Engadget HD Podcast 185 - Jethead geeks out on RVU
By Trent Wolbe 
posted March 26th 2010 8:10PM
posted March 26th 2010 8:10PM
Ever since we first heard of the RVU Alliance we've been excited about the technology and about the supporting members. At the time we didn't give much thought to the companies that we've never heard of that actually implement the technology, but when David Bye from Jethead reached out to us concerning a story, we just had to invite him on the show. David brought the head geek, Ben Payne, with him and for an hour we go on about RVU's abilities, shortcomings and possible implementations.Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh
Guests: Ben Payne VP Engineering and David Bye VP Marketing & Business Development of Jethead Development
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Program
RVU Alliance gets Motorola, Pace, Thomson and others to dream the multiroom dream
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I know this might sound like a dumb question. But I have subscribed to this podcast in itunes and have been getting regular episodes. But I have heard quite a few times that I can subscribe to the enhanced AAC version. I see a link here that says (AAC enhanced feed, subscribe to this with itunes), but when I click on this, it does not launch itunes, it just goes to my rss aggregator on my browser. I have tried searching for "enagadget hd + AAC" in itunes, but I have not been able to find this. What am I missing? Is there an easy way to susbscribe to the AAC version using itunes?
@npradeepkumar
Yeah it isn't intuitive. You right click on the link and hit copy and then in iTunes go to Advanced>Subscribe To Podcast and paste it.
Listening to these guys, I came away with the impression that they were far more interested in branding and providing services to major services providers like Dish/Direct/Comcast and weren't interested in a stand alone solution like Tivo, Moxi or Media Center.
Also they were still invested in protected content and from side comments it made it appear that RVU won't provide off device use.
They also didn't seem up on the FCC National Broadband Plan and how it would impact television delivery, cablecard technology and the future IP gateway (most of their comments appeared as if you had ambushed them).
I wonder how long it will be before we hear some plans from cablelabs and the major cablecos regarding the FCC plan, tru2way and the ip gateway.
This wasn't it, unfortunately and while it might be made to fit, it doesn't sound like that's what they were planning.
John
Ben, I'd like to thank you A LOT for this podcast. Just listened to it today and finally understand a little about what RVU is about. Sounds like it will work well for replicating a user interface (video not included) in a bit accurate fashion over a network with lots of bandwidth to a relatively low end device. The only part I wasn't really happy with was their answers to your questions about whether RVU could handle animated transitions like those in WMC. Seriously, if it can't, it might as well not bother getting off the ground.
Obviously its hard to tell at this point how this will do in the marketplace. If WMC adopts it, great, but it sounds like Microsoft might have their own ideas? And if not WMC then what? DirecTV maybe, but what about Tivo? I want my Tivo's to offer RVU access to other Tivos in my house. And my TV (or Tivo or Apple TV) should have an RVU client that can replicate what is on a web browser running Hulu--can somebody develop an RVU server plugin for that maybe? Lots of possibilities... Will any of them happen?