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If you've never heard of XStreamHD, that's OK. Up until now, they've kept a pretty low profile. But that doesn't mean they haven't been busy quietly building the groundwork and infrastructure for a system that may very well be a total game changer for the way you view movies, listen to music and play games. I actually had heard of them. In fact, I wrote a blog entry about them in my Day in the Life CES coverage almost two years ago. Here's what I wrote then: CES 2008 - Day 3 11:00 AM - XStreamHD press conference. I'll be honest. I really only attended because Michael Douglas was going to be speaking, but the concept sounds incredibly viable, and has me totally intrigued. If they can pool together enough movie studios to supply content, this will be a home run! Excited, I head over to the press room for lunch. At this point in my career, I've seen a lot of great concepts come and go in a white-hot flash of vaporware. This has actually happened several times when I've been in the process of reviewing them. So, I take new technology announcements with a grain of salt and a healthy heaping of "I'll believe it when I see it." I put XStreamHD firmly in that category. Well, they just invited me for a recent tour of their McLean, Virginia facilities, and I saw it, and I have to say, I'm a long way towards believing it. XStreamHD has leased satellite bandwidth from Echo Star and plans on beaming true HD audio and video to your home. A traditional 18-inch dish will receive the signals and then transmit them via RG6 cabling to a server in your home that will then stream it over Cat5 network to multiple clients. Clients can be any DLNA compliant device, including a PS3 or PC. Quality will be true 1080p/24 video with 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master audio. The system is incredible of supporting sick bandwidth; I saw it streaming four simultaneous full HD signals, with one of them over 80 Mbps with no stutters or hiccups! Their plan is that many - hundreds was a number they used - movies would reside on the server, ready for instant viewing. Much like having every film in your Netflix queue available. When you are ready to watch, you select the movie, it begins and you are billed. New movies will populate the server as they are released or as your viewing preferences change. They also utilize a really cool interface to facilitate browsing and finding films that strike your fancy. Beyond movies, the system will include a three ATSC tuner DVR, incorporate telephone and voice mail services, and have a full music server interface for your audio collection. During my visit, they weren't ready to announce any studio support, but implied that they fully expected to have a huge library of titles available for their April launch. Hardware costs are going to be very reasonable, with a 1 Terabyte server expected to sell for $399. Look forward to a review in a future issue.