RVU Alliance gets Motorola, Pace, Thomson and others to dream the multiroom dream

Chalk up a few more for the multiroom crowd, as the RVU Alliance (get familiar) has added some power names from the set-top box market to its roster as "Promoter" members. The new additions appear to set things up for compatible solutions from your cable or satellite provider arriving sooner rather than later, capable of streaming video and interfaces from set-tops to any screen in the house. Names like Motorola, Pace and Thomson have probably already graced your entertainment rack, while lesser known additions include Entropic Communications, maker of hardware for home entertainment networking, JetHead, focused on creating RVU client software, and set-top manufacturer NXP. Is hoping for a big splash at CES too much? We think not.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 5th 2009 4:46PM]

This is good and all, but Cable operators don't have a good track record for releasing any kind of updates on a regular schedule. It'll still be up to the cable operators to enable these features.

I have a Motorola DCX3400, which supports 16:9 HD graphics, MoCA & Multi-room, eSATA expantion, MPEG4, 1 GHz tuning, USB ports, internal DOCSIS modem for DSG, and the list goes on. My cable provider however utilizes NONE of those features. It functions the same as a DCT-6412.

Sure the companies in this alliance may try to put the squeeze on MSO's to get this stuff working... but the MSO's are too lazy, weak, and unimaginable to support it.

We've heard people complain about the lack of Cable innovation before (see: http://www.businessinsider.com/time-for-cable-companies-to-get-serious-about-software-2009-3 and http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/08/cable-boxes-and-their-fisher-price-remotes-are-junk-demand-better/ for just two examples). They just keep pushing things back. Tru2Way? Try to get a Tru2Way device. I dare you. What happened to Tivo running on a Motorola set top? Oh only in a few remote towns in New England. The things been there since 2006 and we still have yet to see it outside of it's 'test' environment.