Joost is another online TV solution. It combines both software and content, with a dosage of advertising.

In April I gave Joost beta my first try. I tried it on a relativly fast PC’s with more than enough bandwidth. But I was constantly disappointed with the CPU usage and bandwidth the program required. Their content then was rather limited, still promising. Not personally owning a machine that managed to use Joost I forgot about it for a couple of months. Now for a couple of weeks I have had access to an Intel Mac and re-downloaded Joost to see a real boost in content and functionality.

The Mac remote works nicely with Joost and really gives the Joost feeling. Being able to provide the wide and impressive content obviously costs, and the ads in between every song or show proves this.
I could quickly now sit hours in front of the Joost-set. With the remote functionality it enhances the TV-feel, and allows you to relax. However I am still figuring out how to customize the content I believe that we will see a lot more of Joost to come.

At a first glance I found Joost’s featured selection more entertaining than Miro’s. With Joost you can’t download anything, but this is not a problem as long as the content remains searchable and accessible. Joost’s main downside for me atm is some of the lengthy advertising, I am find with splashscreens and short ads. But when I start to doubt whether this is an ad or a rogue channel this pulls down the Joost experience. Another Joost negative is the quality, although much better since April, they still have a way to go considering what you see is all transferred more or less “live”.

The “internet tv” and video player Miro, previously known as Democracy has caught my attention lately.

I tried Democracy for the first time more than a year ago. My first impression was OK. Considering the fact that I can’t afford to keep up with the latest hardware updates, I tried it on a little older Mac. This proved the program rather CPU intensive. The concept behind Democracy was a good one however. Being able to subscribe to channels in a podcast type of manner has evidently become a winner.
Being able to “store” the channel material is an advantage over more “live services” such as Joost, since you can pause any time you want. You skip the ads and if you do have low bandwidth you can download the whole episode/show before viewing.

That same success is what Miro has has expanded on. You can obtain HD material which is becoming more in demand.
Miro also offers a BitTorrent service. (Because of rather limited bandwidth I seldom use BitTorrent, but gave it a try with Miro.) The first torrent in Miro worked impressively. Though afterwards I had to pause a download to be able to use my bandwidth for necessities and when I resumed it started downloading from the beginning. In other words it restarted instead of resuming. A quick search online on Miro’s forum proved that others had this problem, and it was not yet resolved.
My main challenge to Miro is help the users find the content, in an even greater manner. I find myself using the content I find in the applications more than outside subscriptions’. Therefore my guess is that if the content is more accessible people will stick to the application. Another Joost-joy I am missing is being able to control Miro via remote.

For Miro’s slightly biased comparison of Miro vs. Joost check out their comparison.

I first heard of Zattoo via TechCrunch, but I did not try it before a couple months ago. With Zattoo, as with some other services I have tested, I believe in trying the application a little more in depth over time before I give a verdict.
There is something about watching TV, next to real time – and not needing a tv-box and traditional receiver. After being introduced to Zattoo the TV in the living-room is only turned on mainly for movies, TV is now watched infront of the computer.

NRK2 live on Zattoo.

Their interface is simple, and offers you Audio and Video P-2-P (Peer-to-peer). The quality varies. Though on the 1.8 mbit/s ADSL line, the picture is decent most of the time. (A couple of mpeg like jolts and pixelations every now and then). As far as content goes, I would be willing to pay for more channels, so I hope Zattoo will be working on a service in that direction.

Apparently since none of the stream/material is stored, they do not run into many of the restrictions that would apply. In addition Zattoo restricts channels geographically. That rises my question what happens if I wanted to access NRK while overseas?
As the activity on Zattoo’s forum demonstrates Zattoo is in high demand and countries around the globe are hoping to have their channels be the next addition. (Øyvind Solstad, working for Norwegian Broadcasting, NRK, met the guys behind Zattoo in Switzerland(?), who told him about expanding Zattoo to Norway to include NRK1 and NRK2. I was overjoyed.)

The popular TV-show crime series CSI:NY from CBS will include an investigation in Second Life in its next awaited episode, that viewers can also participate in, TechCrunch reports. I find this is a very exciting new step in the social media world, as it truly does add interactivity into a prime time TV-series.

As Hollywood, or the showbiz if you want, steps into the virtual realm of Second Life it will definitely give the virtual, other, second life of yours a very exciting and exotic opportunity to sharing in solving the mystery of this intriguing and entertaining action crime series. A two-way intergration of normally very single tracked popular tv-series will definitely cause a great deal of us previous sceptically towards Second Life and the virtual world to perhaps give it a new chance. And perhaps the actual investigation can teach you a couple things as well?

This tied in nicely with some topics from as seminar I was at today, discussing new social media trends, with several new media personalities in Norway. Amongst them Øyvind Solstad one of the guys behind NRKbeta.no talked about Second Life.

Anyway I will personally have to perhaps give Second Life a new chance, because I must admit it I think CBS has made a genius move.

Cozmo is taking Web 2.0 concepts and adding them to allow users to create their own “TV channels”. These so-called channels can be created by choosing content from most popular video sites (YouTube, Google videos, etc) or can be a RSS feed, your own channel will eventually take shape as widgets.

I gave CozmoTV Beta  a quick try and easily created my own widget and channel: stepheno.net @ cozmo. Although I have only selected one show so far, the concept proves its potential. So if you are interested in sharing your latest YouTube findings cozmo.tv might just be a solution for you.

For more info about the concept TechCrunch has more, as well as CozmoTV’s about page.

Stumbled upon this new HD camera this morning. Iconix HD-RH1 is a 64-gram miniture camera with a 1080i/p resolution. However accoding to Create Digital Motion it will cost about $15,000. In light of its price, I don’t think its main use would be for security cameras. Though this camera could be a small step in the direction of the videocameras and Crime Scene Investigator techincal equipment you see on TV and in movies. (You might have seen movies, where they zoom into the surveillance images and find details not visible in its original size.)

If you are interested in more of its specifications, you will enjoy reading their product page.

(Via Create Digital Motion)

Whats great about YouTube is some of the old commercials that are being uploaded. A couple weeks ago I mentioned Apple 1984 Behind the Scenes, and here is one from Panasonics. Advertising their brand new Portable VCR from 1983.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I especially liked the music and narrators engaged voice, it sets the mood of the 80′s at once, in my opinion.

(Via TechEBlog)

Just a quick heads up that Apple just official released their Apple TV ad online, although the commercial had been aired earlier on TV before hitting the web.

The Apple TV Ad can be seen in Hi-Quality here.

In my opinion, the beat and good acting combined with simple camera shots makes this a nice and clean, catchy ad.

Today I was given my Beta access to Joost, following the first Joost Commercial (see the commercial below) that appeared a little more than a week ago. Joost is your online TV application, which comes with a wide range of channels, where each channel has its even wider range of series, music videos or films. The application is the TV set/browser, meaning that they do have more control over their content than certain other solutions.

Their interface is simple and quite pretty, as well as the wide variety of channels will hopefully suite many of your tastes. Channels can be chosen Alphabetically or by Genre.

Once you have chosen a channel you are automatically taken to the next show, song or episode or you can navigate directly to a desired program within the channel. Each program’s name as well as length is included and a short description can be chosen by clicking on the “i”.

Once inside a program usually while loading you may be shown a simple splash commercial for one of Joost’s investors. Below is a screenshot while watching a music video from Prodigy for their song Out of Space.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Living in Norway I do experience some hick-ups, when the showing video freezes or struggles to refresh certain pixels. When it does run smoothly, watching on a computer monitor with rather high-resolution can make some of the Joost video look rather sloppy. So as far as quality and speed goes, there is definitely room for improvement. I think it will also be great when they add more content. Unfortunately I was not able to run it off my old PPC iBook as it requires an Intel processor to work on your Mac. Though it is also available for Windows, while Linux is on its way(?).

Another great thing about Joost is that they offer commercial content, material that is normally copyrighted for your viewing pleasure. Some of channels that are available are: DR, Fight Network, Fifth Gear Shortcuts, IndieFlix Premier Hits, Joost Suggests, Lazy TV, Ministry of Sound, MTV, PokerHeaven TV, The Trance Channel and much more. (Although certain other channels may be region specific.)

So overall I am really excited about Joost, and I think you will like it as well. (Joost is still in Beta, and only available by invite at the moment.)

I have previously been rather pro iTMS (iTunes Music Store), and I believe in paying where fees are due, for various material, be it movies or music etc..
Currently I am residing in Norway, and I know many of my readers live in Europe, or in other words outside the United States. The US being the only country (correct me if I am wrong), where you can currently download TV series and full length movies from Apple’s iTMS. All this means that I have not seen any iTMS movies with my own eyes yet. Although I must admit a lower quality suspicion of movies ready for iPod video has been present. Now the-ish.com/blog has compared pirated material with material purchased on iTMS: iTunes versus Pirates. (Note: The compared material is from ABC material, and may not be applicable to other material.)

First comparison at the-is.com/blog

Second comparison

The first and most significant difference is that a great deal of the pirated material (still mainly TV shows) are appearing in High Definition (HD) quality, while material purchased via iTMS is still in Standard Definition (SD). (In my post Comparing 480p and 720p you can see some of the first hand differences between SD and HD material.)
Secondly iTMS material is in 4:3 and Pirated material is 16:9 (or widescreen). (Perhaps this is partially due to the fact that the iPods and still a number of computer monitors have 4:3 aspect ratios.)

However although this is a superficial comparison it does prove a point, restricting a materials quality, which can be purchased and costs money, will not exactly encourage more people to buy material if they can download better quality material for free. In addition restricting the material geographicly sadly only serves to boost piracy even more. My “superficial” conclusion is iTMS video quality must improve if they want more business.

Previous articles I have written related to iTMS:
Ad and iTMS Movies – Apple Follow-Ups
Domino effect for Apple’s iTMS?
(Via Mac1.)