Building the perfect set-top box
The TiVo: close, but no cigar.
(Credit: TiVo)Roku announced this week that it signed on with Major League Baseball to deliver MLB.tv Premium to its set-top box. It's the first live content that the device, which is best known for its Netflix streaming, will offer.
But like many other set-top boxes on the market, the services the Roku box offers aren't unique to that device. Netflix streaming is available on a large and growing number of devices, including TiVo DVRs, the Xbox 360, and all newer LG and Samsung Blu-ray players and home theater systems. In addition to the Roku, MLB programming is available on the PC, through Boxee, and through various cable and satellite TV packages.
Indeed, many TVs, Blu-ray players, DVRs, and home theater systems now have a baseline configuration that makes it relatively easy to add streaming services via postpurchase firmware upgrades. At this point, adding content seems almost as simple as calling the content provider and having lawyers work up an agreement between the parties.
The problem is, those partners are not necessarily working together. The hardware providers want those streaming or download services to be exclusive to their boxes. The content providers want their entertainment to be made available on as many devices (STBs or otherwise) as possible. Those very different goals are causing set-top boxes to provide most, but not all, the services that consumers want.
One of the most glaring omissions in most STBs (excluding TiVo and Moxi) is DVR functionality. And although it's a feature many consumers want, it probably won't be coming to those products.
The DVR space is currently dominated by cable companies. Cable DVRs are cost-efficient, in that they require no up-front cost but instead require you to pay a monthly fee for using them. They also have both free and paid "streaming content" (pay-per-view, video-on-demand) that compares nicely with streaming services on other set-top boxes.
And although they don't quite boast the same software quality or the array of services other DVRs provide, it's a hard sell for many consumers to choose an $800 Digeo Moxi or a $300 TiVo--which requires a subscription fee above and beyond the monthly cable bill--instead of a "free" box with a similar monthly fee. Plus, providers are starting to open, albeit slowly, their hardware to outside developers. Earlier this year, Verizon announced a Fios TV app store, called the Widget Bazaar, that features social-networking apps, games, and online content from various sites. It's a small step in the right direction.
At the same time, Apple, which might have the easiest time breaking the trend by building DVR services into its Apple TV, will probably never do so. Apple doesn't want to get in the business of allowing its users to record content--in large part because it is in the business of selling pay-per-view content on iTunes. I don't see any other company in the STB market with any legitimate chance of joining TiVo and Moxi as DVR providers.
Are HDTVs the future?
There's another problem facing STBs: streaming content is being built into HDTVs. Those HDTVs aren't nearly as ubiquitous as set-top boxes, but there's a good chance that HDTV integration could replace STBs. Samsung and Toshiba have or are planning to add streaming options to some of their TVs. Netflix is already available on LG Broadband HDTVs (with Sony and Vizio soon to follow). It's extremely convenient. And with access to more than 12,000 films and television shows, it's quite attractive from a consumer standpoint.
Meanwhile, the Vudu service will soon be available on some LG and Vizio models, joining Netflix, YouTube, and Yahoo Widgets. It provides the identical video-on-demand streaming available on the Vudu box--but without the box.
The search for perfection
Before those sets become ubiquitous, the set-top box will reign supreme. But whether it's Vudu's streaming service, the Apple TV device, the Roku box, or the TiVo, there isn't one set-top box that currently hits the mark.
The Apple TV is a fine product, if you use iTunes, but you're forced to pay for each show or movie you download. Vudu's streaming service is great, but it provides a finite number of streaming movies that, for the most part, you're probably not going to watch. And Roku is offering Netflix streaming and MLB Premium. It could do more.
TiVo is the closest to providing the kind of content consumers really want. It has Netflix, it will soon have Blockbuster streaming, it allows you to watch video podcasts, you can watch films you download from Amazon.com, and you can stream music from Rhapsody. Even better, it's a DVR, so you can quickly and easily switch to television and start recording your favorite shows.
It's a full-featured product. But it's expensive (HD-capable TiVos start at about $250). And it requires a subscription fee on top of the fees you would already be paying to Netflix, Blockbuster (when it's made available), and Amazon for accessing their content, in addition to your cable bill. (Depending on whether you pay the monthly, yearly, or "lifetime" TiVo subscription, the monthly outlay could range anywhere from $8.31 to $12.95.) It's an expensive proposition.
We also can't forget about the Xbox 360. Its Xbox Live features are certainly far ahead of any other gaming platform. You can download films and television shows on Xbox Live. You can also stream Netflix content and--coming this fall--access Last.fm online music. (Disclosure: Last.fm, like CNET, is a division of CBS Interactive.) And although it lacks DVR features, the fact that live TV streaming is said to be on deck adds an interesting alternative--at least for the United Kingdom and Ireland markets, where it's scheduled to roll out first.
So it seems that building that perfect set-top box will be difficult. It requires many of the features you'll find on the TiVo, combined with some nice elements of the Apple TV. Even a set-top box containing Xbox 360 features would be nice. That perfect set-top box also needs to be affordable.
Right now, we just don't have it. We have multiple boxes providing all those elements, but no single box is doing it all. Will it happen soon? Your guess is as good as mine. But we can hope.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
LOL!
The worst online service of any console. The POS Xbox 360:
* Only console that forces you to waste 50 dollars every year just to be ALLOWED to play games online
* No dedicated servers for games - just laggy old P2P network
* Stupid P2P networking for online games forcing player counts to joke sizes. Only 10 for Gears of War, and only 16 for Halo 3 - while other consoles and the PC regulary have lagfree dedicated server games with 64+ players per game. And soon 256 players for the insane MAG on the PS3.
* Laughably stupid Nintendo Mii ripoff
* Developer hostile mod support. Unlike open and developer friendly networks like PCs and the PS3, Microsoft's joke online system makes it virtually impossible for developers to put out free mods and addons for games. Epic ended up wasting a half a year development time just hacking their existing codebase to deal with the stupid Xbox online system
So far the suckers who were dumb enough to buy the Worst Console Ever Created, the Xbox 360, have wasted 200 dollars extra on top of the price of the base console just to be allowed to play games on the junk Microsoft online service.
No wonder the RRoDbox/Xbox 360 is selling just as poorly as the first Xbox marketplace flop.
There is no debate the the Xbox Live network is FAR superior to Nintendo and Sony's. None. It's just funny to hear someone try to rail against it.
XBox live /made/ the multiplayer console revolution. XBox Live /made/ the DLC and small game digital delivery revolution.
Go one step further and throw in couple Xbox's around the house and you have shared media in any room from your Media Center which can be accessed via Media Center, Media Player, PlayOn or even Tveristy. That site www.thefuzznetwork.com explains a lot of these things. You can even go wireless.
- by The Noble Robot August 13, 2009 8:33 PM PDT
- "So it seems that building that perfect set-top box will be difficult. It requires many of the features you'll find on the TiVo, combined with some nice elements of the Apple TV. Even a set-top box containing Xbox 360 features would be nice."
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(14 Comments)I have a TiVo and a PS3, just two devices, and I have every single thing that you describe in the perfect STB, *plus* CD/DVD, the best Blu-ray player on the planet, web browser with full-screen Flash Video (Hulu!), infinitely expandable external storage, and robust PC/iTunes media streaming, all without any modifications (except for the recent PS3 Hulu hack).
Oh, and and my PS3 is a good gaming platform, too. It's three gaming consoles in one (PS1/2/3), but that's beside the point (swap out the PS3 for a Xbox 360, and you have a pretty sweet setup, too). Throw in a compatible Harmony remote, and you're set (I use two remotes myself, but I'm plenty satisfied).
So I get all of that, your entire wish list plus way more, with just two devices. I'd be happy if it were three, to be honest. I just don't see any reason for a single device to do *everything*. Besides, the history of all-in-one convergence devices is not stellar. I mean, Is TiVo going to make a box with a snappy Blu-ray player? Is Microsoft or Sony going to make a gaming console that's also a first-class DVR?
And it stifles innovation, too. What happens when you want to upgrade your DVR, but want to keep your gaming console, or swap out your DVD player for Blu-ray, but don't want to get rid of your Nexflix streaming device? What happens if I don't want Netflix, but want Hulu? What if I don't want cable or don't need a DVR?
A "perfect STB" would be bad both for the people who want everything (like me), and for the people who don't.
"[TiVo]'s a full-featured product. But it's expensive"
Well, duh, it's full-featured.
"That perfect set-top box also needs to be affordable"
Agreed, but you can't have everything for nothing. It won't ever be cheap. The idea of if an all-in-one device at all is good or bad is a fair debate, but the idea that it must cost less than a $250 TiVo is where your article completely falls off the rails into fantasy land.
My setup (TiVo HD with lifetime service plus a PS3) cost me ~$850. Now, that is a lot, but still less money than a lot of mid-range laptops or a high-end Media Center PC. Hell, it's less than many standalone Blu-ray players! I feel that I'm getting quite a lot for my initial investment, considering how much daily use I get out of it and I bought it almost two years ago!
"Its Xbox Live features are certainly far ahead of any other gaming platform."
Wait? What does one have to do with the other? Xbox's gaming features are highly lauded, and for a good reason (since it's a better online gaming experience than PS3), but as a "Set Top Box", which is the subject of this article in case you forgot, the PS3 really outshines it. Xbox has Netflix, of course, so it's really a matter of what you want and what you pair it with (I have a TiVo so I don't miss that feature).
But then again, your complaints about TiVo's subscription also apply to Xbox Live, whereas the PSN is free. If you think of it, Xbox's one clear advantage, Netflix, can be gotten with a Roku box for the cost of two years of a LIVE subscription!
" You can download films and television shows on Xbox Live"
Yes, but you can't fit them on the one expensive hard drive, whereas PS3's PSN too has a massive library of TV and movie downloads, *and* you can upgrade your internal drive or use an infinite number of USB external drives to store them, without modifying the console or voiding the warranty (and oh yeah, did I mention Blu-ray?).