Wishful Thinking....Impossible or...

[TeddyR]

I know that this is wishful thinking, especially since the two companies are direct competetors, but a feature that would REALLY put the echo over the top would be the ability to discover and directly connect to/stream from HDHomerun Prime devices encrypted channels. The echo must already be WMDRM certified to be able to connect to a mediacenter for the encrypted content.. Is this a real stretch?

[Doctor Feelgood]

I have been keeping my eye on the development of the Echo, and hadn't thought about this. To me it just makes sense that it could access the TV programs from other tuners... I hope it would, or I can stop following it (I have two Primes).

[TeddyR]

I am interested in the echo depending on its performance. I find the xbox360 REALLY slow, klunky and underpowered as an extender. Hopefully the echo would have a little more horsepower to be able to handle things a little better.

[barnabas1969]

The echo will be able to watch any tuner that is installed in your Windows Media Center PC... including external tuners like the HD HomeRun Prime. The extender will not connect directly to the tuners though... it will go through the PC.

[mcewinter]

I know that this is wishful thinking, especially since the two companies are direct competetors, but a feature that would REALLY put the echo over the top would be the ability to discover and directly connect to/stream from HDHomerun Prime devices encrypted channels. The echo must already be WMDRM certified to be able to connect to a mediacenter for the encrypted content.. Is this a real stretch?

Do you mean for the Echo to connect to the HDHRP without a PC? I would say wishful thinking because the Prime isn't their product but not impossible on a technical level.

There's an iPad app in the works that will do this...stream to iDevice without a PC, but I can't imagine an extender leveraging that ability. There actually is another app that does this already but standard def only.

[Teddyboy16]

I have been keeping my eye on the development of the Echo, and hadn't thought about this. To me it just makes sense that it could access the TV programs from other tuners... I hope it would, or I can stop following it (I have two Primes).

The Echo at its most basic function is a Media Center Extender and as such it connects to a WMC PC which in turn has tuners in that box which the extender can access, and the tuners can be of any type whether Primes, InfiniTVs, etc. You'll be able to watch recorded, live TV, or schedule programs to record. The extender won't care what kind of tuners they are. If the tuners are supported, configured, and working properly on the WMC box then you'll be able to use them through an extender.

[Teddyboy16]

I know that this is wishful thinking, especially since the two companies are direct competetors, but a feature that would REALLY put the echo over the top would be the ability to discover and directly connect to/stream from HDHomerun Prime devices encrypted channels. The echo must already be WMDRM certified to be able to connect to a mediacenter for the encrypted content.. Is this a real stretch?

Do you mean for the Echo to connect to the HDHRP without a PC? I would say wishful thinking because the Prime isn't their product but not impossible on a technical level.

There's an iPad app in the works that will do this...stream to iDevice without a PC, but I can't imagine an extender leveraging that ability. There actually is another app that does this already but standard def only.

I think it's out of scope even though it might be an interesting techincal excercise, and they would not want to canabalize sales of the Q/Echo ecosystem even if it were technically feasable. It's an extender, and anything above and beyond that will probably come about in combination with the Q.

[lithium630]

I am interested in the echo depending on its performance. I find the xbox360 REALLY slow, klunky and underpowered as an extender. Hopefully the echo would have a little more horsepower to be able to handle things a little better.

What kind of connection are you using? Xboxes are plenty powerful for an extender. I have three set up. Only one is sluggish and that's because it's on a powerline adapter. The other two are connected by cat6 and are just as smooth as my htpc.