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Gabe Newell: PC-to-TV Streaming Will Soon Be Standard

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Obviously hes playing Half-Cards on that thing.

Hes full of surprises, very keen on getting the pc experience fully incorporated into the lounge.

Although Lots of people are already doing so with htcp's or even some modifications to TV units with some little planning for bigger cases. I guess having a smaller unit like that X thing i keep seeing would help a lot for those with not a lot of room on their TV units and a bonus if this obliterates any console at an attractive price in the near future.

If it goes well for it, Steam will probably be the best experience drm free gaming platform adding to what it is already now.

Watch out consoles, gaming developers will soon realize you're not the answer to piracy anymore. Feel sorry for Steam though, if it is successful in bringing pc-console to lounge, then they might have a hacking fight on their hands.

Ps. Hoping its not too expensive upgrading the parts eligible.
 
After watching that presentation i think he has a good perspective. I think that the user interface that's missing is the augmented reality aspect. As far as virtual user interfaces go. for instance take the concept from a japanese anime called sword art online .. when and if something like that is possible then it would be a game changer for the industry. as far as steam box is concerned i think as long as its an upgradeable device then that should be a huge benefit / advantage over traditional consoles especially if people can play / use user generated content unlike most current gen consoles.. its pretty exciting.
 
The next tier, AKA "better", was described as a PC crammed into a console form factor and sold at a console price. That in itself seemed to be a Steam Box reference
Click to expand...
Lol not only steam box, it's a next-gen console reference: They're all PCs! 😀
 
make RJ45 cable able to send Audio Video. AV these days is basically digital signal. We dont need HDMI, HDMI is redundant expensive, and short range & USELESS, require royalty fees.

Making network cable AV streaming capable as standard will also make all Wi-fi product able to send video wirelessly.
 
"streaming" video within a home network is no problem using a wired connection and a decent router and a fanless minimalistic htpc having nothing but 4 gig ram, tiny ssd for the OS and an i3 cpu with integrated graphics. no new gadgetry needed.

 
[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]make RJ45 cable able to send Audio Video. AV these days is basically digital signal. We dont need HDMI, HDMI is redundant expensive, and short range & USELESS, require royalty fees. Making network cable AV streaming capable as standard will also make all Wi-fi product able to send video wirelessly.[/citation]
i already "stream" massive HD video files over standard network cable and have never once experienced any troubles. Wi-fi is also able to send video (translate any file type) with no problems ... except bandwidth becomfes an issue.

if you want this today all you needis a gigabit router, a quite bare-bones htpc connected to your router by standard networking cable, a second computer with the media files on it. connect this htpc to a audio DAC via USB cable... connect DAC to amplifier... To speakers... 3 foot HDMI cable from HTPC to TV. TV = htpc monitor.

share the folder from your media file containint workstation, desktop, home server etc. Then go to your minimalistic HTPC, access the shared folder, double-click the file.

rather than use windows media player which spys on you try VLC. It's free, it's not spyware, it runs waay smootherc than Windows media player... and again it doesn't fu***** spy on you.

problem solved, works fantastically.
no new inventions needed.
 
Gabe is an interesting guy and his insights are usually good information to ponder on. I 100% agree with him, on the shift of the PC to the living room. Game streaming is a none starter imho, for the exact reason he says…the burden on networks is going to be too high, and when you start looking at the models for future transmission rate cost, it is not feasible. I equally think his non-PC steambox is a clownish attempt as well…throwing another ecosystem…supposedly free, is ridiculous. Why would someone pay hundreds more than console for a thing that is locked in functionality? I like open systems, but I like defined open system, which is what the PC is. Microsoft gets lots of hate, but they basically build the workshop, and support it, allowing game developers to innovate for it, not making anything directly off this investment. I DON’T believe that Win 8 is a threat to this model, but I Microsoft interest in blocking the EXACT threat that Gabe speaks to with Apple’s iOS seeping into the living room. When F2P games can get 50 million downloads in now time, that is a threat, and I don’t blame them from engaging to counter that. Gabe and Valve did pretty darn well on Left 4 Dead, and they had freedom there…Steam has some control measures, just as XBL does…an open system with defined parameters!
 
This is nothing new. For years we've had streaming devices such as Roku, game consoles, etc. Everybody praises this guy as if he's the first to come up with the concept, when in fact it has existed for many years. Nowadays you can even use your tablets and smartphones to stream media to your TV. Or you can hook up your desktop or laptop to the TV with HDMI to achieve the same results as the Steam Box (or Piston) at a lower pr ice. Piston is $1000. You can build a desktop system of equal horsepower for half that.
 
[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Lol not only steam box, it's a next-gen console reference: They're all PCs![/citation]
When was a console ever NOT a crappy PC?
 
[citation][nom]bllue[/nom]This is nothing new. For years we've had streaming devices such as Roku, game consoles, etc. Everybody praises this guy as if he's the first to come up with the concept, when in fact it has existed for many years. Nowadays you can even use your tablets and smartphones to stream media to your TV. Or you can hook up your desktop or laptop to the TV with HDMI to achieve the same results as the Steam Box (or Piston) at a lower pr ice. Piston is $1000. You can build a desktop system of equal horsepower for half that.[/citation]

while you have a point i think you missed the point .. you should watch the video .. any way sure ive been streaming videos/ music for a long time thing is the general population still sees sees computer networking and server concepts in terms of advanced knowledge only geeks know.. so until that changes its still going to be new.. and even if something is old if you have never tried it before it is new.
 
apple tv and itunes dose the same thing with pc or mac .. and only costs around 100 dollars.. personally i like sonys blue ray players with the wifi and then the apple tv for my media server while you can do it on the sony blue ray player too.. through dnla personally its much easier to use itunes.
 
Most of the people here are missing the point. What he is describing is wireless streaming from the PC to the TV. As others said this can be done with a router but bandwidth becomes a huge problem if you have multiple people using laptops and watching videos. What I believe Gabe was referring too in this article is to the Wireless Home Digital Interface (http://www.whdi.org/) Which as far as I know is the only wireless solution that gives you "latency" free streaming from your PC to your laptop while supporting 1080p and 7.1 surround audio. The problem is that you need a usb adapter plugged into your laptop and another one into your TV. In the near future (hopefully) we will be able to use this without any sort of adapters connected to the TV or PC since they will be integrated. That is something I want to see happen very soon.
 
[citation][nom]goodguy713[/nom]apple tv and itunes dose the same thing with pc or mac .. and only costs around 100 dollars.. personally i like sonys blue ray players with the wifi and then the apple tv for my media server while you can do it on the sony blue ray player too.. through dnla personally its much easier to use itunes.[/citation] but none of them play games well that's where this will shine.

 
Too late Gabe, my kick-ass tower is already hooked to my TV and I watch everything I want and even more.

Just downloaded Storage Wars and Pawn Star. It gives me somethign to listen to while cooking and doing some house work.
 
[citation][nom]bucknutty[/nom]I think TomFreak ment use cat5/6 in stead of HDMI on new tvs. Why pay for a new fancy licensed digital format when a cat5/6 has the bandwidth to do the same job.[/citation]
i think you're right! :)
 
[citation][nom]goodguy713[/nom]apple tv and itunes dose the same thing with pc or mac .. and only costs around 100 dollars.. personally i like sonys blue ray players with the wifi and then the apple tv for my media server while you can do it on the sony blue ray player too.. through dnla personally its much easier to use itunes.[/citation]
can you stream any kind of media file you wish to use with those though? I don't think so.
.mkv for example
FLAC high rez audio?
 
I use PC with Windows 7 as my entertainment box in Living room for past 3 years. It has been a great thing. I watch mvk movies, blu ray movies, listen to music, play games all projected to my 42" Samsung LCD in living room and it is just awesome. No console can beat it.
 
[citation][nom]thecolorblue[/nom]can you stream any kind of media file you wish to use with those though? I don't think so..mkv for exampleFLAC high rez audio?[/citation]

who actually uses .mkv files ? when .mp4 and .mpeg tend to be the accepted standard. as for the hd audio well you really need a good sound system / audio player to really take advantage of it. other wise it just sounds like a mp3 file.
 
[citation][nom]greghome[/nom]Gaben looks like Santa Claus Seems legit to me[/citation]
[citation][nom]bllue[/nom]This is nothing new. For years we've had streaming devices such as Roku, game consoles, etc. Everybody praises this guy as if he's the first to come up with the concept, when in fact it has existed for many years. Nowadays you can even use your tablets and smartphones to stream media to your TV. Or you can hook up your desktop or laptop to the TV with HDMI to achieve the same results as the Steam Box (or Piston) at a lower pr ice. Piston is $1000. You can build a desktop system of equal horsepower for half that.[/citation]

You can spend under 100 and do it with a Rasberry Pi box, I think.
 
I dont think his invisioned hardware will intro at 1000 dollars.. not going to happen i think he will try and make it competitive with in the price range of the current next gen consoles .. just my two cents and yes i would buy one at a 499 price tag .. as long as it was a solid performer
 
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