New consumer receiver / server by google

[Sl33man]

When will it come, or will it come. We've been hearing about the Google fiber product that's been on the market only to the residents of Kansas city, but will we have the opportunity to see a product come to market that the rest of us can use with our existing satellite or cable providers?

After reading some past forum posts I got my hopes up that perhaps something may be coming to the public eye during the CES convention, but sadly NOTHING. My next hope is that there may be some new product announced at the upcoming Google I/O in may. Is there any news that I am unaware of or has Google just bought out Sage to only make it available to a very small segment of users.

I'm feeling a bit of urgency as hardware begins to fail and the tech voices tell me to start moving toward the bright white light...

Any insight would be appreciated.

[reggie14]

On the day of the Google Fiber announcement, Brent (geektonic) had a discussion thread going on his Google+ page. Jeff posted a couple times. When asked if there was going to be a non-fiber version, he responded "no comment on your comment right now. :-) Stay tuned."

Since then there's been no sign of movement there.

I see you're in Montreal. I'm not quite sure what you're expecting. I can't imagine Google would put something out that requires IR blasters and HD-PVRs. If they do a retail version, it would presumably be either clearQAM/ATSC only, and/or CableCard.

I don't expect them to do that. I could more easily imagine them becoming a "virtual" cable company, streaming all their content. But if they were going to go down that route I would have expected them to do that in Kansas City first, rather than deploying a somewhat traditional DVR (albeit a quite good one).

[drewg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

On the day of the Google Fiber announcement, Brent (geektonic) had a discussion thread going on his Google+ page. Jeff posted a couple times. When asked if there was going to be a non-fiber version, he responded "no comment on your comment right now. :-) Stay tuned."

Since then there's been no sign of movement there.

Google is incredibly secretive. We did not know SageTV's roll in Google Fiber TV until they felt ready to show us the demos. For all we know, they could have a consumer product undergoing testing right now, and we'd never know about it.

Originally Posted by reggie14

I see you're in Montreal. I'm not quite sure what you're expecting. I can't imagine Google would put something out that requires IR blasters and HD-PVRs. If they do a retail version, it would presumably be either clearQAM/ATSC only, and/or CableCard.

I don't expect them to do that.

Don't the existing Google Tv products already pretty much do what an HD-PVR does complete with IR blasting, except with HDMI & without recording? I mean, it sits between the STB & the TV, and you pass HDMI through it so it can add menus & overlays & you hook up an IR blaster so it can change channels for you. I would assume that if they did not involve a PC, and locked everything down with DRM, they could record in some HDCP compliant way from HDMI, rather than having people mess with component.

Drew

[Brent]

Originally Posted by drewg

Google is incredibly secretive. We did not know SageTV's roll in Google Fiber TV until they felt ready to show us the demos. For all we know, they could have a consumer product undergoing testing right now, and we'd never know about it.

Exactly correct. I used to think Jeff was quiet and secretive about things when he was SageTV, but now that he's with Google they treat secrets like they are the NSA. And they don't like to talk about things until the day they make their official announcement. Jeff was literally in Kansas City (my town) for the Google Fiber announcement and I didn't know it until after the announcement!

Don't the existing Google Tv products already pretty much do what an HD-PVR does complete with IR blasting, except with HDMI & without recording? I mean, it sits between the STB & the TV, and you pass HDMI through it so it can add menus & overlays & you hook up an IR blaster so it can change channels for you. I would assume that if they did not involve a PC, and locked everything down with DRM, they could record in some HDCP compliant way from HDMI, rather than having people mess with component.
Drew

There is no PC. I believe they use CableCard as the tuner inside, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

My guess is we will see something from the Google Fiber TV thing outside of Google Fiber, but that's just a guess at this point.

[reggie14]

Google Fiber TV probably puts them in the category as Verizon FiOS, so they probably have to support CableCard to meet FCC regulations.

But I think drew was talking about component/HDMI video-in for some hypothetical retail version of the Google Fiber TV system. He was pointing to the GoogleTV's use of video-in from an STB as a reason to think that they might do something like that for the retail Google Fiber TV system.

I'm still skeptical. I don't think I'd point to GoogleTV as a success story, so if I were Google I wouldn't be copying too many ideas to other systems. In particular, I wouldn't carry over that aspect of the system.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Google Fiber TV probably puts them in the category as Verizon FiOS, so they probably have to support CableCard to meet FCC regulations.

U-Verse does not support cable-card either. When U-Verse was rolling out where I used to live (RTP, NC) they claimed that the roll out was slow because they needed to get FCC waivers for each area they went into. This was just a salescritter, so he could be full of it..

I'd tend to think that Google would not have a lot of patience with regulatory bodies like CableLabs, that's why I'd lean toward an HD-PVR like solution. Then again, they sell cell phones, which have a lot of regulatory BS...

Drew

[Brent]

Originally Posted by drewg

I'd tend to think that Google would not have a lot of patience with regulatory bodies like CableLabs, that's why I'd lean toward an HD-PVR like solution. Then again, they sell cell phones, which have a lot of regulatory BS...

Drew

I'm very confident it has zero Hauppauge inside. Hauppauge's "sketchy" support of their own hardware (notably HD-PVR & Collossus) was not one of SageTV's favorite things in life and Google would be even less tolerant of that. I guess that doesn't mean they wouldn't support those tuners outside of Google Fiber, but there's no way they would put it in the packaged hardware they are providing to Google Fiber homes.

[reggie14]

U-verse didn't need a CableCard waiver. As an IPTV provider it doesn't fall under the CableCard mandate. I've been assuming the Google system is more like a souped up version of FiOS rather than U-verse (although I was originally expecting it to be more like u-verse).

Also, CableLabs isn't a regulatory body. It's a non-for-profit industry consortium that came up with CableCard when the FCC told them they had to. Even if Google is using CardCard, as a provider themselves, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't need to get their systems certified. Or, maybe they can self-certify and bring it in for interoperability tests. That being said, I don't see Google showing up on any of the CableLabs certification lists (which do list self-certified products).

I think you'd have a really hard time selling a DVR product that requires you to have a stack of cable company STBs. If that was a viable route TiVo and/or Moxi probably would have tried it. There's no reason for Google to sell a system that has little mass-market appeal.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

U-verse didn't need a CableCard waiver. As an IPTV provider it doesn't fall under the CableCard mandate. I've been assuming the Google system is more like a souped up version of FiOS rather than U-verse (although I was originally expecting it to be more like u-verse).

My assumption is that Google Fiber TV is also IP based. How else could they afford an 8-tuner server in each customer's house? If they have gigabit to the home, 8 IP mullticast streams is only 40-100Mb/s assuming H.264, which barely puts a dent in a 1Gb/s pipe.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Also, CableLabs isn't a regulatory body. It's a non-for-profit industry consortium that came up with CableCard when the FCC told them they had to.

Yes, I understand. But for the role they play, they might as well be a regulatory body. In order to play in that ecosystem, you need their approval.
Sorry for taking a terminology short-cut.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Even if Google is using CardCard, as a provider themselves, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't need to get their systems certified. Or, maybe they can self-certify and bring it in for interoperability tests. That being said, I don't see Google showing up on any of the CableLabs certification lists (which do list self-certified products).

Again, I don't think they use Cable Card, I think they are IP like U-Verse.

Originally Posted by reggie14

I think you'd have a really hard time selling a DVR product that requires you to have a stack of cable company STBs. If that was a viable route TiVo and/or Moxi probably would have tried it. There's no reason for Google to sell a system that has little mass-market appeal.

I'm not saying I'm convinced they'd do it. All I'm saying is that the have experience with systems that connect between the STB & the TV via HDMI, and such a system would allow them to bypass the bureaucratic CableLabs.

Drew

[drewg]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm very confident it has zero Hauppauge inside. Hauppauge's "sketchy" support of their own hardware (notably HD-PVR & Collossus) was not one of SageTV's favorite things in life and Google would be even less tolerant of that. I guess that doesn't mean they wouldn't support those tuners outside of Google Fiber, but there's no way they would put it in the packaged hardware they are providing to Google Fiber homes.

If they did that, I doubt they would use Hauppage. They can build their own box using similar or better chips for a fraction of the price they'd pay Hauppage, and have it nicely integrated into the google tv box. The key would be getting some HDCP certification, so they could record from HDMI. That's the weakest link in my theory.

Drew

[reggie14]

[QUOTE=drewg;548365]My assumption is that Google Fiber TV is also IP based. How else could they afford an 8-tuner server in each customer's house? If they have gigabit to the home, 8 IP mullticast streams is only 40-100Mb/s assuming H.264, which barely puts a dent in a 1Gb/s pipe.
[\quote]

Good point about the 8-tuner service. It's an odd number for a cablecard-driven setup. An M-Card can only decode (up to) six streams at once. 8 is a weird number to get to.

<This paragraph is wrong. See the messages below.> I guess I've been assuming they're using QAM since the Google Fiber TV Storage Box has a coax connection for the TV signal. If they were doing IPTV I don't see why they wouldn't just use ethernet from the networking box. They're not doing anything like MoCA, since the TV Boxes connect to the Storage box over ethernet.



Now that I think about it more, I think the CableCard requirement only kicks in for cable providers of a certain size. Maybe it doesn't apply to Google because Google Fiber is too small.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I guess I've been assuming they're using QAM since the Google Fiber TV Storage Box has a coax connection for the TV signal. If they were doing IPTV I don't see why they wouldn't just use ethernet from the networking box. They're not doing anything like MoCA, since the TV Boxes connect to the Storage box over ethernet.

I spent my coffee break googling, and I think you might be wrong about QAM. From what I saw at http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/...answer=2667498, the coax on the storage box is for MOCA, and the ethernet port connects to their network box.

Also, from the diagram at http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/...answer=2667500, I am ass-u-me-ing that the green links are MOCA.

Also, that tv box page shows they have an HDMI in. So I could imagine them using the same setup with a typical cable/sat provider, and having having each one of these TV boxes sitting on top of a cable box, recording from HDMI, saving the H.264 stream across MOCA to the storage box.

Drew

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by drewg

I spent my coffee break googling, and I think you might be wrong about QAM. From what I saw at http://support.google.com/fiber/bin/...answer=2667498, the coax on the storage box is for MOCA, and the ethernet port connects to their network box.

Yep, you're absolutely right. The ethernet port on the Storage box appears to be for TV, with the coax for MoCA to the TV boxes.

You convinced in. I think you're right- Google Fiber appears to be doing IPTV.

[Brent]

I'm not sure what tuners are inside - could be two quad-tuners. But I believe it uses IPTV which would make sense for Google who wants to utilize this product for super-accurate advertising.

Here's some explanation of what I mean. From wiki

Due to limitations in bandwidth, an IPTV channel is delivered to the user one at a time, as opposed to the traditional multiplexed delivery. Changing a channel requires requesting the head-end server to provide a different broadcast stream, much like VOD (For VOD the stream is delivered using Unicast, for the normal TV signal multicast is used). This could enable the service provider to accurately track each and every programme watched and the duration of watching for each viewer; broadcasters and advertisers could then understand their audience and programming better with accurate data and targeted advertising. In conjunction with regulatory differences between IPTV and cable TV this tracking could pose a threat to privacy according to critics.

Sounds perfect for delivering ads to each viewer and tracking what is watched, for how long etc. Nielsen instantly becomes irrelevant.

More evidence of it using IPTV http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/G...ars-FCC-119812

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm not sure what tuners are inside - could be two quad-tuners. But I believe it uses IPTV which would make sense for Google who wants to utilize this product for super-accurate advertising.

Here's some explanation of what I mean. From wiki

Sounds perfect for delivering ads to each viewer and tracking what is watched, for how long etc. Nielsen instantly becomes irrelevant.

More evidence of it using IPTV http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/G...ars-FCC-119812

There is no reason IPTV has to be single connection, it can just as easily be done via multi-cast, and I'd be surprised if google wasn't doing at least this, especially given the broadcast nature of the content. They would still be able to record subsription and unsubscription to the multicast stream. That said, it would make even more sense for them to simply relay the viewing data that sagetv already collects back to them, which would not only show what is being watched/recorded, but even include what is being rewatched.