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Boxee to Develop Set-Top Box

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:09:13 -0600

Social media center Boxee has announced plans to move forward with hardware makers. This means that a dedicated Boxee Box will be arriving before too long. More details and mockups of the device will be available at an event on December 11th.

Boxee showed off their new software for Mac and Linux back at CES. While at CES, they began having discussions with hardware makers about the possibility of embedding Boxee in a standalone unit. Now that that’s happening, Boxee is talking more about the product as a platform.

Boxee’s goal is to make it easy for users to find the content they want. To do this they plan to give content owners and aggregators tools to develop a variety of business models (i.e. make cash money). Ultimately, Boxee would like to be on all your connected devices. Maybe someday Boxee, maybe someday…

Adobe Media Player 1.1 Brings Sony Movies and Much More TV to the Desktop

Mark Edward Soper — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:09:38 -0500

CNet reports that Adobe has rolled out a new version of Adobe Media Player. Despite the modest .1 increment in the version number (Adobe Media Player 1.0 users are offered the update the next time they start the player), Adobe Media Player 1.1 has undergone substantial changes in this new release, with improvements in speed, user interface, and content.

AMP 1.1 Adds a Better, Faster User Interface

AMP 1.1 takes full advantage of widescreen displays, moving Quick Picks and Featured Networks to the right side of the display. It's also uncluttered the user interface, adding quick tab-based access to the most popular categories (My New Episodes, Comedy, Drama, News, Lifestyle, and Nature). To access all genres and all content, click the Catalog link.

The Catalog page displays networks, genres, and recent shows in a widescreen format, and genres are now color-coded to indicate the number of programs:

Ghostbusters and More - Movies, that Is

Adobe has now partnered with Sony Pictures, making movies like Ghostbusters, Jerry Maguire, and Men in Black available in AMP 1.1. Keep in mind that movies are not found in a separate genre listing, but are placed in appropriate genre listings - consequently, you might be better off using the Search tool to find your favorites. Movies are divided into parts and include commercials, so the experience (in my view) is a bit like watching a movie on AMC.

Playback speed on a Wireless-G network seems faster than with the original 1.0 version of AMP.

More TV, Too

AMP 1.1 also adds more TV shows, including favorites like 48 Hours, The (original) Love Boat, and Beverly Hills 90201.

Better Access to More Content

RSS feeds and favorites make it easier for you to access more than 600 series and movies (over 25,000 episodes).

Thumbs Up? Thumbs Down? Feedback Wanted!

If you've already tried Adobe Media Player, what do you think about the new improvements? If you're a newcomer, do you think you'll keep checking in for new content? Let us know.

ABC Jumps Into the Crowded Internet TV Pool with Veoh Deal

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:03:29 -0500

ABC Broadens Its Online Presence with Veoh Networks Deal

The New York Times reports today that ABC is the latest TV network to jump into the IPTV pool, making a deal with Veoh Networks to make full episodes of "Lost" seasons 1, 2, and 3 (all in HD streaming, no less!), "Desperate Housewives," and "Ugly Betty," as well as highlight and game highlights from ESPN available.

Although the Internet is becoming crowded with both clips and complete TV shows from TV's past and present, ABC's approach differs from most of its competitors.

Proprietary Player for Better Quality

ABC uses a proprietary player it developed in conjunction with Move Networks, Inc. for both its AOL-hosted and new Veoh-hosted content. This player, which runs on Windows or MacOS and requires the user to install a plug-in, enables ABC to offer some shows, such as "Lost," in full-screen streaming HD.

Streaming HD looks great on a widescreen display, but as you might suspect, it requires a recent PC (dual-core CPU, 128MB of video RAM, 1GB of system RAM, 1300x770 screen resolution) and a 2Mbps or faster Internet connection for best results.

So, how much better does Streaming HD look in full-screen mode? Read on to find out for yourself, and to find out where to find dozens of your favorite TV shows online.

See for Yourself: Streaming HD Versus Web-Based Player

Although you can switch web-based players used by Hulu and other sites to run in full-screen mode, their quality drops, as you can see in this screen capture comparing the ABC/Move Networks streaming HD player (left) and Hulu's web-based player (right), both running in full-screen mode.

More lifelike detail and virtually no compression artifacts make Streaming HD, like broadcast or cable-delivered HDTV, a better-quality TV experience.

Why Are the Networks Going to the Web?

As we've chronicled here from time to time, Internet TV is more than a curiosity: it's become an increasingly important way to reach a media-savvy audience that likes to get its media online as well as via TV. And, as ABC's offering of streaming HD indicates, users are looking for more than a web-based version of Nick at Night vintage TV or a few clips from their favorite TV shows: they're looking for fresh, recent content.

The networks benefit by drawing new viewers to current shows, drawing fans to sample content before buying DVDs of their favorites, and making sure that they're not left out as eyeballs migrate from TV to the web.

You benefit by being able to watch TV on your PC while checking out the episode's details on IMDB TV or TV.com, making sure that you really want to buy that DVD set that's on sale this week at the electronics store, and proving that multi-shirking (the slacker's version of multi-tasking) is better than ever.

Who Pays?

ABC, like other networks, continues to use the verable advertiser-supported ("sponsored by") model for its web-based content, and its player is designed to make skipping the commercials difficult.

Finding Your Favorites Online

In addition to Veoh.com, some other websites to check for the best in TV past and present include Hulu.com, Joost.com, Yahoo!, and AOL.

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(ABC logo courtesy Scotsavage.com; Ugly Betty wallpaper courtesy abc.com; LOST poster courtesy TVCrazy.net; Desperate Housewives wallpaper courtesy Entertainment Wallpaper.com; ESPN logo courtesy championships.wimbledon.org)

My IPTV&Cam Anywhere Deluxe

Michael Brown — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:51:56 -0500

Honest Technology’s My IPTV&Cam Anywhere Deluxe is one of the stranger devices to land in the Lab lately, but you probably guessed as much when you saw the product’s name. This little device not only streams TV over the Internet but also serves as a motion-detecting surveillance webcam. Huh?

Once we managed to wrap our minds around this split-personality concept, we set about testing both aspects of it. The product’s $150 price tag renders it considerably cheaper than any other location-shifting TV tuner we’ve seen, but it has so many limitations we just can’t recommend it at any price. For starters, the device is a dead end for A/V signals—they go in, but there’s no way to route them back out to your TV or home-theater system.

A mini RF connector brings analog TV signals from cable or an antenna into the device (an adapter cable stub is provided, so you can connect it to a normal-sized coax cable), but you’ll have to provide your own splitter if you also need to bring that cable to a set-top box or directly to your TV. The built-in analog tuner can’t descramble encrypted channels—which is typical—but the tuner provides the only means of changing channels. Unlike all the other streamers we’ve reviewed, this one doesn’t come with an IR blaster for controlling a set-top box or any other device.

If you have digital cable or satellite TV, you’ll connect the set-top box’s analog outputs to a provided gang of stub cables consisting of stereo audio and composite- and S-video inputs on one end and a mini USB connector on the other. Video is streamed using the MPEG-4 codec only.

Software pretty much limits the webcam to surveillance applications (monitoring up to three cameras). You can set it up so that when it detects motion, it records video to your hard drive in MPEG-1 format, sends you a clip or a single frame via email, or even burns the video to DVD. But it doesn’t have a mic, or an input for one, so it can’t record audio and is therefore not suitable for other applications, such as online video chats. All in all, this is a weird little product.