xbox one The Xbox One and live TV -- here's what to expect

[Fourjays Veteran]

To give some more context to this article, there are very solid rumours that BT are wanting to provide their sport service on the X1 and Sky actually want to offer it subsidised as a fully fledged set-top box. In terms of the UK anyway.

Wonder how that would work, as it sounds like it would be as an actual replacement for the Sky box. If it was I have to admit I would be very interested (assuming recording capabilities anyway) as the Xbox One makes much more sense as the TV box rather than as an additional overlay.

[Klownicle]

How much does all of this cost you?

 

Depends, what are you asking about?

 

Considering this setup can be put into any pc, 169$ for a quad tuner card and since I have verizon fios, 3.99 a month for a cable card.  The cablecard is actually free on comcast, etc.  Another cool feature of this type of setup is you can add more tuners to your setup and increase your number of channels being watched at once, ie; a single quad tuner or six tuner can do 4 and 6 respectivly.  You can then add ANOTHER tuner, and have 8 and 12 tuners, etc.  

[Red Arrow]

Has there been any talk on if the Sky app will work on the Xbox One and if so is it getting an update to bring it in line with all this Xbox TV stuff?

 

I?m not really interested in hooking up my Sky box to the Xbox since they will be in different rooms. But if they updated the Sky app it would be far more useful for those of us using the console in a different room to their main TV.

[Thief000]

Wonder how that would work, as it sounds like it would be as an actual replacement for the Sky box. If it was I have to admit I would be very interested (assuming recording capabilities anyway) as the Xbox One makes much more sense as the TV box rather than as an additional overlay.Like

 

Like most TV providers will go in the future: IP based. Once IPv6 takes over completely, television providers and manufacturers are expected to go this way. You see many TV providers already do this with all-in-one subs that contain TV, internet and telephony. They mostly give or rent you an all-in-one modem/router that permits this.

Behind that router you can view your TV on your tablet for example and most certainly Xbox One if the app for it is available (WinRT capable app store). This could also make DVR capabilities work on the Xbox One if MS is willing to give those third party apps access to the drives (they don't on the Xbox 360).

[JonnyLH]

Like most TV providers will go in the future: IP based. Once IPv6 takes over completely, television providers and manufacturers are expected to go this way. You see many TV providers already do this with all-in-one subs that contain TV, internet and telephony. They mostly give or rent you an all-in-one modem/router that permits this.

Behind that router you can view your TV on your tablet for example and most certainly Xbox One if the app for it is available (WinRT capable app store). This could also make DVR capabilities work on the Xbox One if MS is willing to give those third party apps access to the drives (they don't on the Xbox 360).

IPv6 won't take over fully for many many years. We're talking around 20-30 years. Even so, the technology in IPv6 won't dramatically increase the technical capabilities of an IP based network. For example on IPv4 currently (Virgin Media), its just IPv4 multicast streams which broadcast different TV stations. Simples.

[Fourjays Veteran]

Like most TV providers will go in the future: IP based. Once IPv6 takes over completely, television providers and manufacturers are expected to go this way. You see many TV providers already do this with all-in-one subs that contain TV, internet and telephony. They mostly give or rent you an all-in-one modem/router that permits this.

Behind that router you can view your TV on your tablet for example and most certainly Xbox One if the app for it is available (WinRT capable app store). This could also make DVR capabilities work on the Xbox One if MS is willing to give those third party apps access to the drives (they don't on the Xbox 360).

I sort of hope not. Not until the Internet in this country is really brought up to par (frankly, the telephone network should be sold off to other companies and/or BT given heavy fines for their laziness/ineptitude/lack of investment). And I don't see our telephone network (and thus Internet) being improved anytime soon. :/

[JonnyLH]

I sort of hope not. Not until the Internet in this country is really brought up to par (frankly, the telephone network should be sold off to other companies and/or BT given heavy fines for their laziness/ineptitude/lack of investment). And I don't see our telephone network (and thus Internet) being improved anytime soon. :/

As someone who has and still works at the 3 of the top 3 ISP's of the UK, the backbone of the UK is far from inferior. Its the grade of the copper BT used when first installing the phone network where the bottleneck lies. It was very low, hence the degrading of it after all these years and the low speeds you see, unstable lines. For example, one of these ISP's has around 600GBs throughput from the north to the south. This was at around 60% utilized in peak times.

 

If you could get FTTC with BT or in a Virgin Media area then you're speeds will carry on increasing because there's no bottlenecks. The peering charges the UK has with Tier 1 ISP's on the other hand are ridiculous. This is to do with legislation, tax etc etc and is what mainly drives the prices up.

 

Most ISP's are LLU now which means they don't use BT hardware in their exchanges and drive it themselves. Its getting much better, just stay away from BT's copper lines.

[Fourjays Veteran]

As someone who has and still works at the 3 of the top 3 ISP's of the UK, the backbone of the UK is far from inferior. Its the grade of the copper BT used when first installing the phone network where the bottleneck lies. It was very low, hence the degrading of it after all these years and the low speeds you see, unstable lines. For example, one of these ISP's has around 600GBs throughput from the north to the south. This was at around 60% utilized in peak times.

 

If you could get FTTC with BT or in a Virgin Media area then you're speeds will carry on increasing because there's no bottlenecks. The peering charges the UK has with Tier 1 ISP's on the other hand are ridiculous. This is to do with legislation, tax etc etc and is what mainly drives the prices up.

 

Most ISP's are LLU now which means they don't use BT hardware in their exchanges and drive it themselves. Its getting much better, just stay away from BT's copper lines.

Interesting to hear from someone who knows how it all actually works. :) Problem at the moment is that BT seems loathe to do anything outside of the major cities. Last time I checked the local rollout plans, not even semi-major cities in my area (e.g. Stoke) appear to be getting 20Mbps broadband anytime soon, let alone the towns and villages around them. I get this sense from BT that they don't care so long as people are tied to their line rental fees. Hence I really wish someone or something would stick a boot up their backside and get them upgrading the network everywhere. As far as I know, the average Internet speed across the UK is still around 1.5Mbps, which is way too low for this day and age.

 

I am perhaps incredibly fortunate that I get 6 out of my 8Mbps in my relatively rural area. Is partly why I refuse to move from my bandwidth-limited ISP. But I do wonder if it going to go any faster within the next decade. :/

[JonnyLH]

Interesting to hear from someone who knows how it all actually works. :) Problem at the moment is that BT seems loathe to do anything outside of the major cities. Last time I checked the local rollout plans, not even semi-major cities in my area (e.g. Stoke) appear to be getting 20Mbps broadband anytime soon, let alone the towns and villages around them. I get this sense from BT that they don't care so long as people are tied to their line rental fees. Hence I really wish someone or something would stick a boot up their backside and get them upgrading the network everywhere. As far as I know, the average Internet speed across the UK is still around 1.5Mbps, which is way too low for this day and age.

 

I am perhaps incredibly fortunate that I get 6 out of my 8Mbps in my relatively rural area. Is partly why I refuse to move from my bandwidth-limited ISP. But I do wonder if it going to go any faster within the next decade. :/

BT have only been upgrading and installing lines in the areas with a low overall general broadband percentage. They only did this to bring their averages up, then stopped. These are BT's market 2/3 areas, which they charge more line rental for. 

 

Even with FTTC from BT, ISP's have to pass on an 18month contract to the customer because BT actually contract the provider to lease that line for the customer for 18 months.

 

To be honest, you have more look with a local funded project providing better connectivity. Google Digital Region whats in South Yorkshire, similar to that. BT have to go through so much legislation and legal process before they get approval for a lot of their work. That's why they bought Plusnet, to essentially own an ISP without the governments overlook. 

[Fourjays Veteran]

BT have to go through so much legislation and legal process before they get approval for a lot of their work. That's why they bought Plusnet, to essentially own an ISP without the governments overlook. 

So we have the government to blame for it?

[JonnyLH]

So we have the government to blame for it?

Yeap, most of BT's appearance of being incapable is due to very tight legislation on BT because of them owning the phone network after they were privatized. The government do it so BT can't run a monopoly. That point is starting to become invalid simply due to the fact that most ISP's don't actually use BT equipment anymore, only the last mile, which is the worst mile. Its a ridiculous situation.

[blerk]

I do hope that the phased international roll-out means that content deals for tv are in place for every country.

 

For instance, If Xbox in NZ was to become the exclusive console provider of premier league football (via these guys), perhaps in a combo deal discounted package of Xbox + EPL (+ FIFA14 maybe) then there is a great many people I know who would happily give up their existing Sky TV and leap into the world of the new Xbox. Even the rabid enthusiastic PS4 fans who think XB1 is a piece of utter cr*p (their words) would quickly abandon PS4.

 

The XB1 would seem like an absolute bargain to those who currently pay Sky for sports tv; they'd recoup the costs in no time at all ($~80/month *12 months = $960 vs $649 for XB1). They'd get access to all they wanted from TV (EPL), they'd get a game console, and they'd have easy access to all the features of XBL.

 

It's a no brainer really. MS, make it happen already!

[Fourjays Veteran]

Yeap, most of BT's appearance of being incapable is due to very tight legislation on BT because of them owning the phone network after they were privatized. The government do it so BT can't run a monopoly. That point is starting to become invalid simply due to the fact that most ISP's don't actually use BT equipment anymore, only the last mile, which is the worst mile. Its a ridiculous situation.

Another thing to add to my list of reasons why "I hate our government". :P

[JonnyLH]

Another thing to add to my list of reasons why "I hate our government". :p

Yeap. To steer it off-topic a little, I actually installed and fitted a couple of server racks for the gov while I worked at a top ISP in 2011. The intentions of these boxes were unknown to the whole infrastructure team bar the director of engineering. There was a big difference to that equipment to the rest of it in that data center though. Even though the data center was highly secured, manned 24/7, cameras everywhere, ridiculous amount of auth/process before access gained. The boxes which were installed were behind a solid steel fence gate under lock and key (very unusual) and the server racks where the equipment was being located was 3 inch thick steel. All the cabling was actually ran through private and custom made ducts in the data center which was completely isolated to everything else, yet there was a point where the ISP network and the gov stuff met. This point where they met actually sat between the two tier 2 networks which handled the handing over of customer traffic to public peers (Google, Facebook etc). When the GCHQ stuff came out recently, It actually dawned on me what its used for.