Cable's Whole Home DVR coming soon

[Herdfan]

Not specifically DirecTV related, but DirecTV will have to join the party to remain competitive.

Washington — It was a coming-out party for cable’s multiroom DVRs last week, with the industry finally poised to deliver set-tops with the feature sometime this year.

Several operators are set to roll out multiroom DVRs this year, including Time Warner Cable — which is working with both Motorola and Cisco Systems — as well as Cox Communications and Bright House Networks, which plan to roll out the feature with Cisco.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/191292-DVRs_Roam_the_House.php

[kevinwmsn]

Seems ok, but why can't anyone make a real whole home DVR. Maybe my parents might get one once they become available. To me and probably a lot of people in this forum that a whole home DVR would need at least 4 tuners to record a household of shows to avoid conflicts regardless of who the provider is cable, sat, Fios, ATT, etc).

[houskamp]

"Whole Home Dvr" would have to have a minimum of 6-8 tuners and the ability to stream HD to at least 3-4 locations at once..
I don't expect to see one for several years yet..

[davring]

If I could get MRV on all my HR's I would have a whole house solution:)

[Shades228]

While I love this solution model I just don't see it happening soon for most providers. The cost and having 1 system take a whole house out at this point I don't think is something companies are ready to do. They would cost a lot more to support and almost always require a truck roll even for the simplest change due to a customer impacting the whole house if they do something wrong.

Right now everyone will play it safe and go the MRV route. Later on you'll start to see more of a server/client aspect where maybe there becomes a dedicated dvr box that has multiple tuners that only gets accessed by the units on the TV but doesn't actually output to a TV.

This should probably be moved as well.

[wingrider01]

"Whole Home Dvr" would have to have a minimum of 6-8 tuners and the ability to stream HD to at least 3-4 locations at once..
I don't expect to see one for several years yet..

You missed storage - at least 2 TB, preferably 4TB with option to expand with external sata drives, at least 4 connections

[Steve]

"Whole Home Dvr" would have to have a minimum of 6-8 tuners and the ability to stream HD to at least 3-4 locations at once..
I don't expect to see one for several years yet..Statistically, I'm curious why you think 4 tuners might not be enough. Even in a house with 4-5 viewers, how many times might you need to record 4 different things in the same time slot? Once or twice a year at most?

I say this because even with SWM technology, the cost of more than 4 tuners/recording streams might be high from a CPU/memory/front-side-bus standpoint. Especially since the box should be able to simultaneously serve 3-4 streams as well, as you point out.

Just my .02. /steve

[Herdfan]

Statistically, I'm curious why you think 4 tuners might not be enough. Even in a house with 4-5 viewers, how many times might you need to record 4 different things in the same time slot? Once or twice a year at most?

Right now, once a week on Thursday night. This Thursday we will have 7 tuners recordinging the 8pm hour plus I need at least one to watch live. :)

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this is they are using MoCA which is rumored to be the standard D* will use in its whole home DVR setup.

[LarryFlowers]

Definition: Vaporware

Products announced but not yet commercially available. Often used by suppliers to lock users in with the promise of great things to come.

[Steve]

Right now, once a week on Thursday night. This Thursday we will have 7 tuners recordinging the 8pm hour plus I need at least one to watch live. :)Wow! You got me there, but I wonder what % of the customer base is doing something similar? :)

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this is they are using MoCA which is rumored to be the standard D* will use in its whole home DVR setup.Verizon's been deploying MoCA from day one, and based on my son and two sisters' FiOS TV installs, I have to say it works pretty well! VOD is instantaneous. You can fast forward a show immediately after initiating the d/l. /steve

[houskamp]

Statistically, I'm curious why you think 4 tuners might not be enough. Even in a house with 4-5 viewers, how many times might you need to record 4 different things in the same time slot? Once or twice a year at most?

I say this because even with SWM technology, the cost of more than 4 tuners/recording streams might be high from a CPU/memory/front-side-bus standpoint. Especially since the box should be able to simultaneously serve 3-4 streams as well, as you point out.

Just my .02. /steve
6 recording at once is not an uncommon thing here.. networks tend to pile everything on one night to compete for marketshare..

[Steve]

6 recording at once is not an uncommon thing here.. networks tend to pile everything on one night to compete for marketshare..I just think that building a single box that can handle 9-12 streams (6-8 in/3-4 out) simultaneously might be prohibitively expensive.

Maybe they can design it in a modular way? E.g., perhaps you can add add'l cards to it, each one handling two more streams? /steve

[houskamp]

I just think that building a single box that can handle 9-12 streams (6-8 in/3-4 out) simultaneously might be prohibitively expensive.

Maybe they can design it in a modular way? E.g., perhaps you can add add'l cards to it, each one handling two more streams? /steve
Drive speed is what I see as the big problem.. in order to do it today I think you would have to split the tuners to 2 drives (3 tuners per drive) to allow for 4 streams out (7 total read/write per drive).. Could be done but it would take some real fancy programing to keep track of what records where/when..

[Nick]

Unless I missed it, I found it notable that the MC news article made no mention of the nation's largest cableco, Comcast.

[Steve]

Drive speed is what I see as the big problem.. in order to do it today I think you would have to split the tuners to 2 drives (3 tuners per drive) to allow for 4 streams out (7 total read/write per drive).. Could be done but it would take some real fancy programing to keep track of what records where/when..Drive speed or traffic management? If you figure each MPEG-4 stream is around 10 mbps, even the older SATA drives (nominally spec'd at 1.5 gbps) can handle sustained throughput of 80-100 mbps, and bursts up to 1 gbps.

I think the issue might be more related to stream management, which might increase CPU, cache and FSB performance requirements. /steve

[hdtvfan0001]

Drive speed or traffic management? If you figure each MPEG-4 stream is around 10 mbps, even the older SATA drives (nominally spec'd at 1.5 gbps) can handle sustained throughput of 80-100 mbps, and bursts up to 1 gbps.

I think the issue might be more related to stream management, which might increase CPU, cache and FSB performance requirements. /steve
I'd tend to agree with your assessment....as drive speed can handle multiple streams pretty efficiently.

[ATARI]

Drive speed or traffic management? If you figure each MPEG-4 stream is around 10 mbps, even the older SATA drives (nominally spec'd at 1.5 gbps) can handle sustained throughput of 80-100 mbps, and bursts up to 1 gbps.

I think the issue might be more related to stream management, which might increase CPU, cache and FSB performance requirements. /steve

Could also use solid state drives -- but, once again, would be cost prohibitive for the general user.

[ATARI]

Definition: Vaporware

Products announced but not yet commercially available. Often used by suppliers to lock users in with the promise of great things to come.

"Something better" is coming -- now where have I heard that before? ;)

[Steve]

Could also use solid state drives -- but, once again, would be cost prohibitive for the general user.Ya. If you think drives are the bottleneck. I could be wrong, but I don't think that's the case. At least on paper. :) E.g., there could be some drive controller bottlenecks that have nothing to do with sustained throughput of a single stream that I'm not aware of. /steve

[houskamp]

Drive speed or traffic management? If you figure each MPEG-4 stream is around 10 mbps, even the older SATA drives (nominally spec'd at 1.5 gbps) can handle sustained throughput of 80-100 mbps, and bursts up to 1 gbps.

I think the issue might be more related to stream management, which might increase CPU, cache and FSB performance requirements. /steve
latest drives I've seen typicaly say up to 10 or 12 streams max.. sustained read/writes are rough on the drives..

[wingrider01]

Definition: Vaporware

Products announced but not yet commercially available. Often used by suppliers to lock users in with the promise of great things to come.

We used to call that Blue Smoke and Mirrors when we had to deal with IBM and their mainframe equipment

[jpl]

We used to call that Blue Smoke and Mirrors when we had to deal with IBM and their mainframe equipment

Not that I think this will be really wide-spread initially, but I wouldn't write this off as vaporware. Granted, it's not out there yet, but the technology described here is very much like what Verizon uses - MoCA to carry streams to alternate boxes around the house off your main DVR. In other words, the technology to do this already exists. The one part that I found a bit surprising - that they'll be able to feed more than one HD stream at a time. Currently Verizon doesn't offer that (you can feed one HD recording to the TV with the DVR, and one other to another TV, at the same time, but to do more than that is something that Verizon currently doesn't support).

[Drew2k]

[quote=Steve;2054229]Statistically, I'm curious why you think 4 tuners might not be enough. Even in a house with 4-5 viewers, how many times might you need to record 4 different things in the same time slot? Once or twice a year at most?[quote]Happens to me all the time Steve, on Mondays and Thursdays. Right now I manage it with 3 DVRs, so anything less than 6 tuners in a whole-home DVR would not work for me!

On a separate note, I think any whole-home solution should have a robust "communication system" so members of the household don't step on each other's toes. I think about a situation where three people want to record the same show, but not all three will watch at the same time or even in the same room. If Billy watches and deletes before Mom and Sally get to watch, I think Billy's going to be in trouble!

[Steve]

On a separate note, I think any whole-home solution should have a robust "communication system" so members of the household don't step on each other's toes. I think about a situation where three people want to record the same show, but not all three will watch at the same time or even in the same room. If Billy watches and deletes before Mom and Sally get to watch, I think Billy's going to be in trouble!Agree 100%.

And that Billy was always a troublemaker, AFAIK. :lol: /steve

[xmguy]

Right now, once a week on Thursday night. This Thursday we will have 7 tuners recordinging the 8pm hour plus I need at least one to watch live. :)

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this is they are using MoCA which is rumored to be the standard D* will use in its whole home DVR setup.

My mom is a TV junky. She will record 2 things on her R22 and watch a third on cable TV. The cable TV is ending soon though. I got the PlayOn pc streaming app. She can watch free Hulu. But yes for an entire 4 person family ATLEAST 2 tuners for each. That's 8 tuners. HD or SD.