US TV in Japan on a Sony?

[GuyJean]

I visited Sony Marketing today so they could impress me with their HD NLE and cameras. I was, but I was puzzled by the 'Airboard'.. The woman showing us around said:

I could have this Airboard base station connected to the Internet and cable TV in the US,

and watch US TV channels with this Location Free Board in Japan:


Thinking the first picture was just a wireless LAN base station, I questioned "I can have this in America, and this in Japan, and I can watch US TV on this?"

"Yes."

Um. How? The base station in America encodes the TV, the 'Location Free' board in Japan receives the encoded US TV from a different base station in Japan linked via P2P with the US base station?..

I think she was mistaken, but she spoke and understood English really well...

More pictures from the tour - http://www.tokyodv.com/SonyTour/SonyTour.html

GJ

[L S]

GJ,
The first generation airboard defintely could not do such a thing. I new the spec for it for my work and never saw that.
For this new version, it is technically possible, but seems unlikely to me due to component cost, etc.
To do it (at least from my limited knowledge) you would need a base station in US with receiver, encoder and Tx via IP. In Japan you would need a Rx via IP, decoder and wireless transmitter for the board to get a signal from. Essentially that is two low cost PCs on either end of the IP connection.
Our friend Matt, is doign somethign similiar now to watch march madness (hoops). he bought a box for his parents in Honolulu to hook up to TV singal comes in then goes out to their PC. The signal gets broadcast via a P2P to matt's laptop at the office. It works but requires both sides to amualy do a lot of set up at the same time. Plus vieo quality is very shitty.
I'll ask my staff if they know anything about this. I am curious too now.

[Kuang_Grade]

Sony is selling these in their US website http://tinyurl.com/624k7
If you click on the specifications tab, you can actually download the unit's manual in english (or at least the manual of the US version). I haven't looked at the manual, but it may be of some help in this

[cenic]

There is already a product for radio that does exactly this. It is called the Radio Shark It works great if you want to archive shows, but as previously mentioned, you need some nice bandwidth and hardware on both sides.

[GuyJean]

Thanks for your input, guys.. It all makes sense now.

It's a nice idea, but as you said, quality might suffer. The sample they were showing had CBS TV from the States playing on the 'Location Free' board (I'm sure it was just a recording). That's not the 'Airboard', by the way. It's a smaller accessory for the Airboard, mainly to watch TV.

Thanks again!

GJ

[Charles]

You can do this with iChat AV and a DV converter. I used to do this with my own DirecTV system, so I could watch TV on my laptop. I have a nice radio remote control for my DirecTV decoder, so I can change channels from anywhere in the house, it worked pretty well. I saw a website where someone hooked up an IR remote control to their mac, so they can change channels from anywhere in the world, and then watch over iChat AV.

[FG Lurker]

Taro asked me to post this for him -- FG is totally refusing to work for him right now so he's going to take a break for a few days.

-----------------

Here's a short blurb on how it "could" work for a FG in Japan via
GadgetWatch
newsletter, Feb 10, 2005 of JapanInc magazine.

[/u] A D G E T W A T C H]
Name: Sony "LocationFree TV," LF-X5
Category: Wireless TV Price:
Open Price][/u] estimated at 125,000 yen
Release date in Japan: March 10, 2005

The Gist: How often have you traveled outside of Japan and wish you
still had access to your favorite shows such as "Ainori" or
"SMAPXSMAP?" Sony has finally made your dreams come true, and perhaps
someone else's dreams, too -- the LF-X5 not only allows programs to
be delivered to the TV over the internet, but it does this in
real-time. So how does this work?

The LF-X5 consists of two pieces: a base station and a wireless LCD
TV. The base station is connected to the video source (it has inputs
for TV signals as well as video inputs), which then wirelessly
connects to the LCD TV. Bammo, instant wireless TV. But there's
obviously more to it; the base station, when connected to the
internet, can also be accessed from outside locations through a
function called "NetAV." The ramifications of this function are huge
-- it essentially means that anywhere in the world you can get a
wireless internet connection, you can have access to the base station
in your home. Whether this is at a library in Moscow, a Starbucks in
San Francisco, or a college campus in Brazil, it makes no difference;
anywhere providing a wireless internet connection means you have an
instant connection to your base station, and thus Japanese TV
(providing the base station is in Japan, of course).

Nevertheless, you probably have a few questions, by now. For example,
what about the time difference? Surely, you don't want to watch
programs that are on at 11 AM in Japan while sitting in your New York
hotel room at 9 PM. You're in luck, here too -- Sony has equipped the
LCD with touchscreen capabilities, and the base station with
connectivity with video recording devices. So, before you leave
Japan, just set your video recorder to record you choice programs.
You can then control your video recorder, and in turn access various
programs from the LF-X5.

"Surely this requires some sort of monthly fee," you say. In fact, it
does not; this is an all-inclusive package. Because the LF-X5
utilizes your existing internet connection and cable TV line (at your
home in Japan), there is no need to apply for additional services or
fork over some sort of usage fee.

On the technical end of things, the LF-X5 is fairly well equipped:
the base station has an analog tuner, S-Video input, composite
input/output and analog audio input/output. The screen itself is a 7"
widescreen TFT LCD, with a resolution of 800 x 480. Though both
802.11a and 802.11b/g bands are supported, Sony's "Dual Transmission
Hi-Bit Wireless" technology means you needn't worry about which to
use where. In fact, having none of these isn't a problem either --
the LCD TV is equipped with a wired LAN port as well.

Other functions of the LF-X5 include access to e-mail, a basic web
browser, and the ability to playback MPEG-1 videos via a CompactFlash
slot. In fact, the only thing I could really ask for is some sort of
camera, so that the LF-X5 could perhaps also provide a sort of
poor-man's videoconferencing solution. The lithium ion battery of the
LCD TV portion will provide about 2 hours of viewing time, though
charging takes about 80 minutes.

More info: http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200502/05-0201/

==========

J@pan Inc Magazine Presents:
G A D G E T W A T C H
The Hottest Gadgets and Gizmos from Japan
Issue
No. 179
Thursday February 10, 2005

-----------------

There seems to be some "forbidden" letter combinations that cause errors on FG when they are followed by a space. r&m is one, but there must be others too -- I had to do some funky editing to make it possible to post the above. FG is sick. (Try quoting this message to see how I got around the letter combos followed by a space!)

[FG Lurker]

Sony is selling these in their US website

[mega long format-killing url chopped]

If you click on the specifications tab, you can actually download the unit's manual in english (or at least the manual of the US version). I haven't looked at the manual, but it may be of some help in this

tinyurl.com is your friend...

http://tinyurl.com/624k7

Saves the screen formatting of FG if you don't want to use the url tags.

[Kuang_Grade]