2Wire's MediaPoint HD streamer box is special just like everybody else

2Wire's announced a 7-inch square set-top box designed to "bridge television and the internet." Called MediaPoint, it seems to be nearly identical to every media streamer we've seen -- it will multitask as a digital media player that delivers HD video and access streaming media on your home network via broadband. The box will boast HDMI ouput, WiFi, USB expansion, UPnP and DLNA compatibility. Sounds unbelievably enticing, right? Well, unlike most media streamers, you'll have to buy MediaPoint through a broadband service provider which will distribute the boxes under their own branding, and you'll presumably have to pay a subscription fee -- hopefully so you can enjoy some WWE Raw. Wow! So a product that's pretty much the same as a bunch of things that already exist, but we get to deal with a cable / internet service provider? Sounds fun, where do we sign up? They're expected to be available "very soon" though there's no word on pricing plans for the box or the subscriptions.

[Via Electronista]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 11th 2008 8:42AM]

All that's needed is some standardization, and a DRM scheme Hollywood will sign up to (CPRM?), and with falling flash memory prices, the "Media box with an SD-slot" (or even USB-slot) thing may well end up being the popular HD format Blu-ray and HD DVD were supposed to be.

How much would it take for "SD and USB in, HDMI and SPDIF out, H.264 and some standardized audio codecs, perhaps even some lossless, in MPEG4 TS format on a FAT32 file system" to become a de-facto standard?

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 11th 2008 10:24AM]

There already is one, that is what Toshiba has backed with ModSystems which is said to have atleast 3000 SD movies at launch and Toshiba has stated that HD isn't out of the question, it all depends on demand and their flash storage capabilities, Toshiba is in charge of the storage of the new format.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 11th 2008 10:39AM]

I'm more talking about standardization, I mean lots of different manufacturers making "their" box support a common format. Right now we have this diverse collection of things that can kinda-sorta play the same formats but not really and certainly not in a way that any third party would want to support. The major issue with the ModSystems thing is it's one proprietary system that some manufacturers are kind of going with, but it's about as standard as HD-VMD, which similarly is a format where one manufacturer is doing most of the leg work including handling the publication of material.

MKV might be part of it. I'd like to see something like MKV + [MPEG4 Parts 2 and 10 and Ogg Dirac at 480/576/720/1080i/p/24/25/30/50/60] + [FLAC 5.1 and MP3 and DD5.1 and DTS] + HDCP become a defacto standard. If someone can add a kind of open source Advanced Content system to MKV (something easily implementable using components from Mozilla or Webkit), then you've got a format anyone can implement and that can do virtually everything HD DVD or Blu-ray could. Except the boxes will be dirt cheap, you'll be able to integrate everything from day one (HD DVD's promise but it didn't live long enough), and online download purchases will be possible also from day 1.

What we lack is a standard.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 11th 2008 7:05PM]

Ahhh I see, sooner or later the industry will get sick of all of it and just choose their own standard and stop letting groups with one interest or another dictate a standard for them.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 11th 2008 9:20AM]

except the linked article says they won't sell them directly to the customer, ATT will probably charge a monthly fee for this thing. Plus no mention of MKV support. (does it?) I just ordered my popcorn hour and it should be arriving any day now. MKV FTW!