jeff_rigby
Banned
Not trying to start this again but I meant two months (Air) and yes 5 months or possibly less to an announcement.
And it starts; A little bit more than a rumor:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/11/09/a-quick-chat-with-google-tvs-lead-dev-about-the-network-blockade-apps-and-google-tv-hitting-the-ps3/
RE: No Input for Google TV HDMI in
ATSC and QAM8 are the encoding methods for over the air and Cable digital TV. All use Mpeg2 compression and in the case of ATSC Mpeg2 TS to compress the digital video allowing it to have a smaller bandwidth. The smaller bandwidth allows the stream to fit through a USB port. The PlayTV/GoogleTV combination could work for everything except cable boxes and Satellite TV boxes. It can accept a Mpeg2 stream from over the air or cable and just pass it through the USB port as it does now.
HDMI from a cable box is uncompressed video and audio and requires a several times larger bandwidth and it can also be encrypted for HDCP. This uncompressed HDMI video can not fit through a USB port.
There are several schemes to use network cable and ports to transfer HDMI video over the network. This pushes the capabilities of even a Gigabit network so the interface hardware compresses the HDMI to use less bandwidth. With compression the bandwidth drops to below 1 Gbit/s, enough so that the network can still support 100 Mbit/sec internet. At least that's what both HDBaseT and wireless HDMI claim. Uncompressed HDMI video rarely uses the 9 Gbit/sec that is needed for very fast moving multi colored screens with multiple small objects. That type of image could not be compressed enough without loss to allow Internet as you stated but that type of high bandwidth video is rare. In fact it is rare enough that ATSC and QAM8 Mpeg2 streams can't handle the bandwidth either so fast moving objects with scrolling screens pixelate as the information is not available. It's currently expensive but economy of scale could reduce the cost and make this a practical method of getting HDMI into the PS3. See: HDBaseT and wireless HDMI
It might be possible for the PS3 to enable this with a firmware update but you would still need a HDMI to eithernet converter on the other end. Again, chicken and egg, Google TV and Google TV on the PS3 would have to be popular enough to have an economy of scale that would drive the price of the adapter and software mods for the PS3 to an acceptable level. The HDMI to eithernet can also be used by other platforms but again the hardware cost for that would be doubled (one adapter on each end of the cable) and it needs to be cheap enough to be practical.
Low Signal to noise or Mpeg decoding circuits trying to decode a compressed image stream that has "distorted" due to trying to compress when there is more information than it should have, causes noise, artifacts and pixelization that actually increases the bandwidth needed by the HDMI analog port. Good image processing in the TV takes the HDMI and smooths edges, reduces artifacts and judder. So High end TVs take a HDMI in with these errors needing high bandwith, cleans the video up and that results in a better picture that needs less bandwidth. And that circuitry is expensive and only seen in high end TVs like "120Hz or 240 Hz TVs".
The Video chat feature for the PS3 has issues because the PS3 camera has a low S/N ratio with low light. With slower connections the image appears to looks better because the codec used changes and noise which is high freq is compressed out of the stream.
AT&T Universe boxes and Verizon Fios send the broadcast compressed stream across the cable TV cable inside your home so that you can play a DVR video from room to room (Also show pictures residing in your PC through other cable TV set top boxes). Xbox now has a special arrangement with AT&T and the Xbox can DVR play a recorded movie that resides on a AT&T DVR and that is sent trough the home Network. With cooperation from Cable companies this can be done for the PS3 and Google TV which would eliminate both control issues and bandwidth issues as we would be dealing with the compressed broadcast Mpeg2 stream. (The stream is now or will be encrypted.)
The reason for the long explanation above: if you can get the Mpeg2 broadcast video stream before it is converted to analog HDMI video and "errors" are added to the stream which takes more bandwidth to display which creates the issues causing high HDMI bandwidth which requires compression which causes a loss of detail and hardware costs as in the above, multiple issues are resolved.
Chances of this happening are low if the networks and cable companies consider Google TV the competition.
The reaction by networks and cable companies blocking Google TV, the PS3 and other boxes connected to TVs for on-demand and internet access to movie sites free to PCs has implications that must be resolved for Google TV to have access to DVR boxes via the home network. Commercials pay for "Free" TV, Google makes money for advertising displayed while using their services so they understand this. An appropriate model using something like Flash for DRM and insuring commercials are kept in the stream could resolve this for Google TV.
When you consider the above in italics, the HDMI 1.4 standard includes internet and the recent Xbox - AT&T DVR playing ability over the network as well as Google TV not including a IR Blaster database to control all set top boxes when that would have been easy to do might indicate Google knows control & DVR play via network or control via HDMI CEC is coming but not yet implemented by Cable boxes.
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