Microsoft Crosses 10 million Xbox 360s Sold, Announces Xbox 360 Can Be IPTV Set-Top   
Dean Takahashi, 06:30 PM in Dean Takahashi, Gaming   

Bill Gates and Robbie Bach are expected to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show that Microsoft has sold more than 10.4 million Xbox 360s since the launch in November, 2005. That means Microsoft has also hit its targets for sales of consoles during the holidays.    Microsoft is also dropping something of a bomb at the show. Jim Brady, a spokesman for Microsoft, said Gates and Bach will say in the keynote speech Sunday night at the Venetian Hotel that the Xbox 360 will be able to serve as a set-top box for IPTV, or Internet protocol television. The details on this announcement are sketchy and Brady says only that it will appear later this year.    stBut that raises the specter of how much of a black box will the video game console become. If you can get your television, movies, music and other entertainment downloaded from the telephone companies such as AT&T -- a major IPTV provider that is using Microsoft's IPTV software -- and have it accessible through your Xbox 360, what else do you need? Maybe you don't need a PC.    For sure, there are a ton of unanswered questions here. But the prospects are interesting. Could AT&T give away Xbox 360s for free in exchange for users signing up for subscriptions to IPTV service, which gives high-definition programs, video on demand, and digital video recording? Will Microsoft have to come out with a larger hard disk drive for the Xbox 360 in order to allow it to fulfill the digital video recording function? Brady declined to comment. He did say that no consumers would be left behind, meaning that all of the 10 million plus Xbox 360s in the market would be able to participate in the IPTV services at some level.     Brady says gamers have shown that they like Xbox Live Marketplace and are downloading videos and music more than Microsoft anticipated already, even with the small 20-gigabyte hard disk on the Xbox 360.    In other details, Microsoft declined to say how many Zune music/video players it sold during the holidays. It will only say that it is targeting 1 million sold by June 30. There over 5 million Xbox Live members, though the paid portion is not borken out. Marketplace downloads, messages and other features are exceeding expectations.    Lastly, Nintendo hasn't yet disclosed how many Wiis it sold during the holidays. But Beth Lewellyn, a spokeswoman for Nintendo of America, said that sales in North America exceeded Nintendo's expectations. Nintendo predicted it would sell four million consoles worldwide by Dec. 31, but she could not confirm that number.

http://www.xboxyde.com/forum_8_17175_1_en.html

看来HDMI和大硬盘都是为IPTV准备的

引用:

原帖由 猛男乙 于 2007-1-7 22:50 发表


HDMI和HDD都是假的,
对于IPTV业务来说,最重要的就是MS的媒体和公共关系部门了.
在美国他们要同AT&T这样的官僚机构打交道.
在中国他们更要面对中国电信不可理喻又无比愚蠢的公司.

我相信MS的公关能力:D

微软早有预谋啊~~~~~~~

欧美多家电信公司在积极向IPTV视频领域挺进，这也为IPTV技术供应商们提供巨大商机。根据Campbell研究公司的预测，到2009年全球IPTV设备收入将从2005年的4亿美元猛增至60亿美元，年复合增长率高达99%。

　　许多技术供应商都对IPTV市场倾注了极高的热情。针对全球IPTV热潮，条件接收和互动电视软件供应商NDS公司新近研发了一种新型IPTV软件产品“Synamedia Metro”。

摩托罗拉已经成为Verizon公司的主要合作者，向其供应机顶盒和数据转发器等头端设备，而科学亚特兰大（现已成为思科的一家子公司）则在为AT＆T公司提供机顶盒和IP视频网络设备。

　　网络供应商Nortel公司也与其他供应商建立起合作关系，包括中间件供应商Minerva公司、编码器制造商哈雷公司（Harmonic）和Tandberg公司、条件接收供应商Irdeto公司以及数字版权管理公司Widevine公司。

微软公司一直在努力地向有线电视运营商推销机顶盒软件。在数字视频业务领域试探了多年之后，通过为Verizon公司提供EPG软件以及与阿尔卡特公司合作为AT＆T公司提供IPTV的全套解决方案，微软公司已经建立起在电信电视（telco TV）业中的领导地位。

　　Microsoft TV的营销总监Ed Grazyck认为，IPTV与传统的有线数字电视服务之间最大的差别有两点：一是IPTV可以实现300毫秒的快速频道转换，而有线电视通常需要1.5秒至2秒；二是在VOD点播方面IPTV更易于操作，原因在于IPTV的VOD点播与电子节目指南实现了一体化置入。

　　“IPTV固有双向功能，能够轻易完成类似于观众投票的互动服务，而且也能支持更加丰富的画中画（PIP，picure-in-picture）功能。”据Grazyck介绍，采用最新的机顶盒芯片，IPTV可以在每个屏幕上同时显示16个小的视频窗口。

　　哈雷公司的画中画应用软件中也增添了类似的低分辩率“视频马赛克”功能。由于不使用调谐器，IPTV在实现多重画面功能时更具成本优势，在编码的过程中就可生成画中画视频流。

　　自从三年前启动视频业务之后，Thomson公司一直在向法国电信公司提供IPTV软件和硬件，最近又开始向西班牙Telefonica公司销售MPEG-4高清编码器和解码器。Thomson网络解决方案业务的市场总监Jean Marcher预测，一旦MPEG-4机顶盒芯片大规模进入市场，MPEG-4的应用将因IPTV而实现快速增长。