egafd.com

Join me in London Olympia. Mon Tues or Wed we have a stand at the Just mail me and I will put you on the guest list. This show has all the answers for IPTV. Our set-top boxes will be on demo so it really is a chance to see what will kill off DVD and how you will get 18R direct to your TV. Imagine 18R live to TV Thats what Marino is planning, interactive so you can even tell him which hole to plug,

jim@gdbtv.com to go on our guest list

Phil McC

The quality out of a computer compaired to a box is bad. who wants a PC next to their TV. Box at 99 quid 3000 channels of everything from everywhere in the world and your local TV, You can take it with you as it works the same on any broadband line in over 80 countries tested. The boxes are hi-def. This is real TV over broadband it is the future. Every football club in UK will have its own channel even the lower leagues... Ask Jerry not me. Every mainstream studio is going this way, even Blockbuster are.....

Phil McC

Sounds nice but like many I already have a proper HTPC and have no intention of getting another set-top box but I'd happily purchase a PCi card if I could.

If this works on the net then surely the PC can do exactly the same thing wouldn't it? and I'm kinda confused as to why the quality would be any worse on a PC, I mean if it's HD it would be exactly the same.

I have a HD PC on my desk so I have seen both. The quality is in bandwidth. The sigma chipsets in a box handle video much better and use less effort, Your computer is doing a whole load of tasks, a set-top box is purely a fancy graffic set-up viewing HTML pages on your TV, where we are miles ahead is making HTML pages look superb on TV. You cannot tell you are looking at anything to do with the internet or web-based content. It just looks like cable TV. Many people will stick with PC and hook it up to TV (lot of money) others will use their XBOX 360, but millions will just buy a box plug it in or use it on their wi-fi and watch it just like normal TV.
One other thing the boxes have is upscaling using picture enhancement. They process the picture so as even ordinary VOD or Live looks much better. Less blocking because they put smaller blocks on the screen.
Like most people you have to see to believe thats why I have offered anyone who wants to see mail me and come along to in London next week.

Phil McC

There is no way that the Quality of the picture will be better on a standard/HDTV that a PC. Lets be honest, the IPTV is just streaming video the same as if the PC was recieving it from broadband and decoding it, almost any modern day PC today can decode even high quality HD streams at 1080P, add post-processing filters to it and your quality between the PC and settop box is pulling apart even more. Whilst the sigma cheaps are ok, there not as accurate/good at decoding video as something like purevideo/avivo (which are being updated to improve quality all the time, something a hardware chip is not)

As for IPTV, its just not doable on a big scale at the moment, the amount of servers you would require to reach a good market just doesnt make finacial sense. Unless your simply sending low bandwidth videos which a HD resolution (which is a crappy way to do it). Even VC1/H264 at 1080p is approx 13Mbps Average and 16Mbps Peak, meaning customers would need a 24Mbit line with almost no hiccups at all to recieve something in that quality. Drop that down to 720p using them codecs and you would need approx 6.5Mbps Average and 8Mpbs Peak bandwidth, to recieve something in good quality. To deliver that kind of bandwidth you would need to have your servers located in the UK (Which isnt going to happen cost wise), otherwise the network just wouldnt be resilent enough due to the added hops to guarantee that the picture wouldnt stutter etc with dropped frames, the further your servers are hosted away from the UK, the bigger chance that video isnt even going to reach the consumer without dropouts etc.

Drop the bandwidth say a few Mbps and you might as well not bother calling it HD in my eyes, as what your delivering is a low quality bitrate with a high resolution, which just isnt the same as say a HD movie, or a HD BBC , or HD anything else.

Whilst it appears im knocking your product im not, its just too early for market, there wasnt even a IPTV with 480p (DVD) streams, due to the bandwidth issues and there certainly wont be a succesfull or big rolled out IPTV in the uk for some time, as the infastructure simply isnt there. Its going to take such things as QoS and whatnot to appear before it becomes useable to the consumer and as reliable as a "normal" TV stream.

Twingo alot of what you have said is right, but the developers have answers, Hi-def will be offered as download to the box at the start. I have seen a VC1 plugin delivering 720 at 2.5 meg. We are putting a peering client in the box to help with the bandwidth issues, I have 2 racks in London, 1 in NY, 1 in Dam, 1 in Alabama, half in Frankfurt. Even going into Malawai next.
I have 3 set-top boxes all with hi-def on them they are better quality than my PC, Unless you want to spend 2k on a PC set up and all the cables and a remote set up, then a mouse, and keyboard,,,,,,In the livingroom. The world picks up a remote points it at the TV and watches, Sport, Movies, Entertainment everything.....Why must porn be different... Thats why soft shit still sells on TV because mr average and his missus don't have PC's or miles of cables in their livingroom.
BT, Virgin/NTL and every other provider is banging out broadband like crazy My whols service runs happy on 1mb that will be 87% of the population by 2009. The consumer will buy the box at ?99 plug it in and get channels he wants that he cannot get on any other network, Like Scuba, REAL local TV and channels from 80 other countries. This is urban war TV it will revolutionise how we watch TV and it has started.
What you need to ask is would you like to watch TV quality porn LIVE on your TV without a song and dance. I know one company who will be doing a LIVE dogging shoot strait to TV and with our box you can interact. Not next year next month. Have you looked at look at the trailers and tell me if you think they are good quality etc. What I need from you guys it help in getting this right, I have spent half a million on this project I am putting my wallet and my companies wallet into this. Help is what we need. If you doubt the box then look at and you will see the box on sale to channel owners and developers.

Phil McC

Phil McC

I for one don't need convincing about the technology/quality behind it. What I need is to be able to pop down to my local Euronics center and buy a set top box.

No offence but 720p at 2.5Mbps its quite insulting to customers to call that HD (fair enough the resolution is there, but your not going to get anything which compares to 720p from any normal source)

VC1 which is basically WMV9 for all intents and purposes should have a lot higher bitrate than that at 720p for it to be comparable to other 720p streams. You only have to look at the xxx online sites which actually deliver high quality clips (sites such as LadySonia/Jimslips).

Ladysonia's Latest update (ws_57_cuck2_clip_iit_large.wmv) is 338p and uses 2.21 Mbps to achieve that quality.

Jimslips Ellebrook movie is 480p and uses 2.23Mbps to achieve its good quality.

Now your going to something with 4x spatial resolution of the ladysonias movie and 3x spatial resolution of the jimslips movie, but using the same codecs and almost same bitrates?

Theres a reasons why the TV companies broadcast HD streams at 4x bitrate you are, the same reason that the hollywood companies have to stream theres at 4x+ bitrates off there discs, because if they didnt customers would drag them over the coals.