CE Pro: Sticking Up for Intel's Viiv

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.cepro.com/news_editorial/8675.html' target='_blank'>http://www.cepro.com/news_editorial/8675.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Viiv has gotten a lot of bad press lately -- from us too. Not that anyone is saying Intel's entertainment-centric platform is bad, just that it doesn't add much if anything to Media Center Edition (MCE). First, the press and industry insiders have been unduly harsh when criticizing Viiv as nothing more than marketing hype. HELLO?! Isn't marketing hype a good thing? MCE is still still chugging along, and we should applaud Intel for breathing some LIIF into it. Viiv has a slightly snappier ring to it than Media Center Edition and a much better sound than Windows XP Media Center Edition, which is how the folks at Microsoft like to promote the platform. Viiv is getting people -- both consumers and the channel -- talking about MCE and for that we should thank Intel."</i><br /><br />In the Intel Viiv platform anymore more than marketing hype? This article from CE Pro seems to think so. Viiv will eventually enable on the fly transcoding of content, which is definitely an exciting concept, but the cynical part of me feels that it won't work nearly as well as we all hope it will. Let's hope I'm wrong!

[Filip Norrgard]

I don't like the name Viiv, partially because I can't understand what it represents -- but mostly because adding an "e" to the end of it makes "Viive" which in Finnish means delay, lag, setback, postponement (depending on the contextual use of the word, naturally). So, I guess someone at Intel marketing department knows that the "on the fly transcoding" won't be as "on the fly" as they want us to believe... :lol:

So, I believe that your cynical part is right this time around, Jason. ;)

[ale_ers]

I guess they are not targeting the Finnish market.

The info I read about Viiv says that it rhymes with Live. As in real time transcoding.

I think Viiv will mean a lot more when Vista comes out. We will not see most of the improvements until then. One of the things that caught my eye was that there would be a new state of hibernation on computers that would allow them to stream and even record content without really being on.