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RealNetworks Still Fighting the Good Fight, Plans to Appeal RealDVD Case

Paul Lilly — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:45:01 -0500

Down but not out, RealNetworks said it will file an appeal and ask that a court ruling to ban sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD, be lifted.

The original ruling dates back to August when a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt sales of the software after film studios successfully argued that RealDVD violated copyright law. The injunction drew major interest from consumers looking for some clarification in the murky Fair Use waters.

RealNetwork's appeal only addresses the injunction, not the case itself, which, barring a resolution, is moving towards a jury trial.

"What they're going to argue is that somehow the legal basis for the injunction is wanting," said Denise Howell, an appellate and technology lawyer. "They will say that there has been an error of law somewhere along the way but they're going to try and undo the injunction. Real is facing an uphill battle."

Image Credit: RealNetworks

Freeware Files: A Case of the Keyboard Krazies!

David Murphy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:30:00 -0500

How jacked up is your keyboard? Do you have one of those super-fancy, 800+ button, LCD-screen, lit-up, wheeled contraptions that's less an input device, more a control panel at a nuclear power plant? If so, you're probably the kind of person who doesn't need the apps I'm about to list out in this week's freeware roundup. Unless, that is, you're also one of those people (including yours truly) who have a ton of buttons and options to play with, yet no resolve to actually go about mapping this to that.

And if you're just rocking a plain ol' keyboard, I hope you're sitting down because you're in for a world of difference. The applications I'm profiling today are all keyboard-focused, and they all seek to add some kind of additional, awesome functionality to (or based on) your default button layouts. Launch programs! Use your keyboard media buttons to control all of your media players! Look up every Adobe-related shortcut within the span of seconds!

All that, and more, await you in this week's freeware and open-source software roundup. Let's get started.

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player

If you've been a freeware and open-source aficionado when it comes to your media players, you might have found that a number of third-party programs just don't work with the media keys on your keyboard. You can jam play, pause, or skip track all you want--nothing happens. Although it's still in its infancy, Media Keyboard 2 Media Player allows you to get some use out of these dead keys by transforming your button-pushing into the actual hotkey combinations for your other media player apps. Unfortunately, only XMPlay, VLC, and Winamp are supported right now. Here's hoping a more universal solution will pop up in the future!

Download it here

Winlayout

The description of this one is simple. Winlayout lets you control your open windows using your number pad. The program doesn't work perfectly with Windows 7 right now, but other than that, it's a quick way to send windows flying around your desktop screen with the mash of a button. More than 30 separate actions, including window resizing, are launched by combinations of the windows key and number pad buttons

Download it here

ActiveHotkeys

So, suppose you're using a fancy program like AutoHotkey to build increased functionality into your keyboard through the use of customized hotkeys. Or, for that matter, suppose you want to change up the hotkeys of any given program? You can select whatever you want, but what happens when you pick a hotkey combination that's in use by another program or application? Short answer: Chaos. Avoid this fate by using ActiveHotkeys to check out which hotkeys on your system are in use or not. The app doesn't tell you which program has claimed the key combination, but at least you'll know that your freshly assigned ALT-T hotkey will load up a new tab rather than your favorite Mr. T application.

Download it here

Adobe Shortcut App

Design enthusiasts take note: If you're one of the lucky to afford any bits or pieces of Adobe's Creative Suite, you'll know that a wealth of functionality can be called up in these applications with but a few hits from your fingertips. And you should equally know that there's little more frustrating than your mad attempts to find the correct key combination for a feature you've previously used and since forgotten. The Adobe Shortcut App solves these problems with its easy-to-use search functionality for Adobe keyboard shortcuts. Not only can you search for and switch between PC and Mac versions of the shortcuts, but you can create your own favorites list for frequently used shortcuts that you want to keep fresh at your command.

Download it here

ControlPad

If you thought the aforementioned Winlayout was lame--the program that allows you to resize windows with your number pad--then perhaps you'll find a bit of joy in this other application that makes even better use of said number pad. In this case, ControlPad transforms your number pad into a launching station. Start by assigning a numerical identifier to a particular task, like opening up new applications or sending a particular series of keystrokes to the OS. From there, you simply have to hold the * key on the number pad for a second or so, then enter the code you just created in the window that appears. Your command then executes, opening up your favorite files or launching your favorite games in a fraction of the time it would normally take.

Download it here

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Blu-ray Losing the High Definition War (in Japan)

Paul Lilly — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:30:05 -0500

It appears CBHD (China Blue High-Definition), formerly known as CH-DVD (China High Definition DVD), has a shot at doing something HD-DVD never could: Beat Blu-ray. Or at least that's the case in Japan.

Apparently a Japanese news station ran the numbers and confirmed that the CBHD format holds a 3 percent market share lead over Blu-ray, FormatWarCentral.com reports. The revelation was presented as part of a documentary, which you can view here, though you're on your own in translating the dialogue.

Under its former designation, the CBHD format was first announced in September 2007 as a joint venture between OMNERC and the DVD Forum, the latter of which was responsible for the failed HD-DVD format. CBHD supporters hope the format will succeed where HD-DVD didn't by offering better copy protection features. However, Warner Brothers is so far the only Hollywood studio to support CBHD.

Image Credit: gizmag.com

Complete Guide to Playing Movies and Music on Linux

Will Kraft — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:30:00 -0500

One of the caveats that many people have with using Linux is the current state of media support. While media playback on Linux is presently much better than it has ever been before, it still requires a little bit of know-how and tweaking to get everything working properly. This guide will go over each step of optimizing your media capabilities.

Why Doesn't Media Just Work?

The reason why some types of media do not work out of the box on Linux is due to legal and technological reasons. Many of the popular media formats (like DVD, MP3, Adobe Flash, etc.) require a codec, DRM workaround, or other sort of player before content in any of those formats can be viewed. Because of patent and copyright law, Linux distro maintainers are not able to include these extra packages in their distros, so media performance is somewhat crippled as a result. Some distros actually license these codecs (e.g. Mandriva's Codina tool) and have working media support out of the box. However, such features are not free and many people balk at the notion of paying for Linux. If it provides any reassurance, it helps to know that this problem is not specifically limited to Linux. Windows XP and some of the low-end editions of Vista are unable to play DVDs out of the box as well, and no version of Windows offers out of the box Blu-Ray support.

Even if you have the requisite codecs, you may still be hindered if the file you are trying to play is protected by strong DRM. Many people have gotten burned over the years by DRM-encumbered media that has a built-in time limit, requires a special player, or must “phone home” for license confirmation each time you want to play it. The last method is especially bad, since you will no longer be able to view the files you are legally entitled to if the media company suddenly shuts down the authentication server; this has happened several times in the past and customers were left high and dry in all instances. Aside from breaking the copy protection (which requires some skill in most cases in addition to being technically illegal thanks to the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act) there is little you can do in such instances except hate the media companies that insist on such strong measures.

On the other hand, Linux is capable of playing unencrypted DVD video (like discs you make yourself) and various open audio formats like OGG Vorbis and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) out of the box. CD audio and WAV also work without any tweaking. Most distros include a wide assortment of players that can handle almost any kind of media when properly configured.

Preparing your System

Although most distros are not able to ship codecs for every type of media out of the box, these codecs are relatively easy to come by from both official and unofficial sources. To facilitate ease of installation, virtually every codec is stored in a package that can be handled by a distro's package manager.

DVD Playback

The media feature that is essential to most people is DVD playback. Virtually every retail DVD sold off the shelf contains a fairly weak (by today's standards) 40-bit DRM encryption scheme called Content Scramble System, (CSS) meant to prevent unauthorized disc reproduction. CSS relies on decryption through keys located on a non-copyable area of the original disc, (the lead-in area) so any homemade copies made from the original disc will not have the keys necessary for decryption and will therefore be unwatchable. CSS-protected video is almost completely obscured by extensive multicolored blocking and artifacting when viewed without a means to decrypt it. (interestingly enough, the audio tracks are unprotected and may still be listened to)

Every standalone hardware DVD player or the various proprietary DVD player software programs (like PowerDVD) are capable of decrypting CSS so the video may be displayed properly. Doing this legitimately requires licensing various patents and key sets from the DVD Copy Control Association, so free software was mostly left out in the cold in the early years. As a consequence, it used to be impossible to watch (much less copy) DVD video on Linux, and the only reliable way to replicate DVD video back then was through analog capture. Several years ago, John Lech Johansen, working with other people who have never been identified, released a program called DeCSS that used a rather simple algorithm (the functional code of DeCSS can fit on a t-shirt) to break the CSS copy protection through a brute-force attack.

After the inner workings of DeCSS became widely understood, many derivatives of it became available, mainly to survive eradication attempts on the part of the media companies through sheer redundancy. While few systems still use the original DeCSS, the most common DVD decryption module for Linux systems is now libdvdcss2. Whereas the media companies fought aggressively against DeCSS, libdvdcss2 has largely been left alone.

Unlike DeCSS, (which relies exclusively on brute force) libdvdcss2 includes a pool of potential keys that are tested until a working one is found; if none of the keys work then brute force is used instead. Brute-forcing strong encryption is usually pointless, but today's computers can break the weak CSS encryption in anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Many players (like VLC) rely exclusively on libdvdcss. Once you install it for one player, it should work for all of them since it is a shared library. For Ubuntu, the package you need is called libdvdcss2. You can install libdvdcss through Ubuntu's libdvdread package, which is available in the main Universe repository. This method will acquire libdvdcss from the Medibuntu (the multimedia-focused variant of Ubuntu), make a package out of it for easy management, and then install it. To do this, you need only follow this procedure:

1. For Ubuntu 9.04 and up, run “sudo apt-get install libdvdread4”. For older versions of Ubuntu, use the libdvdread3 package instead of libdvdread4.

2. After the libdvdread4 package has been installed, open a terminal and run “sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh”. For libdvdread3, you should use “sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh”.

3. Your computer should now be able to play encrypted DVDs with any player that uses libdvdcss2.

Alternatively, you have the option to install the libdvdcss2 package manually. The actual libdvdcss2 package is not found in the standard Ubuntu repositories, (in the first method, you make the package yourself) but can be found in third party locations like the Videolan repository. To enable this resource in apt-get, do the following:

1. open /etc/apt/sources.list with your favorite text editor (sudo/root is required to save changes)

2. add “deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sid main” as an entry in the sources.list file. Make sure it is all on one line and there are no line breaks. Although the version of libdvdcss in that repository is for Debian's unstable branch, it will work fine in Ubuntu 9.04 and older.

3. Save the sources.list file.

4. Run “sudo apt-get update” to refresh the package list and make libdvdcss2 available for download.

5. Run “sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2”.

6. The apt-get program will warn you that the package cannot be verified. Unfortunately, there is no GPG signature for that repository listed on the developer website, so you will have to install the package without verification. (In this instance, it is safe to do so)

7. Your computer should now be able to play encrypted DVDs with any player that uses libdvdcss2.

MP3 Playback

Unlike DVD playback, (which requires only a single library to work) Linux applications routinely use several different engines to provide MP3 playback, the most important ones being Gstreamer and Xine. Once you add support for one engine, all programs that rely on that engine will have support as well. Both Gstreamer and Xine use fffmpeg, which is a program that can convert audio (and video) from one format to another, so the various audio backends use it to process MP3.

Gstreamer is a codec set routinely used for GNOME-based players like Totem. While Totem is able to play open formats out of the box, it requires additional plugins to handle proprietary media formats like MP3; Without Gstreamer, some media players are only nominally functional. To enable this support, you need to install two packages: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg. Gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg is a plugin for ffmpeg and gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly is the package that contains proprietary non-free media codecs (compared to the gstreamer0.10-plugins-good package which contains codecs for open media formats) for Gstreamer. On Ubuntu, both packages may be found in the Universe repository.

For players that use the Xine engine, you will need libxine1-ffmpeg package to be installed. Like the gstreamer packages, it can be found in the Universe repository.

Windows Media Formats

Playing Windows Media files has always been a tricky situation on Linux. Most Windows Media Audio (WMA) files work fine on Linux (barring any sort of DRM protection) but getting audio to work properly in Windows Media Video (WMV) is a bit harder. Mplayer currently supports WMV up through version 8, but WMV9 support is still sketchy.

Fortunately, WMV is implemented more effectively in the w32codecs package. (if you are running a 64-bit operating system, you will need the w64codecs package instead) This package cannot be found in the regular Ubuntu repositories, but can be located in those used by Medibuntu, the media-focused Ubuntu derivative. The following procedure will instruct you how to obtain the w32codecs or w64codecs package:

1. Open a terminal.

2. Run “sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list”

3. Add the Medibuntu GPG signature and refresh your repositories: “sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update”

4. The appropriate codecs have now been installed.

Furthermore, the Medibuntu repositories also contain a working libdvdcss2 package, so once you have added the Medibuntu repository, you are able to install DVD playback capability if you have not already done so by running “sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2”. This method differs from the previous section in that you are able to acquire a working libdvdcss2 package from Medibuntu once you have configured its repository instead of assembling the package yourself.

Additional proprietary codecs like Apple Quicktime and Real are included in the w32codecs and w64codecs packages.

Adobe Flash

These days, Flash support is essential since many popular Web 2.0 services (like Youtube and Hulu) make heavy use of it. Currently, the Linux implementations of Flash are quite good, and there are several different options to choose from.

If you want to avoid proprietary software altogether, you should consider Gnash, a free open source implementation of Adobe Flash. Gnash has excellent support of typical SWF animation and offers good support for Flash Video, (flv) the current standard for online video content. However, the support for FLV in Gnash is not quite perfect yet, so some videos might have sound issues as a consequence. If your system does not have x86 CPU architecture, Gnash is your only option since the official Adobe Plugin only supports x86. To acquire Gnash and the Firefox plugin for it on Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install gnash mozilla-plugin-gnash”. After that, you will still need the gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad package to watch Youtube videos. (your package manager will acquire it for you, so there is no need to try to install it yourself)

For the best possible support and compatibility, you should rely on Adobe's own Flash player plugin. It has excellent support for swf and flv, with the only downside being that it is closed-source. To acquire the latest version of the flash player plugin for any distro, perform the following procedure:

1. Navigate to http://www.get.adobe.com/flashplayer

2. Select the “tar.gz for Linux” option from the list

3. Click “Agree and Install Now” when it appears

4. Download and extract the tarball (it doesn't matter where you extract to)

5. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory you extracted to. There should be two files in it: flashplayer-installer and libflashplayer.so.

6. The flashplayer-installer file is a shell script. Initiate it by running “./flashplayer-installer” or “sh flashplayer-installer”.

7. Once the script starts, press Enter to continue. Close any browser processes that are running if you have not done so already.

8. The script will ask whether it should install to the .mozilla folder in your home directory. Allow it to do so by typing “y” and then hit Enter.

9. The installation process is complete. Choose “n” to terminate the script.

MIDI Audio

MIDI audio has already had its heyday in the mid 1990s, back before MP3 audio and broadband made sharing high-quality music possible. At the time, large bulky WAV files were the only source of realistic audio, and it didn't take very many of them to fill up the small hard drives of the day (and you could just forget about transferring them over the standard 33.6kbs or 56kbs dialup) In those simpler times, synthesized MIDI renditions of songs were popular because they allowed full songs (sans lyrics) to be transferred easily over low bandwidth, and personal websites full of MIDI files were commonplace.
Even though MIDI is a mostly forgotten media format today, it still has its place. If you create or work with ringtones on your computer or are into retro/vintage gaming, it is sometimes necessary to be able to play MIDI audio on your computer. Linux does not offer MIDI playback out of the box due to its relative obscurity and fairly low demand, but it can be done through a program called Timidity.

Timidity is a program that runs as a daemon process in the background and allows other software to make use of your computer's MIDI capabilities. (most computers still have a MIDI synthesizer, although some are better than others) Timidity is not a specific player; rather, it allows MIDI to play where it is needed whether it be through a conventional media player or through a game. If Timidity is installed and the daemon is running, MIDI audio will “just work.” Timidity is able to handle MOD audio as well.

To install Timidity on Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install timidity”.

Choosing a Media Player

As previously stated, there is an abundance of media players for Linux, but they are not all created equally. Each player is best suited for a specific purpose or situation; some are best used with (or are exclusively for) audio whereas some are best used with video.

VideoLan Player

VideoLan (or VLC Media player) is one of the most prominent open source video players, easily identified by its orange traffic cone icon. Videolan is cross-platform and is extremely versatile; it has been able to handle virtually any format that we've thrown at it over the years and is even able to play damaged files. Since VLC includes its own set of codecs for most file types, VLC supports almost everything except CSS-protected DVD playback or other DRM-encumbered media out of the box.

From our experience, Videolan works best as a movie player due to its design. Videolan readily accepts the libdvdcss2 package without requiring any additional configuration. Once DVD decryption is installed, VLC has nice features that automatically skip various undesirable DVD features that you would normally be forced to watch on most other players. (the pointless FBI warning nag screens, trailers and other assorted advertising, etc.) Videolan also has the capability to bypass menus and jump directly to the main feature of a DVD. The playlist functionality could be better than it is, but the program's sheer power and ease of use more than makes up for it.

Videolan also has many powerful under-the-hood tools and features that many advanced users would like, including sophisticated post-production tools and streaming capability. Some people have reputedly have had stability problems with it, but it has always worked well from our experience. With that said, Videolan is easily one of the best media players for Linux and should be your first or second pick.

To install Videolan in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install vlc”.

Mplayer

Mplayer is another of the best players available for Linux and other operating systems. Once libdvdcss2 is installed properly, Mplayer is able to play practically anything. Like Videolan, Mplayer has the ability to skip DVD nag screens and trailers and can go right to the main feature. (unlike Videolan, this is Mplayer's default behavior) For convenience, many of the most important functions of mplayer are automatically bound to hotkeys, which eliminates much of the need to use the menu system.

Mencoder, Mplayer's companion program, is also quite useful. Many other open source multimedia tools like Acidrip and DeVeDe use it to convert video from one format to another, like DivX to MPEG2.

To install Mplayer in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install mplayer”.

Kaffeine

Kaffeine has been KDE's main video player for several years now. (A very trimmed-down alternative called Dragon Player has mostly taken over Kaffeine's role in KDE4) Kaffeine occupies the mid-range in terms of features—while not quite as versatile or powerful as Videolan or Mplayer, Kaffeine offers more functionality than far simpler alternatives like the new Dragon Player. Kaffeine uses Xine as a backend.

Kaffeine is a multi-function player, in that it can handle many different kinds of media in addition to being able to rip and encode audio. It can play retail DVD, (with libdvdcss2 installed) unencrypted DVD, Video CD, Audio CD, and more. Kaffeine is capable of automatically retrieving codecs as you need them, so you will very seldom have to do so yourself.

To install Videolan in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install kaffeine”.

Music Players

Amarok

Amarok is regarded by most to be one of the best (if not THE best) audio players for Linux. It has support for MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, WMA, etc in addition to built-in access to various streaming Internet radio resources. Amarok currently exists in two versions: The original “classic” amarok and the new Amarok2 that ships with KDE4. Either version will suffice for those who want a powerful audio player with close KDE integration.

Like Kaffeine, Amarok uses Xine as a backend. Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are supported out of the box, and MP3 playback can be enabled by installing the libxine1-ffmpeg package, as previously stated. Unlike other players, amarok is heavily dependent on the KDE architecture due to its integration; installing Amarok requires that large portions of KDE be installed as well. Basically, if you are going to install the player, you may as well install the whole desktop environment along with it.

To install Amarok in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install amarok” (messy way, since you're installing an incomplete KDE) or run “sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop”. (clean way)

Audacious Media Player

Audacious is designed for those who prefer a more minimalistic media player. Audacious has its own codec pack, which means that it can support MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, etc. out of the box and has various visualization and effects as well. Audacious is the latest incarnation of a whole series of media players: Audacious was derived from Beep Audio Player while Beep was derived from XMMS while XMMS was a clone of the original Winamp 2.x for Windows. As such, Audacious is virtually identical in function to its predecessors; even skins originally written for Winamp 2 “Classic” (and there are plenty of those) are fully compatible with Audacious.

To install Audacious in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install audacious”.

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is GNOME's answer to Amarok, with one of the key differences being that Rhythmbox is built on Gstreamer rather than Xine. Rhythmbox has most of Amarok's features, including audio disc ripping/burning, internet radio (including last.fm), support for MP3/FLAC/OGG Vorbis, automatic podcast retrieval, etc. In addition to that, Rhythmbox has built-in Ipod support and integration with Jamendo and Magnatune.

If you're using the GNOME desktop environment, Rhythmbox is probably already installed on your system. Pure Kubuntu users should run “sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop” to get Rhythmbox, since it depends on most of GNOME and you may as well install the whole thing.

Movie Studios to Release "Epix" Streaming Movie Service

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:30:10 -0500

Lionsgate, Paramount and MGM have all come together to create a new TV network called Epix that will show their own recent films in HD before they’re released on DVD. They’re also bringing this channel online with an on-demand website that will offer HD streaming of the very same films. And, best of all, it won’t have any advertising and won’t show up on your cable bill.

Epix will be bundled directly into cable packages, and according to their current business model, won’t show up as a separate charge on your bill. If Epix can convince enough cable operators to sign on (they haven’t announced any partners yet), they will be able to gain a competitive edge over pay-TV channels that have a monthly fee.

The best part of it all is the site, epixhd.com. The films will stream in 720p, all for free. The video will be offered through Flash and is multi-bitrate enabled. The player will check your available bandwidth every ten seconds to see if a larger or smaller stream is required. Epix is currently working off of six different encodings for each film, ranging from cell phone quality (500Kbps) all the way to full HD.

But, there’s reportedly a catch (surprise, surprise). In order to use the website, you’ll need to be signed up with an ISP’s Internet and cable. This is primarily because Epix is looking to install caching servers directly in the data centers of ISPs that partner with them.

Image Credit: Epix

Hulu's Free Ride May Soon be Over

Paul Lilly — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:31:16 -0500

Brace yourselves for this one. Hulu -- the free video streaming service that has others, like YouTube, trying to emulate it -- may not be totally free in the not too distant future. Or at least that's how Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s new chief digital officer, envisions things.

According to AOL's Daily Finance website, Miller said he sees Hulu making at least some of its content available only to paid subscribers. At the same time, he was also quick to clarify that he won't attend his first Hulu board meeting until next week, meaning his speculation doesn't necessarily reflect that of Hulu's.

"In my opinion the answer could be yes," Miller said. "I don't see why over time that shouldn't happen. I don't think it's on the agenda for Monday [but] it seems to me that over time that could be a logical thing."

Keep in mind that News Corp. co-owns Hulu and it's Miller's job to find ways of getting revenue from from News Corp.'s properties.

In other words, enjoy Hulu while you can - in the long run, it may all have been just an extended free trial.

Adobe Promises Hardware-Accelerated Flash For Tegra, Broadcom

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:58:40 -0500

Netbook owners are all too familiar with the perils of watching any type of processor hungry HD video on our tiny beloved machines. But, thanks to a recent announcement by Adobe, those days are coming to a close (sort of).

The announcement, which came in two parts (from Nvidia and Broadcom) promises full hardware acceleration for Flash video, mostly by means of upgrades to Adobe’s plugin. This upgrade will guarantee smooth playback of HD flash video.

Sadly, most current-gen netbook owners won’t get to see any of these advances, because in order to put them to use you’ll need to have a machine based on Nvidia’s Tegra solution, or an Atom powered netbook with Broadcom’s Crystal HD video accelerator addon.

This advance will be making its way to consumers in the first half of 2010.

Image Credit: Adobe

Hulu Launches Hulu Labs With New Desktop Client

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:20:32 -0500

Just this week Hulu launched their new service, Goog—err, Hulu Labs in the interest of letting their users get a more hands on approach to the development of the site.

“To help us learn from user feedback […], we’re excited to open up a new Hulu Labs section on the site today. At Hulu Labs, we’ll provide sneak peeks at some of the upcoming releases from our product roadmap, some of which are personal projects and hobbies our devs have been cooking up,” wrote Eric Feng, Hulu’s CTO on their official blog. “From new recommendation algorithms to tools for building custom widgets to a time-based view for browsing your favorite shows, we’ll be sharing a variety of these new creations with you at Hulu Labs and looking forward to your thoughts on how to make these products better.”

They also released the beta for Hulu Desktop, an application that has been optimized to let you watch all of your favorite shows (so long as they’re hosted on Hulu) on your desktop or media center PC. The UI has been designed with a small Microsoft or Apple remote in mind, making it a very reasonable contender for all the media center PCs out there.

Image Credit: Hulu