The VUDU That You Do, Now Does MoCA!
VUDU – Shop VUDU – Listed Under “Others” Tab
VUDU meet MoCA. MoCA meet VUDU. VUDU-MoCA. MoCA-VUDU. The best matched pair since Peanut Butter met Chocolate, VUDU now includes MoCA adapters as recommended devices for it’s service. For those of you unfamiliar with VUDU, the Walmart backed service offers streaming Movies and Videos, including 3D, at up to 1080P high definition resolution over your broadband connection. When you’re streaming that much video, viewers want to have the fastest, most reliable wired connection available.
That’s where MoCA is such a great match, supporting 3 or more HDTV streams simultaneously without interruptions or interference. You can be watching VUDU in 3 different rooms in your home, on a Connected TV, Bluray/Boxee and Game Console, and not see any glitches or buffering over a MoCA Network (providing that you have a fast enough broadband link). The site shows MoCA adapters from NETGEAR, D-LINK, and Actiontec in addition to the many connected consumer electronics devices that support the VUDU service.
MoCA Powers Custom Home Theater – Custom Retailer
Custom Retailer February 2011.
The Custom Installation market, which includes Home Theater installation, is changing the focus from new home builds, which have slowed significantly, and on to retrofitting existing homes with the latest digital entertainment systems. However, few homes have existing CAT-6 cabling which makes MoCA an ideal solution for quickly and inexpensively adding new Ethernet ports to rooms that need them.
Mike Ehlenberger from Actiontec Electronics outlines the advantages of using MoCA for customer installers including the ability to finish more jobs in a lot less time than running CAT-6, speed and reliability of the home network, and compatibility with existing cable and satellite networks in the home.
This article also gives a great overview of the basics of MoCA technology for anyone interested in installing a wired home network for digital entertainment.
New MoCA Installation Videos on YouTube
New installation videos are now available on YouTube showing how to install MoCA adapters with various connected devices including Internet TVs, Bluray Players, Game Consoles, Slingbox, TiVo, etc… Stay tuned for more videos on MoCA installation, operation and features – subscribe to our MoCABlog YouTube channel today !
Report: Wi-Fi 30 percent slower than wired
Report: Wi-Fi 30 percent slower than wired | Wireless – CNET News.
Anyone who’s ever used a wired connection at work versus their corporate WiFi shouldn’t be surprised that wired is faster. What is surprising is how much slower WiFi makes your broadband- 30% in the US according to this comprehensive study which polled 14,000 users across 4 countries over 4 months. Specifically, US download speeds averaged 7.4Mbps over a wired connection compared to 5.2Mbps for a WiFi download. The significant difference was also seen in the UK (26.5% slower for WiFi), Italy (40%), and Spain (30.1%). Download the Epitiro study whitepaper here.
This should be an alarm for both consumers and their ISPs. If you’re paying $50/month for 10Mbps cable modem service, you’re really only getting 7Mbps on your WiFi devices. Those “wasted” 3Mpbs are leaking out of your home network in the form of retransmissions, lost bits, and general waste. Your ISP should be as concerned as your power company to conserve, even more so since they are getting paid a flat rate.
Moral: Save Bandwidth, Get a Wired Network! And since most homeowners don’t want to rip up their walls, installing a MoCA coax network is the next best thing to wired Ethernet (and less expensive).
3 Antennas vs 1 Coax: WiFi Still Can’t Do What MoCA Does
Three Stream N For HD Streaming: Close, But No Cigar
As the late great Howard Cosell said “I’m just telling it like it is”, and so are the guys at SmallNetBuilder as they once again stage their HD Smackdown using the latest WiFi competitor, 3 stream 11N. Identified by 3 antennas instead of the usual 2, the latest in WiFi technology has demonstrated increased throughput, but can it successfully stream 1080P HD video without interruptions? Sadly, it’s more “Agony of Defeat” as summed up by SmallNetBuilder:
It may seem hard to believe, but all the additional bandwidth provided by three-stream N still isn’t enough to ensure trouble-free 1080p wireless streaming. The best performance I could achieve still had minor, occasional problems during fact action sequences with a strong, next-room signal and the router set to spectrum-hogging Auto 20/40 MHz bandwidth mode.
So how do you hook up to your brand new Internet TV? Not with the (2 antenna) dongle that comes with the TV and it doesn’t look like powerline does the job either. What do the reviewers recommend?
So it still appears that your best bet for trouble-free 1080p network play remains 100 Mbps Ethernet, with MoCA a viable alternative if your setup allows it.
New MoCA Products Shine at CES
CES 2011 was a stellar event not only for the entire consumer electronics industry, but also for new MoCA products. Over 140,000 attendees crowded the show floors, back to pre-recession levels, to view the latest tablet PCs, smartphones and Smart TVs. Leading the charge of new MoCA offerings were Wi3 and Channel Master both launching new networking products for 2011. Wi3 showed their unique take on the classic MoCA adapter launching a Wallport design which replaces the coax wallplate in the home. MoCA is embedded in the “sleeve” housing that fits into the wall and a “cartridge” containing various ports (coax, Ethernet, HDMI, WiFi, etc…) slides into the sleeve. That way customers can install the sleeves around their home and using a MoCA network backbone, update their network for new functions as they see fit. Wi3 expects to have products available in Q2 through custom installer channels and later in 2011 for retail.
Channel Master Introduces a Line of New MoCA Products
Also making their MoCA debut at CES was Channel Master who introduced 2 new MoCA Ethernet-to-Coax products, a single-port bridge kit and a 4-port bridge. Channel Master might be best known for TV antennas, cable amplifiers, etc… but is now offering many digital products including a DVR and ATSC STBs. Channel Master is branding their adapters for “Internet-to-TV” bridging the link between cable/DSL modem to the living room. Availability is targeted for end of March through Fry’s Electronics, Ace Hardware, True Value, Crutchfield, Walmart.com, CircuitCity.com, CompUSA.com and more retail outlets.
Re-United (and It Feels so Good): Cable and CE Go Back to the Alter
One of the (possibly) monumental announcements from CES 2011 came from the Samsung keynote address where leaders from Samsung, Comcast, and Time Warner demo-ed a Smart TV that connected directly to cable TV services through the Internet without a set-top box. That means that cable customers will be able to receive their HD channels on their tablet/iPad, smartphone and connected TV/Bluray using their home networks. Customers will also be able to access on demand movies and the content stored on their DVRs. Verizon also announced a similar service for their FiOS customers.
Anyone who has ever tried to install a CableCard might be skeptical about another Cable-CE partnership, but this time there might be more than lip service. With the explosion of connected devices and the number of tablet PCs shown at CES (estimated at 50), the cable companies are facing a “we better do it or somebody else will” scenario. Streaming video over the Internet is becoming such a commodity and CableCos have been losing customers, so this move seems to make sense as both a defensive strategy as well as an opportunity to increase subscription revenue. For MoCA, the connection to the Smart TV will likely be through the coax cable to both the broadband as well as DVRs so this would be a big boost. Wireless devices could also be supported using MoCA through MoCA-WiFi Access Points installed in rooms where a strong WiFi signal is needed. We’ll see in the next few months whether this is just CES PR or actually will result in some exciting new services for 2011.
OnLive Gaming – The Perfect OTT for MoCA
Haven’t heard of OnLive? Then you’re probably not into video gaming or cloud based computing. OnLive was started by Apple/WebTV pioneer Steve Perlman to provide an HD gaming service that would never require updating your game console. How do you do that? By putting all the gaming hardware in the “cloud” ie Internet servers so that the hardware required at home is minimal. It’s essentially an HD TV channel that reacts to your joystick/gamepad moves – a TV channel that interacts with you.
And just how do they perform that magic? Start by locating data centers 1000 miles or less from every customer, using the most advanced GPUs and servers, and squeezing out every bit of latency (delays) from your system. OnLive started out on the PC only and is now introducing their $99 microconsole for HDTV play. And how do you connect your living room to the Internet – via MoCA of course! Aside from wired Ethernet, MoCA has the lowest latency of all networking technologies, typically less than 3.5 milliseconds, so your gaming session goes as smooth as silk with no interruptions. Good luck with using powerline or wireless with this system if someone turns on a blender.
As more advanced over-the-top (OTT) services like OnLive launch, the more consumers will clamor for a reliable wired home network like MoCA.
The Whole World is Moving to MoCA – Comcast
via Tech Workshops: Home Networking, Upstream Capacity And Doing The Splits :: Cable360.
Hey don’t take our word for it, MoCA is catching on like wildfire in Cable TV-land and everyone is seeing the value of having a wired home network that can stream HD video. Probably a more telling quote from Comcast’s Director of Home Networking:
We at Comcast have made the decision that all new products will have MoCA embedded into them
Seems like a good idea, knowing that virtually all of the consumer electronics companies are heading towards having a network port on every TV, bluray player and game console. The wave of connected electronics won’t stop at stationary devices but will also support mobile devices as well. The article goes on to describe how wireless access points will be connected (through MoCA) to connect iPhones, iPads, and other mobile equipment. There’s no question that having a reliable network “backbone” like MoCA will enable all kinds of new audio/video applications for the consumer.
BOXEE adding VUDU, Netflix and Hulu Plus
Boxee Box now shipping, Netflix and Hulu Plus coming soon – CNN.com.
Adding to it’s already formidable content lineup, BOXEE is now adding VUDU, Netflix and Hulu Plus access to it’s current platforms as well as the BOXEE BOX which is now shipping. With the introduction of Google TV and Apple TV, many of the “other” content and hardware providers may see the need to create alliances in order to compete with the behemoths. Certainly the addition of these new services make the BOXEE platform much more competitive with Apple and Google.
One possibly overlooked advantage of BOXEE is the ability to play virtually any HD content up to 1080p, from other PCs or a NAS in the home. This feature is a real consideration for users who already have their own video libraries in various formats and resolutions. With the higher resolutions and better quality services, MoCA is a must have for even the average BOXEE customer looking to stream HD video from the Internet or home server.
