Archive for the ‘Net TV’ Category

Netflix prepping PlayStation 3 and Wii support suggests job ad

by Steve O'Hear

April 13th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

netflix-jobWhile Netflix streaming has been an XBox 360 exclusive for quite a while now, we’ve known for a long time that the video rental company harbored greater games console ambitions. CEO Reed Hastings said as much all the way back in October 2007, and Netflix has sinced followed up with a number of customer surveys exploring demand for PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii support.

More proof that Netflix is serious about widening support beyond the XBox 360 emerged today after a recent job advertisement on Monster.com was spotted seeking a lead engineer responsible for the company’s “gaming platforms” – plural.

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Nokia's DLNA goodness – N85 to PS3 streaming

by Steve O'Hear

April 9th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

n85-ps3A much overlooked feature of Nokia’s Nseries smartphones is their ability to share media with other DLNA-certified devices. In fact, DLNA certification in general is marketed very poorly considering that it goes someway to reaching the holy grail of home media whereby various devices – computers, cellphones, games consoles, hard drives, media streamers and other hardware – can all play nicely together to share and stream media around the home. That’s the aim anyway, although in practice not only is DLNA’s messaging underwhelming, but issues such as copyprotection and varying support for different file formats have held back the technology, which, as I’ve previously noted, offers so much promise. Anyway, back to Nokia.

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Watch live BBC television on latest Nokia phones

by Steve O'Hear

April 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | Comments1 Comment

Live BBC TV on Nokia S60Live BBC TV and radio streaming (UK-only) is now available on Nokia’s flagship N96 and the all touch screen XpressMusic 5800 aka The Tube, reports All About Symbian.

The complete range of BBC television channels are accessible, including digital, along with the public broadcaster’s full radio lineup. AAS describes the picture quality as “not brilliant”, with a frame size of 176 by 144 pixels, although this can be scaled up to full screen in the S60 version of RealPlayer.

See also: Hands-on: BBC iPlayer for Nokia N96

Not a Nokia first

As readers may remember, last September, in a slightly controversial move, the BBC announced that it had developed a version of iPlayer for the Nokia N96 that supported both streaming and downloads – a first for mobile  – despite the fact that the handset hadn’t yet been released in the UK and therefore had a market share of zero. This left the BBC open to criticism that it was favoring one commercial player over others. Instead, why hadn’t it chosen to support equivalent handsets that viewers already owned rather than one that was yet to hit the market?

Part of the reason was technology, the N96 has an updated version of RealPlayer and the necessary Digital Rights Management functionality, along with the BBC betting on the device selling well in the UK or at least being picked up by carriers (the latter is certainly true). The same criticism, however, can’t be levvied this time around. As we reported back in December, live BBC TV and radio streaming was introduced as part of an updated mobile iPlayer site compatible with the Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and C905.

Yahoo's Widget Channel debuts on new Samsung Internet-connected TVs

by Steve O'Hear

March 30th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | Comments3 Comments

Unveiled at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Yahoo’s “Widget Channel” for Internet-connected televisions has debuted on high end sets from Samsung, reports CNet.

Re-branded by Samsung as “Internet@TV”, the feature enables users to install mini-apps referred to as “widgets” that offer access to a range of Yahoo services — news, stock quotes, Flickr photos, weather — along with those from third-party services, such as Twitter and eBay.

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Internet TV news: BlackBerry, Blockbuster and TiVo, Netflix on PS3?

by Steve O'Hear

March 26th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

A few Internet TV-related stories have been doing the rounds over the last few days that I’ve not yet had a chance to comment on. Here’s a quick catch-up.

BlackBerry to launch video download service

blackberryvideoResearch In Motion is close to launching a a full-episode television service for the company’s line of BlackBerry smartphones. An official announcement could come as early as next week at CTIA, reports NewTeeVee. Interesting tidbits include:

  • It will be an unlimited monthly subscription service for a fee
  • Once a user orders a program, the content will be downloaded in the background over Wi-Fi
  • Multiple broadcast and cable networks have licensed content for the service

As NTV notes, utilizing WiFi rather than 3G to deliver episodes to the phone enables RIM to bypass carriers, while at the same avoiding the inconvenience of side-loading content via a PC (iTunes style). Obviously it would be preferable to offer both options – WiFi and 3G – but that would likely mean sharing revenue, something that RIM, like Apple, is keen to avoid. As it stands, any direct paid-for content offering from RIM won’t sit well with carriers who still insist on owning the customer.

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ZeeVee's consumer set-top box too expensive and too complicated, says company CEO

by Steve O'Hear

March 24th, 2009 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

It was an interesting take on a familiar problem: how to bridge the gap between the PC (Internet video) and the TV. ZeeVee’s original consumer-focused solution, the Zv100 set-top box, utilized a home’s regular cable wiring to send video content from a PC to any number of TVs by effectively creating its own closed circuit HD television channel.

However, the product never took off, selling “just a few thousand units” and has since been canned. The reason, ZeeVee’s CEO Vic Odryna tells NewTeeVee, is that the product was too expensive and too complicated. When the “ZvBox” was first announced, I noted that its $499 price tag was much higher than competitors, all of which use WiFi or Ethernet to shuttle content around the home, rather than coaxial in ZeeVee’s case.

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iPhone's 'In App' purchases will be a boon to micro-payments

by Steve O'Hear

March 18th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Mobile, Net TV | Comments1 Comment

If it wasn’t already clear who owns the customer – Apple or its mobile carrier partners – yesterday’s announcement that ‘In App’ purchases will be a prominent feature of the next version of the iPhone’s OS suggests, once again, that power resides very much with Steve Jobs and co. in Cupertino.

When iPhone OS 3.0 is rolled out this summer, developers will be able to charge for additional content within their applications – so that, for example, an iPhone game could at anytime prompt a player to purchase additional levels or other in-game content, such as maps, without the user having to leave the app and billed through their existing iTunes account. For the privilege, Apple takes its standard 30% cut, once again bypassing the carriers. That in itself is disruptive enough. However, there’s another force at play.

Micro-payments. Or more broadly, in an era of free and ad-supported, getting consumers used to the idea once again of actually paying for content, albeit online.

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Voodoo Chile: Pandora lands on Vudu set-top box

by Steve O'Hear

March 16th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Net TV | Comments1 Comment

No longer a ‘one trick pony’, Vudu’s ambition to become a fully-fledged platform, capable of pulling in content from a range of third-party services, appears to be bearing fruit.

Today the company announced that owners of its set-top box now have access to Internet radio service Pandora. Features include support for multiple Pandora accounts, “enabling every member of the family to play his or her own personalized Pandora stations”, along with the ability to create custom stations and tweak them dynamically by thumbing tracks up or down.

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Boxee releases remote control iPhone app

by Steve O'Hear

March 16th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

Another ‘remote control’ app has landed on iPhone, this time for media center software Boxee. The Boxee Remote app works over WiFi and operates in two modes: ‘Gesture’ and ‘Buttons’. In Gesture mode users drag the Boxee logo around the screen to trigger up, down, left and right and clicking on the logo activates play/pause. Alternatively, Button mode offers up a virtual version of Apple’s own hardware-based remote control, which although less imaginative is probably more practical. Either way, the free app is very bare bones, making it all the more baffling that, according to Boxee, Apple took such a long time to approve it.

See also: iPhone remote control app for VLC Media Player AND Sonos delivers touchscreen controller via iPhone

CBS to stream NCAA's March Madness on iPhone and iPod touch

by Steve O'Hear

March 12th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

Buoyed by the success of last year’s March Madness on Demand and, presumably, its experiment with live streaming on Joost, CBS is making video coverage of the college basketball tournament available to owners of Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. Available through a dedicated iPhone app, users will be able to view live games (WiFi only) and access real-time scores, stats, and other related content. Interestingly, the app isn’t free but costs $4.99 available through iTunes and the iPhone’s App Store, another example of media companies using Apple’s mobile software store as a way of charging for content.

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