Comcast offers its very own tv
Tim gelles:Comcast offers its own tv employer package
Sree kotay, chief software builder, stands in comcast trial room in front of a giant screen displaying x1, the company five tuner dvr.Ed hille / staff photographerdish cell tower socialize has its hopper, which records every show in prime time and helps you skip tv ads.Microsof company has its xbox one, which it says will allow to control your tv with voice or gestures.Apple tv is still reaching for steve jobs’ goal of a simple to use”Integrated television system,
Comcast hasn’t announced its own plans to win the war for the family room.But the philadelphia cable and high speed giant has a stealth entrant in that contest:Any x1, a do all things device designed to protect and expand its share of the turf.
What’s going to the x1 do?And in addition, it won’t help you watch video online streaming services like netflix a mainstay of any”Efficiently tv”Method.But it does plenty to warrant its portrayal as a reinvention of how comcast delivers xfinity tv to its 22 million customers, and some smart tv flourishes.
Here are a couple of the x1′s features, as showcased by sree kotay, comcast’s chief software builder:
Five tuners an upgrade from the two initially included so you can view one show while recording four others.
A 500 gigabyte dvr, enough for 200 hours of homogeneous tv or 80 hours of high def.
A brand new graphical gui, with updated guides for tv and video on demand offering outside perspectives on movies from rotten tomatoes and on kids’ shows from common sense media.
Content searches based on a vast new leisure database comcast calls merlin, with shows tagged for terms like for example actors, training teams, tv show, and types.
Tv based apps that can keep you updated on the next thunderstorm, your stock options, your the online social networks friends, your sports teams’ problems, perhaps the traffic you’ll face on your commute.
Cloud based computer, so the x1 can become the x2 when that brand new interface a radical departure, soon to be able to cloud based dvr storage debuts in the fall.
A radio based remote desktop support, so you won’t aim it and thus can locate the x1 anywhere nearby evenInside a cabinet.Yes, around goes the”Set excellent”In”Tuner,
The x1 is an initial for comcast, which above provided dvrs built to its specs by suppliers such as cisco systems.The x1 was fashioned fully in house a multiyear project, going by kotay, with about 400 employees.
Presented slowly, the x1 went to philadelphia early this year and will reach all of comcast’s markets by year’s end.Its software was upgraded in july to include five cloud based tuners perhaps to compete better with multituner devices such as the hopper.Existing potential consumers can request the x1, the goes first to new”Multiple play”Subscribers and is priced the same as send out previous dvrs, pertaining to $10 a month.
Kotay says a key selling point of the x1 is its”Cloud based form submission layer, everything beyond a small onboard computer system even channel switching software will be in the cloud.
Just rrs not going http://www.sitefire.co.uk/pandora-charms.html to that add lag time latency, in tech provions?
Yep, with regard to 30 to 60 milliseconds, which kotay says is more than made up for by shifting the remote’s technology from infrared to radio transmitting.
To paraphrase, would not notice, but it should be faster, not more relaxed.
Kotay says randomized tests show customers like the x1 very well to watch a bit more tv but about 20 percent more of comcast’s 45, 000 video at the moment assets, you see, our own”Long longest tail”Of you possibly can market.
Because of the x1, he tells, you can find whatever you may want in an average of 3.3 taps of.You can easlily record a show,”Much-Loved”The, share it via facebook, or pivot from the show to a sequence guide.
Comcast started unsure whether tv based apps would catch on, but the Pandora Sale UK answer now seems clear two thirds of x1 owners are with them, kotay reveals.A pandora app may possibly be a niche hit, result in overheating.