Video over the Internet: Services and devices move closer to living-room convenience

You could argue that the Internet has long been used for video distribution, but such applications have been mostly computer-centric and the video of questionable quality. But recent Digital Den experiments with the Akimbo PVR (personal video recorder) and the Slingbox suggest that mainstream consumers can both receive quality video streams through the Internet and use the Internet to "place shift" their own content. And assuming some form of a home network, the products and services won't bust the bank. Remaining obstacles include distributing digital video in a home, the rather narrow choice of Internet content, and, of course, the business models involved. Still, our evaluation suggests that digital video is in the nascent stage and will still offer designers and entrepreneurs many opportunities in the future.

The Digital Den staff set out to look at three issues in this digital-video project. First, we'd evaluate how well video delivery over the Internet to an Akimbo PVR works (Figure 1). We'd also consider place shifting. For those who haven't heard of Slingbox, the diminutive box sits in the living room, encodes the video you receive using cable, antenna, or satellite, and streams that content to PCs connected via a home network or the Internet (Figure 2). The industry has begun to call this function "place shifting," as opposed to the time-shifting function that a PVR offers. Finally, we'd also set out to see how you might integrate such diverse functions into a workable whole-house A/V environment (see sidebar "Whole-house modulator works, but picture quality suffers").

A home network is the common element that both Akimbo and Slingbox require. And both Akimbo and Slingbox are typically living-room-resident devices. Akimbo would typically connect to your TV, and Slingbox to the same source that feeds your main TV. So, the first step in anyone evaluating these products may be a network upgrade.

EDN's Digital Den has long been a wireless advocate, although it has correctly pointed out the potential weaknesses of wireless when it comes to video distribution. Still, you may get by with a wireless connection for one or both of the test products. You could certainly use a wireless bridge to link a living-room Ethernet switch to the duo if you need to connect multiple devices in the living room—and realistically you will, in the future. Akimbo supports a Linksys USB-to-802.11 adapter that can link the PVR to a wireless network. But in our case, we wanted to evaluate the products in the best network environment possible. So we augmented our test living room with a new Cat5 cable drop and a Netgear five-port 10/100-Mbps switch. The switch cost only about $30. The sweat left in the attic was probably worth far more (see sidebar "Jacks ease installation").

Once you solve the home-network problem, you have to find a way to work products such as Akimbo or Slingbox into your A/V system. For the tests in our Digital Den, we added the duo of new products into a system that already had analog cable, an HD DirecTV/terrestrial receiver, and a dual-tuner TiVo/DirecTV receiver as inputs. (See sidebar "Whole-house modulator works, but picture quality suffers" for details on the connections.) Indeed, our digital den was already woefully short on places to connect A/V inputs or outputs.

The Akimbo PVR is decidedly simple when it comes to connections. It has a single A/V output, a LAN connection, and two USB connectors. Most other PVRs have multiple outputs, but then again, Akimbo was at press time selling its Internet PVR for $100, including three free months of service (normally, $10 per month). Both the HD and TiVo receivers fed the multiroom modulator in our Digital Den before Akimbo arrived. But, it turns out, you have to configure the Hughes HD receiver to output only an SD (as opposed to an HD) signal for the receiver to drive its composite-video output. So, generally, that output stays inactive save the rare occasion when both TiVo tuners are busy and someone needs to access a DirecTV receiver from a remote TV. So Akimbo got the B input to the modulator that feeds the signal to every TV in the test house on channel 122.

The software setup on Akimbo was also amazingly simple. The PVR produces a pass phrase on screen and instructs you to enter that phrase through the company's Web site. The Web site asks for pertinent information including a credit-card number. To get the three free months of service, you enter a promo code from the packing label. In minutes, you can be perusing the Akimbo channel guide.

Unlike TiVo, which records from a broadcast source, Akimbo must download viewing choices. Subscribers instruct Akimbo to get the desired content, and then watch it later. Still, 30-minute shows take only a few minutes to arrive by means of a cable modem. Akimbo offers a broad mix of content. There's easily recognizable programming from sources such as CNN, the Food Network, and Turner Classic Movies, along with specialty programming, such as The Billiard Network, Asiamoviechannel.com, and Best of California.

Indeed, content is arguably Akimbo's near-term Achilles' heel and perhaps in the long term its greatest strength. The company has gathered bits and pieces ranging from Turkish programming to golf instruction. But there's probably not enough of any category to satisfy a subscriber really interested in a niche. And there is not enough of the broadly applicable content, such as mainstream movies on Turner Classic Movies, to attract a huge subscriber base. In the long term, the company may benefit from being independent and may be able to keep building the available programming block by block. The company does not share the constraints placed on MSOs (multisystem operators) that own their own networks as to what programming they must carry.

Still, to survive, Akimbo may need to tweak its business model. It provides much of its content on a pay-per-view basis on top of the $10-per-month subscription fee. Perhaps an extra charge for adult content is legitimate if the company feels it must offer such programming. But subscribers interested in subjects from wine to golf are likely to feel that they are being nickel-and-dimed to death. For instance, the GolfSpan channel offers a series of one-minute instructional programs that cost 49 cents each for a 30-day viewing period. A golf enthusiast wouldn't have to buy many before a good instructional DVD would have been a better investment. Understand that the monthly fee includes substantial content, such as the Food Network and CNN programming. But much of it carries a tariff. Feel like paying 2FlyTV 49 cents to see a six-minute aerial fly-over of New York City? Check the Akimbo Web site for a complete list of content.

Akimbo is all about another way to bring content home, but the second new component in our Digital Den specializes in encoding and transmitting content. Consumers will surely find the Slingbox handy to distribute home video both on a home network and to remote locations using the Internet. In in-home applications, Slingbox can serve programming to, say, a home-office PC in a room not served by a typical home A/V system. Remotely, say, while traveling on business, some sick sports fans we know might choose to spend time in their hotel watching a baseball team, such as the Padres, lose another game. Such a game wouldn't likely be available to a business traveler, but Slingbox would let that traveler watch using the Internet and the Slingbox feed from home. No doubt, Slingbox will also allow grandparents to watch live video of grandkids, remote monitoring of security cameras, and who knows what else.

Slingbox sells for $250. At press time, the product was available in limited quantities at Best Buy and CompUSA. The approximately 10.5×3.5×1.75-in. device certainly consumes little shelf space. It offers both composite- and S-video input and output connectors, a coax input for the internal tuner, and a LAN connection. The video output is a pass-through connection that allows the buyer to place Slingbox between a source, such as a TiVo, and a TV. Making the hardware connections is a snap. Initially, we connected one of the local coax outputs of the multiroom modulator to the Slingbox in our digital den.

Installing the Slingmedia software and configuring Slingbox is a bit more complicated. Perhaps the company should have considered separating the configuration software from the Slingplayer application. Instead, a 70-Mbyte zipped download is the first step in installing Slingbox support on any PC. You must use a machine on the home LAN to initially configure the box. On local or remote PCs from which users want to watch only Slingbox content, the quick witted will realize that they need to check the box indicating that this is not the first time the Slingbox has been configured. A plain-English alternative might have offered the choice of installing and configuring the hardware or installing the Slingplayer application.

Users that want to watch Slingbox content only locally are spared many networking details. To make your Slingbox accessible by means of the Internet, however, you must open a TCP/IP in your router to the IP address that the router assigns to the Slingbox. Presumably, new Universal Plug & Play routers make the router configuration automatic. Manually configuring a router isn't difficult for computer enthusiasts but will surely stymie some consumers. Slingmedia attempts to solve the problem with help screens that it serves by means of the Internet. The system asks for the model number of the router on the network, and then attempts to deliver instructions specific to that model. We found it missed completely on a popular router, and bad help in this case may be worse than no help at all.

To run the Slingplayer, you need a Windows XP PC with Service Pack 2. You may have to disable PC-resident firewalls and VPN software to access the Slingbox for configuration or viewing. In the case of the standard Reed Business (EDN's parent company) software load, the McAfee Desktop Firewall causes no problems, but the Nortel Contivity VPN prevents the Slingmedia software from finding the Slingbox.

Our initial installation of Slingbox took less than an hour, and that was with phone interruptions and other obstacles. The quick-start guide warns of the VPN and firewall problems. We didn't take the time to read about minimum system requirements. But we quickly had a video stream from our digital den playing on a PC in the home office. The initial test machine did experience pauses in the stream at what seemed like a repetitive interval.

Because the office PC is connected by means of an older 10-Mbps Ethernet switch, that slower switch stood out as the potential culprit. And upon installing the Slingplayer in the family room—on a PC connected to the Slingbox via a 10/100-Mbps switch, the stream played perfectly.

Next, an East Coast-based member of the Digital Den team fired up a remote test on the other side of the country. During the initial configuration process, the Slingmedia software generated a 32-character "Finder ID" specific to our Slingbox. For remote access, a user needs that Finder ID along with a password established at initial configuration. It appears that Slingmedia is keeping a list of Finder IDs and linking them to local IP addresses. Presumably, you can also guide a remote user to your Slingbox as long as you know the current IP address of your cable modem.

We were smart enough to stop, capture, and store the Finder ID—after starting to record the onerous string on a message pad. After receiving the Finder ID and password by means of e-mail, our Eastern invader quickly had access to EDN's West Coast-based digital den. Cox Communications handled the outbound feed in the San Diego area, and Comcast in Boston handled the inbound stream. Generally, the remote-viewing experience was perfectly acceptable—with the exception of the image size. When we changed channels remotely, the stream would take seconds and sometimes tens of seconds to stabilize. But once stable, the stream was solid.

Back on the West Coast, it was fairly obvious that a 10-Mbps switch was not causing pauses in the stream. It appears it was purely a lack of horsepower. Slingmedia specifies a 1-GHz Pentium IV or faster processor. Our initial test machine is based on a 1-GHz Mobile Pentium III CPU.

In all cases, it is best to view the video stream as a relatively small window. At one-quarter to one-third of a 19-in. display set to 1024×768-pixel resolution, the video quality looks good. When blown up to full screen, the stream shows artifacts—especially if there is a lot of movement in the content. Remember, an encoder is processing the stream in real time.

Overall, the Slingbox experience was positive, but the company could do so much more with just slightly better software—both the configuration software that runs on the PC and the embedded software that carries out the task in the Slingbox. For instance, you can have a coax input or a composite-video input, but not both. We're not suggesting that the Slingbox should simultaneously encode both, but we are suggesting that the software should be smart enough to let the user swap between inputs without reconfiguring the box. The device does come with IR emitters that let the unit control a TiVo or ReplayTV PVR. But, in our case, if TiVo is connected and active, a baseball fan wouldn't have access to a Padres game that is available only through Cox Channel 4 in San Diego.

At first, we thought our system-configuration problem was unique, because we actually have the TiVo/DirecTV receiver modulated onto channel 120 on the coax input to the Slingbox. It's understandable that the Slingbox engineers didn't anticipate such a connection and the potential need to use the IR emitter to control a source coming in through coax. But upon rerunning the configuration software, it became clear that the Slingmedia software deals with only one source—either coax or composite video—at any point in time. The company's tech support confirmed that limitation via e-mail.

Still, we're planning on keeping Slingbox—unless those guys on the Prying Eyes staff steal it away one night. We may decide to let them have Akimbo without a struggle.