access your computer and any content or application running on it (including DVD-player software) from any TV in your home—so you could start watching a streaming or downloaded movie on one TV and finish on another.
ZeeVee also has a couple of advantages over competing PC-to-TV technologies such as AppleTV. It doesn’t require an additional set-top box, so there won’t be one more device cluttering up your entertainment center. There are no rental or subscription fees, unless you’re watching paid Internet content such as streaming Netflix rentals. There’s no cumbersome digital rights management scheme to worry about—which is one of the main factors limiting the supply of movies, HD or otherwise, in walled-garden systems like AppleTV. And the system doesn’t rely on a wireless connection. This is actually good for two reasons, the first being that Wi-Fi connections are spotty even if you never move the equipment, the second being that encoding a signal for wireless transmission takes a toll on your computer’s CPU, which, if it’s processing high-definition video streaming off the Internet or your hard drive, is already under stress.
Of course, ZeeVee’s system also has to encode the video before it can transmit it across your home’s cables. But that’s handled inside the ZvBox itself, not by your PC. In fact, Mahony says ZeeVee’s plans for the system didn’t come together until about a year ago, when a chip that was up to the task became available.
There are some caveats to consider with ZeeVee’s system. The biggest one is that it only works with Windows XP and Windows Vista computers—Mac owners are out of luck for now. Don’t worry, I’ve already razzed them about it. “We have a Mac contingent in the company that has a vested interest in getting it working on the Mac, but we literally haven’t had the cycles to do the full quality assurance testing on the Mac platform,” Mahony explains. The decision to start out on Windows was, as always, “a market share issue. We are trying to focus our resources on getting the biggest bang for the buck initially. But we are aware of the feedback, and we don’t to alienate the Mac crowd.”
Also, true videophiles should be aware that the ZvBox streams high-definition video at a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels—which is still way sharper than old-fashioned TVs, but is less than the 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution that most of the latest HDTVs can display, and may not look optimal on your TV. Jeremy Greene, ZeeVee’s vice president of software engineering, says that customers will have the option of upgrading their ZvBoxes to full 1920 x 1080 resolution in a future software release.
Also, because ZeeVee’s system is basically just broadcasting whatever is on your PC screen around your house, the quality of your viewing experience will be limited by the age and processing speed of your computer. “What we’re telling people is that if your computer already has trouble rendering Internet video, we can’t help you,” says Mahony. “If your video card is weak, it’s probably time to get a new computer, if you really want the full ZeeVee experience.”
ZeeVee—a small, private company backed by JLL Ventures and Alpond Capital—touts a Yankee Group survey in which 38 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to watch Internet video if they could view it on their TVs rather than their computers. Of course, that statistic has a glass-half-empty interpretation: 62 percent of respondents aren’t interested in consuming more Internet video, even if they could watch it from the comfort of their couches. But the Internet video revolution is still in its early stages; within a year or two, it will probably be easier to find, record, and watch the shows you want on your broadband-connected computer than to surf through the electronic programming guides on your TiVo or your cable set-top box. I’m betting that ZeeVee will gain a fairly strong foothold, at least among early-adopter types who dropped not-inconsiderable sums on their HDTVs and have probably been waiting for a simple, convenient way to use them like big PC displays.
Mahony told me an interesting story. When the company went to Hollywood to demonstrate its system to the TV and movie studio executives, they didn’t seem to feel threatened. Lots of people may be watching TV on their computers, they said, but nobody is going to want to watch their computer on their TV. Why not? Because watching TV is a low-tech, couch-bound, passive experience. “Their response was, ‘It’s not TV until it’s on TV, so until you cross that bridge we are not worried,'” says Mahony. “They should start worrying.” I agree.
