Place Shifting
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Recently, I wrote an article titled
"The Perfect VoiP Softphone and IM client", where I listed my top requirements for the perfect softphone. Indeed, my perfect softphone client was much more than your typical softphone so I offered an alternative name - "unified communications client". For instance, one really cool feature in my "wishlist" is "
Streaming of my personal video and audio files to my buddies. Think Slingbox or Orb Networks."
Basically, my proposed feature would allow you to remotely access your home entertainment system and view live TV, change channels, or even view pre-recorded content. Heck, most softphones already do audio via VoIP and video for videoconferencing calls, so it's not much of a technical hurdle to add video streaming support from a TV tuner card or other video source. Place-shifting TV content is a fast growing phenomenon among not just techies and gadget freaks but the Average Joe with a TiVo box in their home. If this can be extended to software, in particular VoIP software, the potential to build "buzz", ramp up very quickly, and to compete with the likes of
Skype is there. The problem today is that all VoIP clients are a dime-a-dozen; they're all the same, with the same features, i.e. SIP standard, video, IM built-in, free calling promotions, blah blah blah. See
The VoIP Clone Wars Have Begun... for more proof. Something uinique such as remote TV access -- access to your remote PC's multimedia content could be a key differentiator to go up against the likes of Skype.
Home entertainment and mobile entertainment are two very fast growing industries. Just look at the video iPod, Sony PSP gaming system, and many home theater setups with 5.1 surround sound and expensive plasma displays. With customers spending fortunes on their multimedia content and hardware, customers are clamoring for easy access to their personal multimedia content - it's one reason why the iPod is so successful. Now just image if you could have a single software client that does it all - IM, VoIP, unified address book (IM & VoIP), videoconferencing, access to your multimedia collection, including MP3s, pictures. AVIs, DiVX, Quicktime, etc. Why run 5 clients with 5 separate buddy lists, each with its own advantages/disadvantages when you can simply run one application that does it all?
Well, there isn't a software client today that "does it all", but SightSpeed comes
damn close.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and VoIP and video and im and conferencing and tv and Place Shifting and slingbox and sightspeed and tivo.
Phillip Alvelda, MobiTV’s CEO, is having a great day, and you could hear it in his voice. His mobile TV company just received a $70 million fund to grow the company.
Phillip discussed a few interesting moves with me, including a plan to push the company’s service on PC’s (it’s already available over WiFi), which will be announced in August. That service could possibly challenge place-shifting in the wireless domain. And with all those content deals, well maybe Qualcomm can step-up and buy them for some premium dollars!
Q. We heard a bit about the company’s plans to work on PCs, is part of the fund going toward this?
A. The WiFi deal with AT&T is commercial today, at the company’s some 20,000 hotspots. A bigger deal will be announced in August with PC products, but we’re not giving details on that right now. Our goal is not just to work over cell phones. The real issue is that there has been overwhelming demand for our product. When we look out, we see a huge greenfield.
Q. What are your mobile broadcast plans. You’re already testing DVB-H. What about MediaFLO and WiMAX? What else?
A. Our mantra from the early days is to be network technology agnostic. We have trials in the U.S., U.K., Europe with various technologies. WiMAX is really taking off. We are also guided by our partners and what they think will show a strong demand.
Q. What is your relationship with Qualcomm?
A. With Qualcomm we’ve been working on BREW for a long time. We’re like a gold or platinum BREW developer. We’ve had a great relationship on that front. MediaFLO is a different beast–they are taking a go-it-alone approach for that.
Q. A Qualcomm acquisition might make a nice exit and partnership for you guys?
A. Agreed, everyone would all love something like that. Though, this is obviously just speculation.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 12th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on WiFi and Cellular and qualcomm and Place Shifting.
SageTV, a Oakbrook Terrace , IL-based personal entertainment software company will announce SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 with place shifting features and Media Extender support later this week, sources say.
The four-year-old SageTV recently introduced place shifting features to the Windows version of its software back in April 2006. Sage is in the process of writing a Mac version as well, though it is not expected to be released till later this summer or early fall. The Mac place-shifting features will follow.
Place shifting allows users to take their current television feed and view it over an Internet connection in remote locations, such as hotel rooms. Place shifting was first introduced to the market by Sling Media of San Mateo, California. Sling has done a great job of evangelizing its technical breakthroughs, and has even earned the ire of the cable and television crowd. Still, place shifting is not likely to enter the mainstream for another 24 months. It would still be a faster adoption that personal video recording technologies popularized by TiVo.
In recent conversations with cable and set-top box industries, we have learnt that most if not all have plans to bring place shifting into their future offerings, sooner, if they can work out all the legal issues. SageTV, which has primarily sold its software and media extender products to consumers is also working on OEM version of its products, targeting the set-top box makers.
Written by Om Malik on July 11th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Connected Home and Place Shifting.
A few days ago I read something about ABC trying to out-hustle the DVR technology. I found it amusing because these studio guys are sooooo late to the game always. DVR as a technology is at a point where most devices will carry some form of time-shifting in the near future. What he should really be worrying about is place shifting, a technology that has been gaining in popularity, thanks to Sling Media.
Place shifting as a concept, however is about to get more interesting. We have learnt exclusively that SightSpeed, Berkeley, CA-based VoIP software and services provider is going to soon add place shifting features to its new video/voip softclient. (Screenshot after the turn.)
You should expect more such entrants in the place shifting market. Last week, Engadget reported about Novac, a Japanese hardware maker that will use Skype to place shift television.
This is how SightSpeed TV works: say you have a Media Center, and you download and install SightSpeed on it, you can basically set up an account, and have the television beamed to your Sight Speed client software on another computer. You can also place shift your television channels from a Media Center to a Mac as well.
The software will come with a virtual remote to change channels. The timing of this new software release is a little fuzzy, but we have seen a demo. Hopefully, we will be able to test it out, and report the results.
(A more indepth post on this whole trend of place shifting everywhere will follow, perhaps tomorrow in tandem with a big report on Cisco’s consumer strategy and role of Linux inside the home. Any data points, send them across!)
Written by Om Malik on July 10th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Connected Home and VoIP and Start-Ups and Place Shifting.