Xbox 360 IPTV dream not dead yet

Remember Xbox 360 IPTV rollout? Though the wonderful fantasy of replacing our stodgy cable DVRs with an all-in-one Left 4 Dead playing / channel surfing beast has dried up like a raisin in the sun, Dave Zatz confirmed with Microsoft booth reps that BT is (still) planning on deploying the service, and despite the NXE the UI will retain the look of the current Motorola boxes pictured above. Now that U-Verse has delivered Total Home DVR and upgraded beyond 1 HD stream at a time, maybe they can get to work on this deployment next?

[dohspc @ Jan 10th 2009 8:10PM]

Wonder if that interface will run faster on the x360 because it's kinda slow on the Motorola box u-verse uses.

[macserv @ Jan 11th 2009 8:10AM]

I wish AT&T would drop this crap and develop their own system or use some other Linux-based OS. Microsoft dependency is really holding back the U-verse experience.

[Joe @ Jan 11th 2009 8:40PM]

The microsoft software is what sets Uverse apart. If AT&T developed their own software it would be just as bad as comcast or time warner.

[zomg0t @ Jan 10th 2009 8:11PM]

Hopefully we'll censor out or block you.

[zomg0t @ Jan 10th 2009 9:22PM]

Cool, Engadget did it. Thanks!

[a ham sandwich @ Jan 10th 2009 8:12PM]

yes please! i bought the 120gb hdd for the 360 for IPTV! Dont let my investment go to waste!

[Spartan_458 @ Jan 10th 2009 8:51PM]

I hope you know that you don't need a hard drive for IPTV.....

[a ham sandwich @ Jan 10th 2009 9:22PM]

of course! i got it for the recorded hd shows!

[PeterF @ Jan 10th 2009 8:16PM]

I wonder if the 360 would be very good to use as a set top box. I don't know if I would want to leave it running 100% of the time. I am sure it can't record TV while playing a game, so that is another disadvantage.

[Matt @ Jan 10th 2009 11:10PM]

The 360 can download marketplace content in the background, they could possibly modify the 360 to record a UDP stream in the background.
Of course, they won't do that. I doubt they'll ever release it. They couldn't even be bothered to make it so other STBs can schedule recordings in a THDVR network despite being able to do it from a web browser.

[Casper42 @ Jan 11th 2009 1:18AM]

If I had to guess, I would say they will allow them to be used as STBs and not DVRs initially.

That means you only need it ON when you want to watch TV, not always running for Mode.

[mynk @ Jan 12th 2009 9:23AM]

actually im pretty sure that at one of their speeches, possibly CES last year they announced that IPTV will work cross with gaming, so im guessing you can record TV while gaming

[Game_playa @ Jan 10th 2009 8:19PM]

You = DICK

[bill cant fart @ Jan 11th 2009 12:01AM]

Cheer up, Iceland! You're still better than Sweden!

[bill cant fart @ Jan 11th 2009 12:06AM]

Huh. I thought I replied to Fiddlesworth's thread...

[Fiddlesworth @ Jan 10th 2009 8:27PM]

Microsoft's a bit late to the console IPTV party. The PS3's had KT's IPTV service (Mega TV) in Korea for over a year now and BT's broadband service isn't ideal for this sort of application if live HD streaming is any kind of priority. A lot of BT users are lucky to get even 8Mbit ADSL.

[kentawilson @ Jan 10th 2009 8:42PM]

Well if they get it out HERE in the US then I'd say they would be first. Yeah Sony got it going but it's not happening in the states last time I checked.

[KarlW @ Jan 10th 2009 11:51PM]

What, so because it doesn't happen in the country you live, it doesn't exist?

Sheesh. You should try moving to Iceland. The bank failures provided the first opportunity for Iceland to make the news in over 40 years!

If we in Iceland took your view, we would still be living in caves and communicating through smells.

[palehorse @ Jan 11th 2009 12:45AM]

wait... you're not?!

[Fiddlesworth @ Jan 10th 2009 8:34PM]

..meanwhile Virgin Media's providing 50Mbit which theoretically could stream you Blu-ray quality picture and sound, not that any IPTV provider will for some years yet.

MegaTV for PS3:

http://ruliweb.empas.com/data/rulinews/read.htm?num=15773

[Cellien @ Jan 10th 2009 8:52PM]

Um ok. Thanks for the Asian site.

???

[Cellien @ Jan 10th 2009 8:53PM]

I hope they do it although I'm quite happy with Windows Media Center via a HTPC.

[Casper42 @ Jan 11th 2009 1:23AM]

I wish they would release a soft STB upgrade for Media Center.

I have a Vista MCE in my Fam room and XP MCE 2005's in 2 other rooms of my house (1 per TV basically) and it really bugs me that I have to use the crappy Motorola box when the software that runs on it comes from MS and my MCE boxes come from MS. It seems like it would be SO easy to make this work.

If they are worried about improper usage, just use something like a USB Licensing Key (Dongle) and instead of handing me a STB, just hand me a Dongle and a CD with the software.

Somehow with the wonderful TV Stations, Movie Studios, etc all in total control of how we watch TV these days, it will never happen I'm sure.
God forbid someone bootlegs a season of Dexter because someone left a hole open intentionally, as opposed to the thousands of people who use BitTorrent/FileSharing software and already do it today.

[KeegdnaB @ Jan 10th 2009 9:14PM]

I just got U-verse and I'm loving it....I also just got a 360 and I'm loving it

Combine the 2 and I will be very VERY happy.

[A-style @ Jan 11th 2009 12:29AM]

Find a buddy with FIOS and that Uverse becomes just meh

[KeegdnaB @ Jan 11th 2009 1:02AM]

Well.....we don't get FiOS in Chicago.

U-Verse is the best we got and I'm not complaining

[Casper42 @ Jan 11th 2009 1:26AM]

Currently FIOS is not totally IPTV though (This is both good and bad)
If I remember correctly, only Video On Demand is using IPTV on FIOS, whereas Uverse is all IPTV.

FIOS announced plans to switch over completely at some point in the future though.

[nick @ Jan 10th 2009 9:34PM]

Yeah, I'm sure if it doesn't get implemented on the 360 it will certainly be a main feature of whatever the next game system from Microsoft is. Considering the pace at which solid state is coming along, and how cheap and price effective quad-core's are becoming, we're likely going to be seeing game systems on the horizon that dominate the living room. Think 360 + Zune + Netflix/Amazon Rentals + DVR + Widgets all in one box. If they wisely forgo the dvd/bluray drive and include the Zune all you can eat music deal that box would be heaven. Honestly nothing is stopping this from happening completely on the current 360 other than the fact it would jack up the energy bill quite a bit and likely wouldn't let you run a game and record tv. Oh well, I can dream.

[Momohan @ Jan 10th 2009 11:49PM]

Who cares? I've been hearing about this so called product coming out for the past 1.5 years. Its like At and T 3G coming to Augusta, gA. "Oh, it will be here next month!" that was one year ago! Augusta sucks.

[B0er @ Jan 11th 2009 12:59AM]

What about the Xbox blueray dream?

[Nick @ Jan 11th 2009 5:32AM]

blu-ray is never coming to xbox, its not worth it, dvds/blu-rays will be gone in the next decade, and will eventually move to digital downloads,

[Blank @ Jan 11th 2009 8:49AM]

BT.....meh, we'll never see it... or atleast, we wont see it in the xbox360 official lifespan.

BT are a terrible company, charge premium prices & 1-month waits just to get phone lines activated on there computers, using copperwires for internet aswell, bandwidth all over the UK is anything from 1mb-20mb using BT's, no-one knows what there getting.. theres just not enough exchanges to push out more than 7mb to everyone. (personally im on 20mb.. im getting 7mb)

Chances of them pulling there finger out & giving us an xbox 360 with DVR capability is just, well, stupid to even expect it to happen.

[PSN: Aggie_CEO @ Jan 11th 2009 9:32AM]

can you record AND play games at the same time???

and what good is a 120GB HDD for a DVR???

[Miles @ Jan 11th 2009 9:35AM]

This is already powering the BT IPTV service in the UK. :). Mediaroom is pretty cool when you see it in person. I can't wait till they finally release the version for X360

[ZeroCorpse @ Jan 11th 2009 11:59AM]

Yeah, because what I want more than ANYTHING is a DVR that sounds like a Boeing 747 taking off.

That's my dream.

[Discipulus @ Jan 12th 2009 4:27PM]

ZC,

Oh come on now, it only sounds like that when it fires up the DVD and gets overheated. I am picturing this IPTV stuff only interfacing with the HDD, which isn't nearly so obnoxiously loud.

[Andrew @ Jan 12th 2009 9:00AM]

In reply to some posts saying can it record and play games, noisy DVR etc - I believe the idea is that it will act as an extender, playing content off the main DVR running Microsoft MediaRoom. When I was at Microsoft that was certainly the original idea of the IPTV team, it's just a shame they're completely separate from the eHome team. A unified Media Center Extender/Media Center/MediaRoom/IPTV solution would be the ideal solution!