No, you don't have deja vu: Two companies you never heard of launched similar-sounding interactive TV boxes within a few hours of each other. But this one is quite different: It doesn't mess with antennae or try to get in bed with cable or DSL providers. It's just a nice tidy box that sends all the world's content to all TVs in your house—without set-top boxes in each room. There are some catches, of course.

The first catch is that the box-and-remote combo costs $500. Sure, you only need one kit for the whole house (unless you want additional remotes, but every TV would get the same experience anyhow, so there's no point). But $500 is pretty steep.

Another catch is that the content itself is a little up in the air. Yes, there are plenty of services that let you buy or rent movies on a PC, and many more coming along that give you piecemeal content for free. But everyone does it differently, and you will have to become master of many interfaces with that one remote.

The launcher app, called Zviewer (what else?), is useful to aggregate all the different programs you'll want supplying you with video, and it also lists all of the BitTorrent and other video on your hard drive, not to mention photos and music. But there's no way to bring all web video into one seamless interface, and though ZeeVee will try to do just that, they admit that the beginnings will be a tad humbler.

I do like this concept. As soon as you connect your VGA out to the ZvBox and connect that to the coax network in your house, it scopes out the channels occupied by your cable box, and picks one that's not. Any TV with an ATSC tuner will see the ZeeVee stream as a high-def channel, and display it as such via the coax input most cable and satellite customers have generally forgotten about. You put the ATSC tuner to use, your coax cable gets new life, and you get an easy way to toggle from your other cable content to your PC's video bidness.

At this point, it's still a work in progress. Though the company promises a June ship date, the hardware shots are just renderings. The software, barely in beta, will only run on Windows XP and Vista, though ZeeVee assures us a Mac version will be out this year. I am a little leery of trying to use PC apps while sitting at my couch, so hopefully the software itself will handle most of my needs.

Promotional screenshots shown below depict some pretty nice media management, but the company admits that these are more aspirational, and will not represent the initial user experience:
If you think about it, the PC is kind of arbitrary here. I asked Brian Mahoney, ZeeVee director of marketing, if the company couldn't all the same turn this into a whole-house extender for my TiVo HD, or maybe a video iPod, and he said, "We can indeed take the video inputs from any device. That is a path we're looking at in the future."

My question for you, dear Giz readers, is this: Remote and PC software aside, how easy is it to build the box ZeeVee is talking about? And is it worth $200 to $250? Maybe it is. If you're really eager, it's going on pre-order at Amazon today, with plans to ship in June. If I were you, I'd wait until your friends at Gizmodo at least saw the thing in person before shelling out five bills. [ZeeVee]

Here's what we mean. Look at your entertainment system. If you're like us, you might have a TiVo (or a provider-branded box), a gaming system, a DVD player, a high-def DVD player a Slingbox and an AppleTV. Why do we need all this crap? This is what we want in a set top box:

• HD DVR Functinality. For example, a TiVo or a Windows Media Center box's video recording capabilities.
• DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray playback. All in one.
• Gaming. Throw an Xbox 360/PS3/Wii in there and we've got ourselves a date. Oh, and we'll want PC gaming as well.
• Slingbox-style broadcasting. Have this box stream to every device you own, be it PSP, iPhone, Windows Mobile or a laptop.
• On Demand. Make it friendly with your cable provider's content.
• Format Agnostic. Want Apple's movies? Done. Want Amazon's movies? Done. Want Netflix's movies? Done. Make it play back content from every digital online store.
• Friendly interface. Everyone loves the TiVo interface, but let's take that an expand it to encompass every sort of media you could want to play back on this miracle box.
• Plug and Play with other devices. Got a Zune that you want to play back music from? Just dock it into the box. Got a camera you shot an hour of footage with and want to watch? Plug it in.

We suppose the closest thing to this box is an actual PC, so you could get a kind of reasonable approximation if you stuck a Mac or a Vista HTPC machine to your TV. It wouldn't have all the features, and it wouldn't be nearly as friendly as we want, but that's why this is a wishlist.

The setup experience is so amazingly simple, it makes TiVo look complex. (Of course, compared to what this simple, broadband-connected video server does, TiVo is complex.
Speaking of TiVo, Vudu's remote is incredible, with five buttons and a clickable jog dial that you can intuit in record time. It's weird how quickly you can use it without looking. By the way, the remote is RF, not IR, so you don't have to point it at the box for it to work.

One of Vudu's setbacks is that it is, alas, a set-top box. In a world where game consoles and cable boxes are inevitable, this box, though small, still presents a stacking challenge.
But there is a cool solution: since Vudu's remote is RF, and talks to that little metal antenna you see at the back of the box, you can stash the box anywhere that you'd stash any device with a video processor and a spinning 250GB hard drive. Like a cabinet drawer...
Hiding it away (with or without my cat Wade) means one less thing you have to look at. While we can thank the RF remote for this, an RF remote does mean one more thing (*cough*PS3 Blu-ray remote*cough*) that you can't replace with a standard universal.
The home screen, which pops on 20 seconds after you first power up, and is instantly on in most occasions, is a nice example of how organized the Vudu interface is.
Though it's the home screen that you see when you first get started, there are some tweaking options, should you dig into them. I loved the overscan adjustment—you'd be shocked how helpful it is.
When you scroll through the constantly changing promoted movies on the home screen, you can see which ones are for rent...
...and which ones you can buy.
I found that most studio films at this time are rentals, mostly at $3.99. There are plenty of foreign and/or "special interest" movies you can buy, and some of those that you can rent for less, say $1.99. Frankly, the rental aspect of this proprietary box appeals much more than the ownership one.

There are many easy ways to hunt for a movie in Vudu. The genre search is fun, because you can select more than one genre to find interesting combinations like Sci-Fi Documentary...
...and yes, Gay & Lesbian Horror. (You know you were curious.)
You can search for a director or actor by name. In this search of Spielberg, you can get a sense that the Vudu catalog is not totally up to snuff. Yes, that is the entire Vudu Spielberg collection.
Some actors and directors are missing entirely. Being a Back To The Future fan, I had to search for Robert Zemeckis, but typing in his name, or even just ZEME, yielded zilch.
My main criticism with the Vudu is that while there are plenty of extra-sweet options like these...
...there just aren't enough good hits when you go searching. Here's a clue: in a search for "Coppola," Sofia had two movies, and Francis Ford had 3, none of which were the Godfather.

The good news is, Vudu has designed an excellent interface and a very satisfying alternative platform for delivering movies. I love browsing and watching movies on this thing—the instant gratification is awesome!

As we told you before, the system operates with both a central server and a P2P network, balancing each other to ensure an instant on-demand experience. During my week-long testing over both DSL and cable connections, I never once had more than a tiny video hiccup, and though you can't fast-forward straight away, the video can get to be 20 or 30 minutes ahead of you as you continue watching, so eventually fast-forwarding is an option.

And the picture looks stupendous. Even though the source material is (currently) 480p, that little box upscales that stuff to your desired resolution. In both 720p and 1080p tests, it looked great, perhaps better than a DVD. Here's a look, though even Ben Stiller getting slapped by a monkey doesn't truly do this thing justice:
Beyond my loudly voiced complaints about content, all I can say is, I wish it were a lot cheaper. Yeah, that's right, Vudu is selling these things for $400. So you can pay more money to buy or rent movies from them.

You could save the money by connecting your PC to your TV and renting from CinemaNow or Movielink. At the moment, both have slightly better catalogs, though that will change. Normally I don't whine about high prices, but I think $400 is a little too much for a box that doesn't come with any free content. There's never been a better case for the razor-and-blades model. With a pricetag like that, Vudu is certainly not going to scare the bejeezus out of Blockbuster Video—not nearly as much as it rightly should.

Microsoft Shatters the PC-to-Television Barrier, Releases First Details on Extenders for Windows Media Center New devices from Cisco Systems' Linksys division, D-Link and Niveus Media to bring the ultimate audio/video experience to any room in the home.

DENVER — Sept. 5, 2007 — Watching a live TV broadcast in the living room, pausing it, and then effortlessly resuming it at the same moment from the bedroom or kitchen will soon become even easier, as Microsoft Corp. provides a first look at the new Extenders for Windows® Media Center platform, which will power a variety of devices to be released this holiday season. A wave of new cool, quiet, home-theater-quality devices from companies such as Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc.; D-Link Corporation; and Niveus Media Inc. may incorporate new features, including live high-definition (HD) video, wireless networking and expanded support for audio and video formats such as DivX and Xvid.

The new Extender devices, which will be unveiled later this month in a variety of innovative form factors and price points, unleash the pictures, music, video content and live TV from a PC running Windows Vista® Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate for viewing and listening on a big-screen TV display for the ultimate entertainment solution.

"With more than 60 million Windows Vista Media Center PCs in use worldwide, there are many customers eager to bring the simple and elegant Media Center experience to the televisions in their homes," said Dave Alles, general manager for eHome at Microsoft. "The new Extenders for Windows Media Center make it easy to get a wide range of personal and Internet content not only on someone's main TV but on all the TVs in the house. Whether it's a high-def show recorded from digital cable, new Internet video, or your personal library of pictures, music and videos, it's all on your television — just a remote-click away."

New extenders will be available in a wide range of form factors, including both stand-alone set-top boxes and integration with other devices such as DVD players and televisions, so now connecting to a PC running Windows Media Center is even more convenient and seamless than ever. New support for Wireless N high-speed technology means there is no need to run Ethernet cables throughout the home to watch HD video in up to six rooms at once.

Extenders for Windows Media Center are also, for the first time, enhanced to allow support for popular video codecs such as DivX and Xvid, along with continued support for Windows Media® Video HD files. These extenders will also lead the industry in supporting the ability to send protected HD content to additional rooms, including recorded TV from over-the-air Advanced Television Systems Committee or Cable Card tuners and movies and music available from providers such as CinemaNow, MovieLink LLC and Napster LLC. Extenders also support Media Center features such as Reuters news feeds, National Public Radio broadcasts, up-to-date sports reports from the FOX Sports Lounge, and subscription music from XM Radio. At the same time, these devices support Parental Controls built into Windows Media Center, allowing parents to choose the content their children are allowed to view.

Consumers have already logged millions of hours of use on Xbox 360s as Extenders for Windows Media Center. Microsoft is working first with Cisco/Linksys, D-Link and Niveus Media to deliver quiet, high-quality products, and the company will be expanding the Extenders' platform to other companies in the future. The new Extenders for Windows Media Center are being demonstrated at the Microsoft booth at the CEDIA EXPO 2007 in Denver Thursday, Sept. 6 through Sunday, Sept. 9.

WiMAX seems like an ideal delivery method, given the range it covers and its beefy bandwidth, so what Building B wants to do is definitely possible. But, the service launches in the fall, and WiMAX won't exactly have most of the country blanketed by then.

Either way, their vague assertions without hard specifics leave Om Malik (and us) "inherently skeptical of their claims." Topping off our saucer of skeptic's milk is the fact that their targeted ad partner is Claria, better known in its past life as Gator Corporation, proprietor of the eponymous adware client that plagued tens of millions of PCs in the late '90s.

The bottom line is that we'll believe in the One True Box when it's sitting atop our TVs—we've heard way too many empty promises from far too many prophets to be true believers before then. [Building B via NewTeeVee/GigaOM]

The watermarks identify both the "network operator distributing the content" and the individual device. A spokesman said that people "should not be upset about this unless they are widely redistributing content." Thomson sees it as a way to "slow down piracy without limiting the use of the consumer."

So, if you feel upset or limited, that means you're a pirate. – Matt Buchanan

DSL gateways will watermark video to catch pirates [Computer World]

Just do it away from the computer, Netflix. I'm begging you. –Adam Frucci

Hacking Netflix [via Zatz Not Funny]

And yes, there are download services available, but they all kind of suck for one reason or another. So what do I want? I want Netflix to put out a set-top equivalent of the excellent service they already provide. With these conditions:

•HD, thank you.

•I want the entire Netflix catalogue available for downloading direct to my TV.

•I want to have a queue of movies, and when I finish watching one I can delete it and start the download of the next on my list immediately.

•While that new one is downloading I want to be able to watch another movie stored on the box. No PS3-esque funny business, Netflix.

•I want to pay a flat, monthly rate for this service, not pay per download.

•I want reliable, fast servers that won't leave me high and dry on movie night. I'm not asking for HD movies to be downloaded in 15 minutes, but I don't want to wake up in the morning to an error message or 5% of a file complete.

•If my queue happens to be empty, I want a recommended movie based on my viewing habits to automatically download. I want to be able to put a "surprise me!" item in my queue to have the same thing happen.

And don't try to sell me on other download services like Vongo or even the iTunes Movie Store that just let me get movies of variable quality to my computer. I don't want to watch movies on my computer; I want to watch them on my TV. There's Akimbo and Moviebeam, but they both just have too many limitations and hassles involved to make them worthwhile.

And then there are the on-demand services from cable providers, with HBO, Showtime, et al. offering up their shows and movies for instant viewing. This is great for their original programming, but their limited selection of crappy, full-screen movies leaves quite a bit to be desired. No thanks.

Back to the Netflix box: I'm not asking for a miracle here. I don't care how much copy-protection you stick on these things, as I have no interest in burning DVDs for "backup" or sending them to my computer so I can torrent them. No, I just want my movie viewing experience to be as simple, convenient, and painless as possible. Is that so much to ask? Let's make it happen, Netflix. –Adam Frucci

Instead of scrolling through your onscreen guides with the up/down/left/right buttons like you do now on your TiVo/Media Center, you can use the scrollwheel on the Loop like you would a PC. This means you get to your destination faster and more accurately. Just like a mouse for navigation is better than just using a keyboard, this is better than using a standard button-based remote.

But the remote is only half the story.

Hillcrest Labs is also focusing on its own in-house DVR software. Designed to work on set-top boxes like your cable receiver, thin-client PCs, or even regular home theater PCs, the DVR software looked actually pretty nice, and has similar functionality to Windows Media Center that we've been using for a couple years now. It's way beyond the usability that the lousy $9 Comcast HDTV DVR rental we're currently "using".

There's a web browser, photo viewer, music playback, video playback, and even On Demand support, along with the standard DVR features of playing back live TV and recorded TV. Hillcrest told us that they've secured deals with some major manufacturers/service providers, and they should be rolling out this software on machines sometime in 2007. Presumably with The Loop remote as part of the bundle.

When asked, Hillcrest told us that the motion-sensing technology could be adapted to standard-looking remotes with your regular amount of buttons on it, but that's up to market demand and what the service providers like Time Warner or Comcast want to do with their box.

All in all, a pretty promising idea which boils down to letting you mouse around a DVR interface using a remote instead of a mouse. And if they can get Comcast to replace the craptastic Motorola DVR? They'd get a hug and a kiss from every subscriber in the nation. – Jason Chen

So where would you get the HD files for this thing? That's up to you, but we've heard of a little thing called BitTorrent that might be able to help. Grab those files from the Interwebs on your PC and transfer them to this unit via that LAN port in the back. There's everything you need back there, well, except an HDMI port, but you can use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter for that, and hook this up to your HDTV.

Lots more pics and commentary, after the jump.

This is the way HDTV will be viewed in the future, not with physical media. If Dcube could just manage to bring its ambitious little Mvision box to these shores, we'll be all set. No pricing or delivery date was announced yet, but this is just the first of many units of this type. – Charlie White

Dcube's HD DivX Player 'Mvision' [AVing, via CrunchGear]

On the PC side, the files are going to be encoded in mp4/m4p and Flash format, which means you can either stream your "paid for" movies directly from either a browser or a third party app, or download the mp4/m4p to watch on your computer, phone, or iPod. On the set-top-box side, the files are going to be encoded in some sort of MPEG (2 or 4, we're not sure), and downloaded onto your box to watch.

The interesting news is that when a download is started, because you're on Comcast's ISP downloading from Comcast's own media servers, they'll bump up your download cap to whatever they want, guaranteeing you get your data on time and that there are no stutters in the video. This may go into the grey area of Net Neutrality, so we'll watch and see where this plan is going to go. – Jason Chen

Here's the Matrixstream MX1020HD set-top box, currently in the testing phase, which is said to be able to deliver 1080p video over an everyday "best effort" broadband connection. According to the company, the system accomplishes this feat by using H.264 compression and proprietary XMS streaming technology built into its head-end units it'll offer to service providers, and then decodes those signals with this set-top box which could be coming soon to a home theater near you.

The best part of this equation is that by the end of this year, IPTV might give you choices beyond just cable or satellite TV. Small, hotly competitive service providers are currently gearing up to offer the same services you get on cable and satellite, at even higher resolution. Sounds pleasingly disruptive. – Charlie White

Product Page [Matrixstream]

The company says the product will be shipped to service providers and system integrators during Q4 of this year, and it won't be available directly to consumers. It looks bizarre and cheap, and won't fit on most shelves. Plus, if we see one more product whose name begins with i , we're going to have to poke somebody's i out.