Brian's Brain

Jul 21 2008 1:00AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |
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Speaking of downloadable video...in my initial inspection of the frequently-mentioned VUDU settop box, I pointed out that (like the Xbox 360, for example, but unlike the Apple TV, Netflix Player, Nintendo Wii or PlayStation 3) it didn't offer integrated Wi-Fi as a connectivity option. The company announced a wireless bridge add-on adapter set in early June, and I finally got my hands on a review unit late last week.

The cost? $79 for a two-pack, or $50 when purchased with a VUDU box. That's a pretty good deal, when you consider that the adapters are OEM'd versions of ASUS's WL-330gE (a combo access point, bridge, gateway or repeater, depending on how you configure it), which sells for $69.99 per adapter at Newegg. But don't get any bright ideas; the hardware may be the same, but VUDU's units run custom firmware. Kevin Pearsell, VUDU's Director of Customer Care who I spoke with on the phone last week, made it clear that it wasn't possible to load ASUS's firmware on the units or, for that matter, use ASUS's configuration utilities to override the VUDU-programmed defaults. Sounds like a hacker challenge to me...;-)

About those defaults...the intent of the VUDU Wireless Kit is to provide a dedicated wireless link between your router and the settop box. As such, the units come pre-paired with identical SSIDs (broadcast and receive) and 128-bit WEP key settings. The product packaging explicitly identifies the units as '802.11g adapters', but my question of whether the VUDU-customized firmware made them 802.11g-superset or 802.11g-derived from a protocol standpoint was answered by Kevin with a somewhat ambiguous response. As such, I noted this morning that NetStumbler running on my laptop was unable to 'see' the VUDU wireless link; this may simply mean that the VUDU transmitter has SSID broadcast disabled, though NetStumbler is usually able to at least detect that a 'cloaked' network is present (even if it can't discern SSID and encryption specifics).

My knee-jerk reaction when I saw that VUDU was employing an 802.11g foundation focused on potential interference; what might the gear do to already-operating 2.4 GHz ISM band equipment such as Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth equipment, wireless speaker sets, cordless phones, etc., and visa versa? As it turns out, minimizing the potential for such issues is one fundamental enhancement that VUDU brought to the ASUS hardware foundation. On power-up, the transmitter polls 802.11g channels 1, 6 and 11 (the three non-overlapping 802.11b/g options), discerns which of the three is most 'in the clear', and uses it going forward. VUDU admitted (as I was conceptually thinking ahead to my upcoming White Spaces cover story) that the gear didn't periodically re-poll the spectrum in order to account for other devices that might later enter it. Nonetheless, VUDU's 'good neighbor' approach is certainly much better than doing nothing at all, and will probably be sufficient for many customer usage models.

Other enhancements? VUDU has tweaked the hardware settings from a performance standpoint to account for the UDP-dominant nature of the data streaming from transmitter to receiver. The company also made several unspecified 'QoS enhancements', along with implementing a periodic 'heartbeat' between the transmitter and receiver. I expressed surprise that Hollywood hadn't insisted on WPA encryption as an incremental piracy-protection measure above and beyond 128-bit WEP; Kevin confirmed my suspicions in this regard when (after consulting with a colleague) he admitted that on the ASUS hardware, WPA encryption and decryption would have incurred an undesirable performance impact (this is a common issue with 802.11g-generation gear; 802.11n specification requirements supposedly fix it). Kevin also pointed out that the link between VUDU's servers and any particular settop box (or, for that matter, between any two settop boxes) already employs a VUDU-developed, Hollywood-blessed proprietary encryption scheme.

And speaking of 802.11n, I also found Kevin's answers to my 'why not?' query interesting. His initial response focused on performance; he was spot-on in noting that the system bottleneck (at least in the vast majority of cases) was the broadband connection flowing to the home; given this fact, 802.11n's incremental bandwidth over 802.11g was unnecessary. When I asked about range, the other key 802.11n enhancement over 802.11g, Kevin responded that VUDU's testing suggested that ASUS's 802.11g hardware (with corresponding VUDU firmware tweaks...perhaps including broadcast power boosts, if so then presumably still within FCC limits?) had sufficient 'footprint' coverage to service the vast majority of potential customers' configurations. And regarding cost, I acquiesced his point that given 802.11n's nascent current condition, there's no way VUDU could have hit a $50-$79 price point (with, at minimum, break-even financials) unless it went with prior-generation, already-mature 802.11g.

So how did the gear work? Quite well, at least in my admittedly unpretentious setup. With respect to other 2.4 GHz ISM band beacons, I've got a single Wi-Fi transmitter on channel 11, along with a supposedly-spectrum-adept wireless speaker setup. The router is one floor below, and ~25 feet away (as the crow would fly, if one were indoors) from the VUDU box, with an intermediary wooden floor and wall. I plugged in the transmitter, powered it up, and received blue-light-set notification that it was correctly operating. I then went upstairs, connected the receiver to the settop box, fired it up (VUDU includes an adapter cable that provides power via the settop box's USB port), and it immediately paired with its partner. I measured ~2.5 Mbps of bandwidth to VUDU's servers, just like over the preceding HomePlug AV link. And I detected no service quality degradation of either my Wi-Fi connections or my wireless speaker tethers due to the VUDU network's presence.

Random luck, or true spectrum dexterity? What's your experience with VUDU's Wireless Kit, readers?