DirecTV blade coming to 360 Dashboard?
by Christopher Grant 
{ Feb 17th 2006 at 2:00AM }
During CES in January, Microsoft and DirecTV announced a "long-term agreement to expand the reach of digital content throughout the home and on the go." Part of that agreement involved extending "the DirecTV experience to the Xbox 360 system."
A scan of the March 2006 issue of Official Xbox Magazine reveals "that a DirecTV blade might be added to your Xbox 360 Dashboard to accompany the Xbox Live, Games, Media, and System blades. In that blade, you could download TV episodes in high definition, HD movies on demand, and standard-definition streaming DVR (i.e., TiVo) functions."
Looks like the PS3 won't be the only next-gen system with advanced media capabilities. Now the big question is, what'll it cost us?
[Thanks, dsub]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Embassy @ Feb 17th 2006 2:20AM
im really curious how there going to price the higher capacity drives...cuz im sorry but no ones gonna shell out 200 + for a 40 gb or higher...but this is cool..i think MS has this planned out alot better than sony...
bv @ Feb 17th 2006 2:24AM
This excuse for a console doesn't even have one good game for it. Where are the damn games? Why the hell would i want to watch television through my xbox when i have a perfectly good cable box receiver? Microsoft might as well make a blade for those who want to cut themselves after realizing that they spent a night in subzero temperatures at Best Buy waiting to fork over 400+ dollars for a cable box. Someone send me an evitation when the funeral services are scheduled for this p.o.s.
rawker @ Feb 17th 2006 2:40AM
Wow another pointless feature that has nothing to do with games, i'm sure to run out and my an 360 right now, oh wait there arent any avalible. Oh now im sad.
Tom Tuttle from Tacoma @ Feb 17th 2006 2:46AM
#2 is just angry cause he is still waiting for those Emotion Engine graphics he was promised for his PS2.
Don Jose @ Feb 17th 2006 2:57AM
Please don't make that an automatic, required download. I don't even watch TV, and I sure as hell don't need any more clutter on my dashboard.
Talvish @ Feb 17th 2006 3:03AM
I would presume that we will see:
a) downloads in the background
b) bigger hard drives coming
As another, the reason why downloads probably take longer on the 360 is because MS is trying to ensure that you will be able to do it in the background. There was a reference once that online play must work at 64 Kbps. I assume they say this so that they can share the bandwidth on your broadband with other things...like downloads. And if you notice, when a download is complete now it shows the little notification icon saying it was complete similar to when friends come online. Given you are currently stuck on the download page it makes no sense for that notification ... unless backgrounds will be in the background ... it is all coming together.
Dirk Dorkelson @ Feb 17th 2006 3:27AM
#2. I'd say the system maybe doesn't have a great game. But Condemned, Project Gotham Racing and PDZ (well, the multiplayer anyway) are all good. Not played COD2 or DOA4. Also, Outpost Kaloki X, Geometry Wars, Mutant Storm, Zuma, Hexic and even Hardwood Hearts have given me hours of fun. Look past your weirdo preconceived notions and you'll find some good games, goof.
dsub @ Feb 17th 2006 3:56AM
I've been curious how it will be implemented ever since I read it. My first guess was that it will have to use IPTV somehow? The 360 doesn't have any video inputs on it, so who knows. I agree though, how much will it cost us? Will it be included in the XBOX Live! gold subscription? Or will I have to be a directv subscriber? I'm curious how things will pan out, and to be honest, there's so many different approaches MS could take, it's tough to even make a guess. I think for it to be successful they need to figure out a way to implement it without requiring some sort of external add-on box or something.
Currently, TiVo costs $12.95 a month to use, and I think I pay $10 a month to my cable company for my HD DVR box, on top of like $100 for internet and all the channels. So there would have to be some sort of additional charge for it. I couldn't see MS or DirecTV allowing all those features for the measily $50 per year it costs for Live Gold.
So I guess my first take would be that it would be an optional download for subscribers, with an additional monthly/yearly fee of some sort. Maybe like an XBOX Live! Platinum Membership for like $100 a year? Who knows. To be honest, I would gladly fork over another $50 a year in exchange for my $60 per month cable bill. Maybe DirecTV is planning on using this to take some more business away from cable subscribers? We'll just have to wait and see.
I found a link to MS' site with more "official" info on the project, not much more though. Actually, this site makes it sound more like you will use your Media Center PC as the DirecTV reciever, and then it will be "extended" to the 360 in some way. It doesn't directly say that, but who knows what they will do.
dsub @ Feb 17th 2006 3:59AM
sorry guys, here's the link...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jan06/01-05WMDIRECTVPR.mspx
James @ Feb 17th 2006 4:16AM
Unless the Xbox 360 gets a much much bigger HD, we won't be storing too much content on the puny HD the Xbox 360 it has now.
Francesco Simi @ Feb 17th 2006 5:45AM
GREAT!! This is what i was waiting for!!
360 WILL BE THE GREATEST MEDIA HUB EVER AFTER ALL!
Now it's clear why they chosed to not support divx.. eheh
Deezul @ Feb 17th 2006 6:26AM
I'd bet the 360 would be a simple terminal to go along with the rumored home media server that DirecTV announced LAST YEAR at CES. The STBs that DirecTV would sell showed they would connect to the home media server via Cat5 cable. Not a stretch for the 360 to include a 1 GB app or so to pull the stream from there. Probably buy a fancy remote to work with the 360 that would be different from the current remotes.
C @ Feb 17th 2006 8:49AM
Okay I get the strategy. HD movies on demand will be a substitute for needing a HD-DVD or Bluray player. Order the HD movie, record it to your hard drive, and add it to your collection. As opposed to buying a next gen DVD player and seperate HD-DVD or Bluray discs. This may be the way to go.
rog27 @ Feb 17th 2006 8:52AM
Ewww...DirectTV? I don't want one of those crappy satellite dishes. Why can't they ink a deal with a cable company like comcast or time/warner?
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Sense @ Feb 17th 2006 8:57AM
I would guess that they won't force you to pay a subscription unless you want some kind of full blown IPTV service. I would bet it will be more of a pay-per-download iTunes kind of service. I think I could get into that, especially if they priced this stuff cheaper than DVDs.
portorikan @ Feb 17th 2006 9:42AM
Not to feed anyone but @ # 2.
They system barely has 3 months on it.
It just came out, be patient.
2. Have you played Condemned? Holy cow, everyone with a 360 needs to get this game.
It's a good system, the games are coming. Fight Night Round 3 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter are just around the corner.
youngsir @ Feb 17th 2006 10:02AM
i hope its possible to dvr to a portable hard drive. i have more than a few sitting around =)
PiratePete @ Feb 17th 2006 10:13AM
And so it begins… What a nice little Trojan the 360 has turned out to be. Especially after failing to get into a respectable number of homes with their WebTV box. How was Bill going to realize his dream of delivering content (And making a mint while at it) into the homes of millions???
Hmmm, what’s that? 30 million Sony Playstation 2’s solid in the US!! (www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116636,00.asp) That’s Sony having the eyes and ears of all those house holds being able to promote whatever they want to. Man, how can I get into some of that action?
That my friends is how the Xbox was born. Don’t think that Old Bill is just a fellow gamer that just wants you to have the best gaming experience possible. Oh no! The Xbox was just the first step in gaining a foot hold into a large number of households. They knew that it would not be able to deliver the type of content that he wanted it to at that time. The Xbox was just a big PR project to make way for the real tool, The 360.
Expect a lot more of this (Various downloadable content) to come in the near future. Now is there anything wrong with this? No, not really, unless you like being used.
Nowhereman @ Feb 17th 2006 10:20AM
HD-On-Demand downloading is a *long* way away, simply due to the sizes of the files and the time it will take to download them, much less store them. Even using WMV-HD (which is something of a jackhammer of compression), your'e looking at about 50mb *per* *minute* of video. Not only would movie or tv show length titles take a tremendous amount of time to download, the new hard drive would have to be very large to store downloaded video beyond a day or two. For example, the Motorola 6412 Phase III box needs a 120 gig hard drive to store about 12 hours of HD video, and that's been bit-throttled by the cable transmission (it's own nasty form of compression)
Patricio @ Feb 17th 2006 10:24AM
So we are not going to need a dish right? And will I be able to use the harddrive on my pc to store any purchased movies, or recorded shows?
Count me in if we dont need a dish and I can use the pc hardrive. I currently have time warner, it really sucks, and is rather expensive.
Mike @ Feb 17th 2006 10:43AM
#2 - Why would you want to watch TV on your Xbox 360? Because you are always connected then. Whether you are watching a dvd, TV, or playing a game, anybody with a 360 can start a voice chat with you, or invite you into a game, etc. Once all of this comes together (which most of it already has) it will be one seemless experience. I think it is great. Sometimes I watch DVDs on my 360 instead of my normal player, so just incase one of my friends goes onto Xbox Live, while I am watching the movie I can be notified, so I can ditch the lame movie and play a game with my friends.
#4 - Clutter up your dashboard? I don't quite understand how adding another blade on the end will clutter up anything. It's not like they are adding a whole bunch of stuff to all of your blades. They are just adding a blade to the end. I'm not sure how that is cluttering anything up. I think the current Xbox UI could support at least 6 or 7 blades and still feel effiecient and uncluttered.
Tim @ Feb 17th 2006 11:03AM
The graphic mentions that the 360 will "extend the DirecTV experience to the Xbox 360." Key word being "extend." Does this mean that the 360 will function soley as an extender for an existing Tivo systems just like it currently does for Media Center PCs? I just can't see PVR functionality on the current 360 HDD.
SuicideNinja @ Feb 17th 2006 11:10AM
"Ewww...DirectTV? I don't want one of those crappy satellite dishes. Why can't they ink a deal with a cable company like comcast or time/warner?"
No no no no. We don't want AOL (Time Warner) anywhere near our Xbox 360s. Trust me. Let Sony have them.
Actually, my parents got rid of Comcast at their house and went with DirectTV. They said they are a lot happier with it price-wise, quality-wise, and control-wise. However, the commercials are true about the dish, especially if snow is involved.
Me, I just want the internet connection....television is a waste of time. But my room mates feel otherwise. So Comcast is fine with me.
#2, it takes a bit before you see a slew of games after a console launches. Even so, I have Call of Duty 2, Quake 4, DOA4, Tiger Woods 06, and Condemned. I love them all. XBLA is great, too. With Burnout Revenge, Full Auto, Oblivion 4, and Fight Night 3 coming, we have plenty to look forward to.
PiratePete is Dumb @ Feb 17th 2006 11:40AM
#17, How is giving us more options and more features (they are optional)using us? You would rather have less features instead of more so you don't feel used? Weirdo
Sleeper7 @ Feb 17th 2006 12:22PM
I could care less for this feature. I just want them to concentrate on releasing more GAMES since that was what I bought this system for. The only game I'm really playing right now is PGR3 and thats it. I beat DOA4 and Condemned and now they are just collecting dust. PDZ sux (returned that POS) and i'm not interested in any of the other games. Just focus on the games.
Phosphos @ Feb 17th 2006 1:02PM
#17: If a company providing you content/products is "using" you then you must be pretty pissed off. I would hedge a bet that you live in a shack in the middle of nowhere and grow your own food. You are also projecting your posts with your mind, as you don't own a computer! That would mean you're being used!
Or you're just a shortsighted hypocrite.
richie579 @ Feb 17th 2006 1:13PM
If anybody has used video on demand with cable, Comcast for example, you'll know that you don't need a hard drive...maybe they're going for something like that.
GTgamer @ Feb 17th 2006 2:43PM
Fine timing considering my HD DirecTivo just arrived half an hour ago. Still, this collaboration could be really interesting.
Now if only I could finally get my hands on a 360 and PGR3.
Sloopydrew @ Feb 17th 2006 3:20PM
Microsoft is treating hard drives as $100.00 memory cards and consoles as PCs. Next they'll sell us a 100 gig drive for $150.00. Then a 200 gig, for the same price.
I predict the 360 will come with a 100 gig drive by October or November, along with a price cut. Early adapters, such as myself, will be stuck shelling out another $100 - $150 to make our 360's match the ones on the shelf that are selling for less than we paid. That's never happened before.
I've bought consoles and watched the price dropped. I've never bought consoles, watched the price drop, and then been forced to pay another hundred bucks to keep my console current. Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds and adding insult to injury.
People claimed the original XBOX was nothing but a PC in a console's clothing. It looks like they were just one console off. Grr.
Spartacus @ Feb 17th 2006 3:25PM
bv (#2):
Your post could just as well be appropriate for a PSP blog. The difference is the 360 is only a few months old.
To a few others that asked: I wouldn't think you'd need to buy a dish. I would guess this would be incorporated into your LIVE account, not be a separate service that the 360 supports. You'd pay for content with MS points just as you do now rather than pay for another service (how would you connect a dish to your 360?). The only thing you'd need is a LIVE account.
As for the news, this is promising. If Sony truly has a LIVE-esque service up their sleeves "and then some", something similar to this is probably what they had in mind due to the properties that Sony owns (music and movies). MS has said since the beginning that 360 owners had a lot more in store for them in the years to come, so it looks like they weren't bluffing. Looks like MS might be matching Sony point for point before Sony even has a chance to make any announcements. All I can say is it isn't looking like Sony will be able to one-up LIVE for quite some time, MS is giving them a run for their money. MS, feel free to offer me a few MORE blades ;)
omegatek @ Feb 17th 2006 3:33PM
Oh great... I get to download a whopping 2 hours of High Definition content to my 360! Wow!
Even if I can upgrade the 360 harddrive, what are they going to charge? $200? $300?
Maybe we can save the content to our networked PC? Oh wait... it will be riddled with DRM
Whats that M$? We need to upgrade our PC's to run Windows Vista in order to watch HD Content that we have purchased using our Xbox 360? And it requires an HDCP Version 1.3 Encrypted Monitor if I want to watch the legally purchased video on my PC Monitor which happens to be a 50" DLP HDTV... Oh and I need to upgrade my video card so that it supports HDCP encryption too? Well I do have a brand new 7800GT. Oh, but only the vid cards supplied to BIG Large OEMS have enabled HDCP, so I'm S.O.L. until the chips are installed on Retail Video Cards even though they've been enabled for large oem media PC's like Dells and Sony's.
Lets thank the RIAA, MPAA and M$ for DRM and HDCP! yeahhh..
On second thought... I think I'll I'll stick to my 1.5Terabyte media server... record HD over the air for free, playback my DVD's, ISO's, Divx, Xvid, MPG1/MPG2, VOBS, BINS, CUES, etc stored on my media server and stream them to my 1st Gen Modded Xbox with XBMC to my bedroom and my home theater pc to my living room.
Than I'll wait until Blu-ray/HD-DVD encryption is cracked so that I can use my legally purchased HD content the way I find most fit... at MY CONVENIENCE
Don't give in to these corporate schmucks.... wait them out. They'll eventually give or we'll eventually crack their shiat so that we can use our media they way we want.
PiratePete @ Feb 17th 2006 4:13PM
Wow, it’s funny how hiding behind an anonymous ID on this blog can make some real bold and stupid at the same time.
Phosphos, if you what to be an ignorant sheep led in which ever direction by any bait that you’ll bite at then that’s your choice. I guess that’s why you still live at home playing your own version of “feel the magic” all alone locked up in your room while your mom’s banging on the door wondering what’s that “strange noise”.
You see, I know just as much about you as you know about me. Oh, and I see that your other little friend that posted #24 likes to come by and play with your (virtual) “DS” too. Hey, whatever sets you two off.
Ever wonder why Microsoft got into console gaming in the first place? Shouldn’t their focus be on providing really next gen titles instead of more of the same with just jazzed up graphics. They haven’t even fixed all of the bugs with the system yet and they are cramming more stuff into it that’s not even game related.
I know, I know. All those years of self abuse have made it very difficult for you to look past you hairy pal… err, I mean narrow minded, trollish out look of others that can see past what you accept as “YAH! EXTRA CONTENT!”
As others have said, they need to concentrate on releasing games.
Mike @ Feb 17th 2006 6:01PM
I'm still confused about why everyone keeps saying the launch lineup was so poor for the 360. There are about 15-20 games (5 of which are worth playing), they launched about 10 or so Xbox Live games thus far (about 5 of which are worth playing). It seems like Microsoft has done pretty good thus far. I remember getting a N64 back in the day, and they had 2 games only for the system for the first 3 months. Now that was a slow launch. I think Microsoft is moving along nicely with the games they are offering. Also, there are some potential "Game of the Year" candidates coming out later on this year (starting with Gears of War).
Look at the last 2 system launches (DS and PSP). I think Xbox 360 has enjoyed a better launch lineup than both of those systems easily. Of course now DS has their 2nd and 3rd waves of games coming in which has greatly helped their catalog, but I remember the day when it launched, and the games were SERIOUSLY lacking.
And don't start with the "fanboy" comments. I own basically every system out there, and I will be buying a PS3 and Revloution on day 1. I'm just stating my "unbiased" opinion.
Jay @ Feb 20th 2006 12:51AM
Correct me if i'm wrong here, but aren't they just using a standard 2.5" (laptop) sized harddrive inside the enclosure for the 360? I can almost sense the cheap way to upgrade your 360's harddrive is by cracking open the enclosure and sliding in a 100+ gig one. 2.5" harddrives haven't really hit much higher than 120gig (I believe) as it is.. so yes, they will be expensive either way. Swapping it out yourself by buying a drive on it's own through Froogle/Pricewatch will be much cheaper than buying any official Microsoft harddrive upgrade.