[opendtv] Re: Mini-ITX and TV over IP Was: RE: Re: How important are new Codecs wrt OTA Broadcasting?
- From: "Kon Wilms" <kon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:42:41 -0500
> - firstly, Directed Channel Change is archaic compared with what we
> are doing - not only can we personalise each terminal content (or use
> advanced profile matching to generate a customised playlist, target
> the audience, location, peak time, etc), but also we are introducing
> feedback via webcam, and other sensors - real-time. - remember, this
> is corporate TV, not home tv.
Call it directed playlist change then. The point is remote commands to
the STB - DCC is just one example. Our system does the same things, but
we still need DCC as a feature. You cannot discount its usefulness if
you need to force STBs to watch certain content (and corporate TV users
are always the first to want this i.e. at 5pm we need to make sure all
users are watching the CEO's broadcast/clip/whatnot).
> - secondly, most routers in the field are Linux - TiVO runs Linux. I
> don't exactly understand your point. Stock linux - no.. maybe not...
> but, it's easy and cheap to adapt Linux to our goals.Our only problems
> are with hardware decoding acceleration being better supported on Win
> than on Linux.=20
Tivo is so far from stock linux you can't even compare the two. My point
is that an off the shelf OS comes with issues and bloat that is
completely irrelevant for STB usage. You are essentially wasting CPU,
storage and memory by using an off the shelf OS.
Its very easy to just slap hardware together and roll out a product but
the real test comes in reducing the price and making the system stable
and managable from the headend and the receiver.
Development time is cheap, yes. But hardware costs and management are
the opposite when you run in this mode. You can't reduce the hardware
costs by taking this approach.
> - updating - all sorts of - codecs, drivers, the entire install if
> needed, is very very easy with one of the countless utils for this
> sort of mass deployment and managing. Mass admin is also quite simple
On a two-way network perhaps. But once again - have you tried this with
a thousand units in the field?
How do you guarantee your update will work? Standard OS installs have no
concept of a backup version of self to roll back to if the system
reboots and comes up corrupted.
> - remote diagnostics, etc
Only with a two-way network. But that isn't an advantage, you can do
this with embedded or stripped-down STBs too.
> - reliability - fanless and solid state memory /or network booting..
Network booting? Maybe for a handful of units.
And how much solid state memory did you need for that non-stripped down
XP or linux distro? Even if you do strip it down, what are you using?
Cramfs? Jffs? You can't just write infinitely to solid state...
> plus a disk for caching content - prone to mechanical failure (as much
> as a laptop)...
Moot point.
> Well, and then, there are all the advantages that I don't have to
> mention...
Windows viruses, hackers owning your OTS linux boxen (OTS linux STBs are
a hacker's wet dream, since the user can only fight back with a remote
control)... ;)
I've been down the path of loading the standard OS on a system and
slapping some GUI and simple backend hooks on it to make it appear to
run as a STB. This works until you need to roll out a lot of units.
Thats when it falls apart. I have seen this happen so many times in
datacasting/iptv systems that at this point I will basically guarantee it.
Cheers
Kon
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