XM going video with On2
By Ryan Block 
posted Jan 7th 2005 1:32PM
posted Jan 7th 2005 1:32PM
We heard before that XM were going video with Digital Fountain, but they turned around and showed us by announcing their future video rollout plans to use On2's TrueMotion VP6.2 video compression technology. It still rocks the cached-data broadcasting, so going offline won't be as painful; they're aiming the system, of course, at in-car playback to backseat viewers (you know, the kind who constantly kick the back of the seat and ask, "Are we there yet?"), but we don't have any specific programming details yet. Hopefully XM will speed it up a bit on this one and catch up to the small lead Sirius has on their video plans right now.
Yeah and hopefully Sirius will speed it up a bit and catch up to the huge lead XM has on their subscriber base right now.
Digital Fountain makes error-correction technology and On2 makes video codecs, so XM could use both.
Not for nothing, but didn't XM unveil video at *last year's* CES?
Oh right, they did:
http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/album_pic.php?pic_id=51
Funny, it was even called "XM Video Now!" :)
Either way, I think it's stupid for both XM and Sirius to hog up bandwidth for the rare few soccer mom's who will actually pay the premium price for streaming mobile video. They both need to perfect their core product before stretching themselves thin with downloads of Blue's Clues and Dora.
Boy, can you guys blow Sirius just a little harder - they haven't come yet. Has anybody who writes for this site covered tech for more than like 6 months? Both XM and Sirius announced video at last years' CES. Jesus.
I like coming to this site to check out all the new gadgets, but I didn't realize that the site owner worked for Sirius. Take the big dog's cock out of your ass, dude.
I agree with ryan, why waste the bandwidth. The kids won't care if its a dvd or satellite video playing on the headrest screens in front of them.
I also like coming to this site to check out new gadgets. Sure, there's some bias as to a favored product (hey, like any of you readers honestly value Playstation and Nintendo equally) but I don't mind that so long as we get the gadget news.
What I don't come here for, is a bunch of juveniles showing off the kind of language they can use in an attempt to insult the people who run this site just because it doesn’t conform to the way you want it to be run.
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Regardless of the usefulness of streaming video in a soccer mom's SUV, I still think it's a pretty cool idea to have it. Besides, now that we have handheld satellite radio, how long until we can get handheld satellite video?
XM with it partner On2 are introducing a handheld version that works on a Blackberry at CES right now! So video is not just for "Soccer Moms". News, sports etc. A lot bigger market.
Fran, is it an actual Blackberry and what is the reaction of people viewing/reviewing it?
Blackberry this is huge! How are they presenting this release?
I am not at the show I made the above post from a news feed I saw from the show. I am not sure of the accuracy.
I have seen no press release on Blackberry but the ON2
CEO announced displaying an in vehicle device and a hand held "about the size of a Blackberry". So that must be what Fran is talking about.
http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/profile.php?id=15524&a=1