Telus bringing IPTV to Xbox 360 in Canada
If the source over at gamefocus.ca is right, it looks like Telus will be bringing an IPTV solution to Canadian Xbox 360 users, which is currently being tested and should hit the market in 2011. Other than finding out that it’s Telus, as opposed to Bell or Rogers, there’s not too much new to see. It doesn’t sound like the 360 would be used to do the recording. Instead, the Telus TV HD PVR would handle the recording, and the 360 would be used as an interface for one of the rooms. The Telus announcement from February makes it sound as if this is the most likely scenario, though the 360 did add new USB storage functionality to the console just last month, which could be a PVR precursor…
“We’re excited that TELUS has chosen Microsoft Mediaroom as the platform for their next generation TELUS TV service,” said Andreas Mueller-Schubert, general manager of the TV and Video Platforms Business at Microsoft Corp. “With this new service, TELUS is poised to deliver dramatic enhancements to the TV viewing experience, making it easy for their customers to discover and enjoy more movies or TV shows they will love, when and where they want to watch.” [TELUS PR]
Using an existing PVR, and the Xbox as an extender to that system would make sense, since most households have more than one television, and utilizing the power of the 360 to work as one of those terminals is a practical option that avoids the need to hook yet another box up to one of your TVs. Although this is certainly an interesting turn for 360 users, in the larger scheme of things, it seems that the MS Mediaroom concept, and the technologies behind WMC may be getting more mainstream play in the consumer space.
damnit… I just bought an extra box