TiVo++ from India

charmer writes "According to a story in rediff, a company in India, Divinet Technologies, have developed a set top box that plays video cds, offers sms, email, chat, plays mp3s, acts as a game box, has a web cam, video on demand, and a digital VCR, and has a multilingual interface (a necessity in India.) And it looks pretty good too :-) No pricing given though."

Available Out Of India?

[traskjd]

I wonder if this will be available outside of India? It sounds like a cool device to have!

I mean I really can't be bothered building a small computer just to integrate into my home tv setup.

Of course the price could end up being more than building your own computer to connect up?

Stretching

[Mtn_Dewd]

Could they have jam-packed ONE more area of technology into this box? It seems that the only thing they forgot to include was a detachable PDA or perhaps an integrated Gameboy.

Don't get me wrong. I want one. Now.
Any plans to come to the US soon?

Convergance and Colour

[rf0]

For the geek this is cool. I like it and wouldn't mind one but I can't help but think that normal Joe bloggs on the street might think, why do I need all this? Also I think that it might be just to much. All that technology just can't come cheap surely? As one of the comments says

"Appreciate the technology and efforts but reality is that no convergence device other than clock radio has succeded. Put the consumer first and you will ... "

Also I don't like the red....

Rus

Re:I have to wonder...

[psylent]

kind of reminds me of simputer link... real big hoopla and enthusiasm when it was launched (I was interested and followed it till recently) and now... I just hope it sells well. Go India! Also for those following cricket.. watch India thrash Australia.

not because of outsourcing

[psylent]

the guys are from CDAC and they are a government funded agency. They do real good work on computing and super-computing. (I have a friend who writes network drivers for supercomputers... now that is a cool job) I do not agree that this product is because of people developing experience while getting work done for cheap.

Looks like I'm going to India!

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if all the jobs are heading there anyway, why not! Learn a new language, eat new and exotic foods, and a fast Internet connection on-demand. Don't even think of asking AT&T or Comdex for that feature/convenience.

Is the American tech industry slipping because of copyright battles? Will we be importing more devices from India than Japan in the future or will devices like WICE be banned in the US because they may be considered a violation of the DMCA?

AllI know is that I would love to have a box like that without having to know all sorts of software and hardware hacks/tricks just to make it work on Linux. And they put it in such a pretty (but bright!) box!

Maybe they'll offer skins :D

HDTV

[birdman666]

What would happen to these products if the television networks and electronics companies would get HDTV out of stagnation and into actual homes for a reasonable price? Could any current storage media hold a sufficient amount of HDTV broadcast at a reasonable quality or would Tivo and all of these devices like it be obsoleted until HDs could catch up to the massive amount of space required for the high resolution signal?

Re:I have to wonder...

[jandersen]

Yes, it is a sign of what's to come. All analysts (ie the ones I have read/heard) seem to agree that the West and especially the US have reached the end of the line, so to speak. We may be fabulously rich and have big military power, but since our economy is based on growth alone, and we have nowhere to grow anymore, we've only got one way to go: down.

Well, what about the 'emerging markets' - China, India, ... ? Do you really think they are as stupid as just letting Western businesses in and take over everything? Think again.

Re:I have to wonder...

[Yanna]

I couldn't have said it better myself. The only reason I came with those questions is because I follow your line of thought exactly. I was just curious as to how others see the situation.

I feel for the average American who has troubles to make ends meet. I feel for anyone, American or not, who works for a meager salary and this shifting into development to other countries rather than US will only bring poverty to people who do not have a safety net.

I used to be socialist, then I moved to Europe and saw first hand what a crippled, backwards system socialism can be and now I no longer know what I am... but one thing is sure, I sleep better knowing that there is a layer of protection between me and abject poverty.

Anyways, not to go off topic, what I meant to say is that if this trend continues, we can expect to see more troubles for the average American. That's never a good thing and not because they are Americans, but because they have the same rights than anyone else to make a decent life.

Not quite there yet

[kanda]

I have seen many cool product announcements in India, especially during the boom times. Most have fizzled, some are struggling. Slashdot has also carried some articles: Kaii [slashdot.org], Simputer [slashdot.org] I have rarely seen any of these products being sold and used significantly. (I am from Bangalore, India). I would say India has not yet acquired the ability to develop and market complete embedded high technology products. But soon we may get there. Its a dream for many geeks in India that once a few products click. It would open the flood gates of Indian product innovations. Hope the Slashdot crowd will wish us good luck. :-)

Re:No DVD

[rpillala]

Sounds like a hack waiting to happen :)

I'm not sure why, but the VideoCD format is much more popular in India than the DVD format. At least, this was true a couple of years ago when my dad was there. It could be because of the region lock, but then there are plenty of players [dvdrhelp.com] that have workarounds for that. Note that not all players on that page support many regions, but it's a good place to find out if yours does.

Ravi

Re:I have to wonder...

[WegianWarrior]

As faras I can see, this is but another proof that poor != stupid. If the western civilication won't provide what the third world feels that it needs ata price they can / will pay, they will develop it themselfs.

Still, it sounds like a neat gadget to put next to my TV, and as we here inNorway uses PAL... all I have to do is to convince my cable-provider to support it.

Want to work for them?

[Newer Guy]

STAR, Asia's biggest television broadcaster is launching India's first DTH satellite platform and seeking exceptional broadcast engineers to work on this pioneering project. This is a unique opportunity for best-of-breed engineers to play an integral role in an enterprise that will transform the Indian television industry. Field Engineering Manager, ODU - Delhi based A qualified graduate engineer with a minimum of five years experience in the design and installation of ODU and the associated Set Top Box (STB). Professionals with a Higher Certificate in a relevant discipline and a strong track record will also be considered. Candidates must be highly motivated, pro-active and team-orientated with strong management and leadership skills. Knowledge of the Indian workplace and culture is essential. Key responsibilities will include: Selection of ODU and STB installation companies Testing and approval of equipment prior to field use Training of installers and monitoring of equipment vendors to ensure the provision of high quality, reliable and cost effective product Management of a nationwide group responsible for ODU equipment design, equipment type approval, installer training, development of training documentation and system quality control Ensure on-time installations to meet customer demand Installation scheduling and team management Preparing and managing annual operating budgets STAR, a News Corporation subsidiary, offers a positive work environment, well-defined HR policies, attractive remuneration packages and the benefits of an exciting career path working with cutting-edge technologies in a corporate culture that nurtures talent, recognises excellence and believes in contributing to the communities it operates in. If you are serious about taking your broadcast engineering career into an exciting new dimension please forward your resume to [e-mail]. For more information, please visit: www.startv.com

I'm not impressed

[Dusabre]

Wow. High technology indeed. Apart from the high-speed Internet access and movie access (I'll believe it when it starts, companies have been claiming its just round the corner for near to a decade), its just a prototype red box with stuff crammed into it. Guess what, I can watch VCDs (and even DVDs), listen to mp3s, chat, read my email, watch TV and sends text messages from my $1000 PC. Putting together the components in a red box isn't a big deal for a competent engineer.

The internet and movie claims are the only interesting aspect. But I'll believe that when I see it.

Help! I need patent advice about this invention!

[Omni-Cognate]

A mate of mine has a patent on the idea of using SMS to control a video recording device, which it sounds like these people are using - amongst many other cool ideas. I've texted him about this, but I'd like to find out more if you can help.

As I understand it, he obtained the patent for about £1000 in the UK, and has just been waiting to see if someone uses the idea. I don't know how this works. The invention is in India - is this a problem? How do the international patent treaties work? Is it possible to just patent an idea and get some money if and when someone uses the idea? Do you think this is moral? Does anyone know of prior art?

So many questions...

Re:I have to wonder...

[be-fan]

*Dreaded* consequence? For who? Compete or get out of the business, isn't that the American motto? Might have to deal with a lower standard of living to do it? Well tough. Other people have been doing it for a long time.

If the US ideology had been isolationist and protectivist (and it hadn't tried so hard to "open up" markets in the rest of the world) I could sympathize with your position. But it wasn't, and I don't.

You forgot...

[Viceice]

One other reason all this can be done lawfully in India is because Indian law has a really view on foregn patents and thus, alot of it doesn't apply in India.

Soemthing about having to apply for tha same patant in India seperately from your US and other patents.

Re:HDTV

[evilviper]

Could any current storage media hold a sufficient amount of HDTV broadcast at a reasonable quality

Considering that I can fit a 100+ minute movie at very-near DVD quality on a 700MB CD-R, I don't think HDTV will be a problem. Granted, set-top boxes will need more powerful processors to compress to MPEG4 rather than MPEG2, but it's not THAT big of a problem.

Personally, I would prefer to see more devices using VP3... It's open, and at low bitrates, I saw fewer noticable artifacts in a VP3 file, as compared with a similar size MPEG4 file...

RANT:
Maybe I'm the only one that notices, since everyone is all too happy to use them, but I hate all the video artifacts I see with MPEG-based codecs (compression blocks, aliasing of straight edges, rainbow discoloration of complex objects like pin-striped suits, etc)... What would be perfect (literally) would be to use MNG for video (I hear some people have successfully stuck MNG in an OGG wrapper along with audio). So you'd have (PNG) video, and in a size probably comparable to MPEG2, but no need for lossy compression that distorts the video (look at nearly identical consecutive MPEG2 frames and you will notice that solid colors are made up of a rainbow of colored pixels, and the pixels change color each frame).

So, MPEG has annoying artifacts, and all of the open codecs use the same ideas, hence similar artifacts. VP3 is the only codec I have experience with that didn't appear to have the same artifacts (and coincidentally looked better as well) but I admit I don't have as much experience with it as I'd like to. I can't difinitively say VP3 is better, but in multiple cases it has held it's own.

I hope they can pull it off

[pvera]

If they can keep that box cheap and the evil lawyer hordes in the US don't try to eat them alive, they can make a killing.

Their idea to provide conditional channel access rocks. The most common complaint I hear about digital cable (this is by the way the one thing that consistently pisses me off about my comcast digital cable) is not being able to tailor the channel package. I personally have the top package that comcast offers here, which is about $80 and has about 400 channels or so. Of these 400 channels I may watch 10 or so all the time and maybe surf thru another 20. The rest is garbage.

Also neat is how they let you upgrade your connection speed temporarily, so you only pay while you use this extra bandwidth.

The barrier to video on demand: lack of demand.

[tlambert]

The barrier to video on demand: lack of demand. The WiReD Magazine article from September, 1994, said it best.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/cable.la bs .html

I supposed the lack of DVD support was calculated to ensure a built-in market for the VOD service offering.

I can't really see this device, or the service umbilical, going anywhere any time soon. It failed in 1994, it's fail today.

-- Terry

Waste of time

[LordAtlas]

Yet another "convergence" device. How many more must flop? I've written an article on the myth of convergence [weblogs.com] explaining why such "all in one" devices are doomed. Can you imagine the scene in a family of four with such a device? The dad wants to watch football, mother wants to watch a soap opera, kid wants to surf the Net, and older kid wants to visit PlayBoy.com How on earth would you do all of those at the same time?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This box could have been easily developed, it's merely a question of markets and politics. Do people really want web cams and vcd players? Maybe in India, but video phones and similar technologies have failed to catch on in the US for years. Most other countries as well.

Their concept of fast internet through local distributed nodes is OK, but it requires a large investment by the consumer to buy up these nodes. Lots of nodes! Only 16 users per node in a city of a million? In a country of 300 million? How about upgrading THAT infrastructure in 5 years.

Not saying a local distributed network isn't a good idea, in fact local seems to be the way to go these days. Maybe this is the next step in a natural evolution of telecommunications, but I wonder if the system would hold up in the real world with millions of users and a couple generations of new WICE boxes floating around.

The real juice

[jalfreize]

OK. All you jealous geeks, I'm an Indian
*and* I happen to live in Pune, the home of
C-DAC, and the first city to get a sneak peek at
this hyped up device. he he he...

But cheap shots apart...

The real juice here is not the WICE box -- its the *network* (RAMnet or whatever). The websites of Silicon Mountains, the guys who will be, I guess, the content suppliers and Divinet Access, the box makers and network engineers, both make very ambitious claims about content replication and the sophistication of the network itself (its so sophisticated, its mentioned as one of the risk factors in this venture.)
As far as convergence goes, I personally don't
believe in a set-top box that does everything.
I would prefer a relatively simple access-point kind of device that allows me to plug my computer,
TV, VCR, sound system, coffee machine whatever
and intercommunicate between these systems.
The network should be sufficiently intelligent
and filled with enough active elements to do
the routing and delivery.
e.g. Can it allow me to schedule my TV
programming from my computer using my scripts or
maybe using an SMS from my cellphone?

This degree of convergence is really a bit too much for anyone, really. Especially for someone like me, who grew up on a single, state-sponsored
TV channel, and actually liked most of what was on offer then.

Well, guess all I have to do now, is fill up
the forms on the website
(http://www.smjet.com/smjet/Inquiry/inqui ry.jsp)
and wait for them to reply...
Har har har...