It doesn't seem all that great that I can view my pics and play music via my HR20. There are tons of devices, some a lot cheaper, that can do this. Is this a baby step towards something much greater? I hope so. What would really make this new "network enabled" feature really shine if you could share media from one HR20 to another. But from what I read this new Viiv thing is just weak. Please someone explain to my what is so cool about this Viiv feature or whatever you want to call it. Personally I would rather the Guide button actually go to the guide on the first press than view my pics on my tv.
Whats the point of the Viiv???
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Lots of people seem to like it. I don't see what good it is. Maybe its getting people ready for other features that use the internet and or your computer. Like VOD over the internet. Now that's something that would be cool if it doesn't cost a lot of money to download a movie. The whole thing of needing a Viiv computer to do these things stinks.
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Couldn't agree with you more!dervari said:
If Intel can force something to their business, they will. Take IPSec for instance!
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ViiV brings nothing to the table for the consumer.
Nothing.
The point of Viiv is DRM - Digital Rights Management.
ViiV let's D* open up the networking door by preventing subs from using content without permission. It has no other reason for being.
This way Apple can prevent iTunes music from being played on an HR20.
Everyone listening to iTunes on their HR20's right now smiled at that.
Take Care,
Craig
Nothing.
The point of Viiv is DRM - Digital Rights Management.
ViiV let's D* open up the networking door by preventing subs from using content without permission. It has no other reason for being.
This way Apple can prevent iTunes music from being played on an HR20.
Everyone listening to iTunes on their HR20's right now smiled at that.
Take Care,
Craig
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No, the "point" of ViiV is simplicity....
With the certification process of ViiV, device B is tested/designed to work with device A
It is simply a certification process... just like "Designed for Windows YY"
Or any other of these certifications.
It is setup to meet certain criteria, and that is that.
It has already been shown, that you don't need "ViiV" to get the features to work. You just need a Media Player that puts things out in the format the HR20 wants it in.
ViiV is NOT a DRM... there are som DRM pieces in it, for certain content... but it is not "Just" a DRM
With the certification process of ViiV, device B is tested/designed to work with device A
It is simply a certification process... just like "Designed for Windows YY"
Or any other of these certifications.
It is setup to meet certain criteria, and that is that.
It has already been shown, that you don't need "ViiV" to get the features to work. You just need a Media Player that puts things out in the format the HR20 wants it in.
ViiV is NOT a DRM... there are som DRM pieces in it, for certain content... but it is not "Just" a DRM
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As for the value of Viiv, I think it's a bit overrated unless it really does have an impact on stability and functionality.Teecee33 said:
However, with regards to the functionality of playing music and viewing photos (and eventually videos) stored on my PC, I'm very excited about that feature. I've archived all of my music (40GB) and several hundred photos to my home PC in the office. While I have a 5 disc changer in my entertainment center, using an existing component to access all my music is much easier and, more importantly, it's WIFE friendly. I've used other Media Servers (Gateway and XBox) and they either don't work that well or are a bit cumbersom. Not to mention they have an additional cost as apposed to using an existing device (the HR20). And, while I can figure out how to use them, training my somewhat technically challenged and impatient wife to use them was not fun. The HR20 is pretty simple (although could definitely be improved) and my wife is familiar with the interface.
So, that's why I like the idea of the Media Center functionality of the HR20. I hope they continue to improve this aspect of the product as I think it's a good direction for this device.
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Sorry I'm still new to the HR20 (about a week now) and apologize if this question has been addressed elsewhere:
Last night I got the 0x10b download, and it gave me an option to test the network connections which passed just fine, but I'm not seeing any abilty to connect to my Viiv media server. How can I see photos, music or videos from the PC?
Last night I got the 0x10b download, and it gave me an option to test the network connections which passed just fine, but I'm not seeing any abilty to connect to my Viiv media server. How can I see photos, music or videos from the PC?
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Deuce,
Great, thanks! That was just what I was looking for.
Great, thanks! That was just what I was looking for.
There are actually two seperate issues here - the Viiv spec and the media sharing capability of the HR20.Teecee33 said:
The HR20 is simply a UPnP client which currently has the ability to play/display certain audio and photo file formats. UPnP (Unerversal Plug n Play) is just that -Universal - and in and of itself doesn't require anything but UPnP server software to establish a connection and share files. There are several UPnp servesr that I know of: Windows Media Connect, WMP11, Siftware that's provided with certain media streamers (such as a Dlink), and built in UPnP servers built into services such as Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Jukebox.
So UPnP establishes the connection, but after that it's up to the device as to which file formats are supported, and if they are able to interpret rights-managed (DRM) files.
Viiv is a hardware specification (except for the OS requirement). The intent is to say, "if you want to do all this fancy media stuff, you will need a minimum system requirement - processor, chipset, video card, etc. " Rather than have to worry about all those pieces, the requirements are all rolled into the one Viiv spec.
I don't see anything in the Viiv spec that indicates hardware copy protection, unless it has to do with HDCP compliant video cards - which are there - Viiv or not.
What I want is a simple way to stream Internet video to my TV without wires (My TV is far from my PC). I'd like to take advantage of the scaling in my TV when watching realAudio or MediaPlayer videos over the web. Lots of basketball games for my college team are available streamed, but not on regular TV.
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Take a look at Twonkymedia. I haven't used it yet (I'll try it when I get home today) but I've seen other reports that it works well. It may support streaming video. It has a 30-day free trial, so you've got nothing to lose.
http://www.twonkyvision.com/Products/TwonkyMedia/index.html
http://www.twonkyvision.com/Products/TwonkyMedia/index.html
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Again..Teecee33 said:
VIIV™ is not the "Feature"...
The Feature is the sharing of Music and Photos.
The HR20 is simply an "approved" ViiV device.
The HR20 can access the VIIV™ Media Server; but it can also use a few others to obtain the same results.
So it is not an exclusive to VIIV™ feature
That certainly makes sense based on the relative ease by which folks have been able to get it to work with other equipment. I myself did it with an AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 and WMP 11. The problem is that it isn't marketed that way. People are being led to believe that they must buy a new computer with a ViiV capable processor in order to be able to use these features.Earl Bonovich said:
In the end I doubt it'll make much difference to DirecTV from a sales standpoint. Most people are buying satellite DVRs to watch and record satellite TV programs. There are many ways to display pictures and stream music to your home theater. Most are cheaper and far more intuitive. It's much like OTA. By the time you filter out all the customers who don't have HDTVs, and then all the customers who don't live within range of transmitters, and then all the customers who don't want the hassle of giant antennae on their house, OTA becomes significant only from a marketing and PR standpoint.
In other words. No one is gonna leave DirecTV because of some silly multi-media function. But, it might attract some new subscribers, and it sounds really cool on the surface.
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Per my other comments on other threads......the holy grail is for D* to open up playback access thru their HR20 of all media the end user has. If they want to buy a ViiV PC and pay for the "simplicity" of this as well as the links to DRM downloads then that is great. However, the BIGGER audience short term is to enable those users who have music, photos and video already. This doesn't change/modify/jeopardize the current D* tact with Intel/MS but it enables them to drive their destiny with their customers....not Intel. To talk about simple, below is a link on how to accomplish with XBox360. This is for transcoded video material...if you want to change or already have your video in WMV format then the Xbox360 already sees on PC thru WMP11 and you are good to go....even simplier. So, my question to D* is since they are primarily in the "video" business why would they not enable all video content to be managed by the consumer thru the HR20 ? Perhaps they are going to do this on follow-on updates but if so they really need to tell the community their plans..else loose them to other solutions...example XBox360, PSP3, etc. All it takes is a driver from Tveristy and I'm sure 99.9% of the folks on this forum would pay the $29 one-time fee to get the Tversity software.Earl Bonovich said:
Again....just my two cents.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1002/
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Small steps at a time.
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