Sirius Launches Backseat TV
Orbitcast has a bajillion photos of the new Backseat TV unit. It is the SC-V1, distributed through Directed Electronics, and will be available in the spring for $299. It comes with what looks like a modified Starbase so you can listen to the radio in the front, and a large SiriusConnect tuner. A remote is available too, for the backseat.
Currently, Cartoon Network is up and running on the TVs, so they will be a likely content partner, and rumor is Nickelodeon will be too.
There are still many questions to be answered for this. Will it be a simulcast of the Cartoon Network/Nick feeds, or a custom one that does not include kid-unfriendly material like Nick at Nite or Adult Swim? How much more will video cost? Since it is a ‘multi-zone’ tuner, my guess is it will be two subscriptions for the audio and video, so $19.94/month.
Where is Sirius getting the bandwidth? This is probably going to be the primary use of HM, Hierarchical Modulation. The technology was unveiled in 2004, and it was supposed to increase Sirius’ bandwidth by 25%. It never materialized though. They could be providing this, and other future ancillary services, through HM because the technology is not backwards-compatible, which means that certain older radios would not be able to receive it. By doing it this way, there are no complaints as to why Joe Schmoe cannot recieve the same channels that his buddy is.
Looking at the future, could this ever move out of the backseat market to the portable? The S50 and Stiletto have full-color screens almost as big as the video iPod. It would not be hard to enlarge the screen to 2.5″ for the next generation, have 4-8GB of memory, and watch TV on the go, and/or have a built in DVR for recording it. My guess would be that one could store 20 hours of Sirius video on a 4 GB drive, if the player can compress it to a size that is smaller, yet good enough quality for a 2.5-3″ screen. If that was the new live wearable for this year, it would turn heads, plus add some more revenue to Sirius’ bottom line.