Hi Def throughout the house without wires. They say they can do 240mbps!
I’m not saying the wireless path these guys are heading down is bad, but they’re doing nothing one cannot already do with a wired setup. And since STBs tend not to move around your house, wired is just fine.
The question is around setup for lower end users, not early adopters. Will this be able to pull more people into the media-everywhere fold?
#1 …they’re doing nothing one cannot already do with a wired setup.
and The question is around setup for lower end users,…
Those two comments go hand-in-hand, to my way of thinking.
For example:
A. I don’t want to rip into the walls of my two-story, 15-year-old house – just to run wires for “entertainment”.
B. My mother is just getting broadband in her assisted-living complex, so in-wall mods are out of the question.
Wireless [or powerline] distribution would be preferrable in my two cases – but how well will MIMO work when a significant number of nearby households/apartments are also using multiple-channels of a given frequency band? [since I’m already experiencing 802.11b/g becoming “popular” in my neighborhood]
#2… It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that I don’t see a huge market in wireless media devices. If there is, why isn’t the Apple Airport Express selling like the Apple iPod?
As for your A & B, I’d say the people who really want to do this don’t see the wire issue as that big of a hurdle, and that anyone living at an assisted-living facility (my own grandmother included) isn’t in the target market for these devices.
And that’s the problem: The people in the target market for these wireless devices also have the ability (cash, technology know-how, time) to do the same activites (movies, music, games) with a wired solution today.
James — there are 2 components governing the sale of wireless vs. wired devices. Convenience and price. The Airport Express doesn’t hit either.
An IT geek like yourself finds networking products somewhat less than alchemy — which is what it is for the rest of us. The Airport Express may work easily when coupled with an Airport base station; but, when I tried to mate one with a Linksys router — I discovered a number of roadblocks to complete satisfaction.
Mostly — Apple support wouldn’t deal with the Linksys product and Linksys support wouldn’t deal with the Apple Express! So, screw it. I returned it.
Now, that’s OT. Even if it worked, it won’t do what EyeTV will. And EyeTV hasn’t yet convinced me I can sit in my home/office and watch a Hi-Def football match in a window on my Cinema display. Or work with the laptop in the afternoon breezes on the portal of our workshop — while keeping up with a news broadcast on the screen, live.
Running 80211.g [souped up a wee bit], still doesn’t hack it — even though I have the processor and display speed. When some of these chipsets hit the streets — I’ll either pop for Apple or Belkin — and continue to spoil myself. Running wires in a lot of older homes and apartments simply isn’t an option.
Meanwhile, wi-fi is ubiquitous. I posted the China post [further up] while getting an old change for my pickup. A young woman walked into the garage while I was working — saw there was wi-fi — and went back out to her car to get her own laptop. There are coffee shops in town that have laptops on a third or more of the tables during the morning rush hour. People accept the convenience and add it to their homes. You can get G for $30 at your neighborhood big box.
As for your A & B, I’d say the people who really want to do this don’t see the wire issue as that big of a hurdle…
But for me, it was a choice of trying to run Cat5 cable from the side of my house where the cable connection is, to the side of the house where my computer is. My choice was: hassle of routing cable, drilling holes, etc – or – buy an Airport Express [Yes, I’m one of those people, with an iMac].
And since STBs tend not to move around your house, wired is just fine.
From the article: “There will be a couple of devices in V2O, including a central server and client STBs for other rooms in the house for receiving. ”
Doing that in a pre-wired home is plausible, but running network calbe to multiple rooms seems more trouble than it is worth – especially for the “lower end users” you mentioned in #1.
there’s too much interference, Save wireless for when is desperately needed. Example.
My Digital set top box is wired but gets temporally toasted by turning on the microwave.
I bought a wireless AV sender which gets interfered with by me walking past (am i radioactive or just cutting up the signal?), More interference by making a wireless phone call & again by using the microwave (even when defrosting cabbage), very annoying.
I bought a Bluetooth USB dongle to control my media centre from my phone, which woks nicely, until i need to use it where it interferes with the audio / video signal on the AV sender.
(Why don’t mobile phones pickup locally sent av signals.. that would be cool, double as a mini TV or portable speakers for around the house/garden?!? (Come on sonyerricson or nokia, fight for it! Dammit fight for my money!))
I used to have wireless network but that dropped out so much that i went back to wired.
My point is that everything is going wireless too quickly and things interfere with each other, Stay with wired as much as possible.
The only other solution is to only use one wireless device at a time, which is ridiculous in this day and age.
And what about the radiation of all these wireless devices, including our cell phones, wireless phones, wireless keyboards and mice, wireless doorbells, wireless wires. etc…
oh yeah.. and radio / video transmission. Do they make us smarter? Likely not. Dumber? I don’t know. Worried about it either way.. Well maybe a bit. There are no long term studies available about how all these different wireless signals affect our neurology or cellular makeup.
Only time will tell, I still cant pickup FM radio in my teeth, maybe one day.
#4… I went through the same Apple Airport Express to Linksys Router hell that you did, and I agree that the process is not in the same league as the process used with an iPod. That being said, none of the alternatives are any easier… and if anyone was going to try to make a buck off of making it easier it would be Apple, and they’re not. Why? My belief is that they don’t see a market for it: If you really wanted to do this, you already have it in one form or another, so no need to make it easier. That belief could very well be wrong, but I still don’t see this market being the same size as the iPod market… even with a strong dose of Apple hype.
To go a step further. Let’s say all of this exists: You’ve got a wifi network in your home fast enough to handle HD video, and a centralized server with your saved content (music, movies) with remote outposts (STBs) all over your home. How does your cable/satellite content mix in with this? Right now it doesn’t, and none of these solutions have the backing of any cable/satellite company to make me think that will change. Since more people watch TV in their home than listen to music and watch movies, that strikes me as the key to getting people to buy in to all of this.
#5… I’m not questioning any of that. What I’m saying is that the segment of customers in your group… that want the technology but can’t meet the physical requirements… isn’t a large enough group to warrant a lot of R&D money going in to this. Using the Apple Airport Express as an example, that product has been out for a few years… and nothing truly better has come out. Why? It’s all about marketshare.
I’m sure a decent system will be out along with 802.11n technology, and I’m sure I’ll breakdown and buy it. I’m just not excited enough by it all to think I’m getting something great, new, and wonderful.