This one’s been percolating for some time within Motorola’s labs. We last saw the “Media Mover” back in September sporting a different enclosure and name (MCUBE). Motorola (MOT) hopes the device will become the “Swiss Army knife” of USB widgets. And they’re well on their way.
Not only will the inexpensive bus-powered Media Mover puck transcode all sorts of video stored on your DVR, it’ll also broadcast (transfer or streaming) that content locally or remotely (think Slingbox) via WiFi or Bluetooth (BT transmission is obviously local only) to cellphones and computers. At The Cable Show, Motorola was demo-ing video playback on a Q9 cellphone, laptop (VLC with DRM plugin), and iPhone. Additionally, this little Media Mover gizmo houses an SD slot (for offloading content?) and a low-res camera that Moto described as a placeshifting nanny cam.
While they were reluctant to talk hardware costs and specific distribution plans, Motorola sees this as a low cost way for their cable partners (and their respective customers) to add value to existing services/subscriptions.
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It would be nice if this tech would just be built into set-top boxes at some point.
John, that’s on their radar if not the roadmap. I asked that very question. They said it’d be no big deal to incorporate the tech, however there are gazillions of already deployed units which don’t have the necessary hardware. Also, they envision these being possibly being used with non-Moto boxes.
That’s way cool. I was saying how neat the Echostar slingbox DVR was, but this appears to add similar functionality without a whole new box. At least if I’m on the crapper, I don’t have to miss my show, because I’ll have my trusty IPhone with me :-o
I want one
Okay, so it only works with certain Moto boxes (a DCT 2000 or 700 doesn’t have the needed USB port). So if you’ve got a Moto headend in your area, you can use this. Also sounds like its got to be enabled by your cable company, so we know that’ll mean we won’t be seeing this for a while. And since it cooperates on the DRM there *might* be issues with some content–HBO say–which would refuse to be transcoded. But still, a nice attempt.
I’ll stick with my Slingbox though. I assume that app was shown on a developer iPod and hasn’t been approved yet…
Glenn, that’ll always be Moto’s (and Cisco’s) challenge – getting the cable-cos to roll out innovative, new technology. And possibly why this may never see the light of day.
This post is mentioned on GeekBrief #544. Congrats Dave!