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By the pictures, the device is a video transcoder at heart; it takes in VGA video and encodes it as ATSC RF over cable.
The value here lies in the ability to send this video stream to multiple displays *simultaneously*.
I would expect this to be most useful in commercial settings--say restaurants--where the price isn't an issue, but a high-end display-heavy household would also have use for it as you could simulcast the same content to the kitchen, den, media room, or bedroom.
As pointed out, for single display households, it would clearly be cheaper to just hook up a Media Center PC to the HDTV, even if it means buying an HDMI-capable video card.
What I find most interesting here is the fact that the box can actually transcode 1080p VGA analog + 5.1 digital audio to ATSC digital in real time. That is not a trivial achievement.
Makes you wonder if the output section could be incorporated into a PC video card or into an ultra-low power OTA transmitter, sort of like the FM audio adapters for DAPs...
For now, it seems to be a solution in search of a problem, but its a device to keep an eye on, no? Might be a precursor to a new category...
BTW, with Amazon acting as exclusive distributor, they now have two in-house hardware products in stock. Can an official Amazon house brand be far behind?
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