Om’s got the scoop on Yahoo Go TV being released a mere week after Meedio announced they had been acquired. They weren’t kidding when they said they’ve been working on this relationship for awhile…
Here are some pics after my initial install. Don’t expect a comprehensive review anytime soon, I’m having too much fun playing. Will this be a Windows MCE, BeyondTV, or Front Row killer? At the very least the price of zero dollars makes it very competitive.
Yahoo says: Take back your TV
Now you can see all your Yahoo! stuff, such as photos, video clips and music videos, up on the big screen. Plus, your own DVR gives you the freedom to record and manage all your TV shows no set-top boxes or monthly fees required.
Be sure to check out Eirik’s in-depth first take and product timeline!
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I don't know, it looks like Yet Another PC Based DVR Solution to me - only 'free'. You still need the same PC hardware. And since Windows XP MCE is shipping as standard on so many PCs, that's effectively free too. If someone has MCE, is there a big advantage to this? Let alone Vista which will be incorporate all the media center features standard?
I suppose for people really into the other Yahoo services this is a way to get a bundle on their PC. I'd be more excited by it if they did something with TiVo so that it could use your TiVo as the recorder and TTG/TTCB the content so the PC doesn't need to be cabled to the TV.
You're bringing me down man. ;)
You can use all the media center features either on a computer monitor/LCD or a TV without having a tuner card (sort of like Apple's FrontRow). What interests me is the video section... at what point are they going to offer me movie downloads?
I'm a little disappointed in the Flickr plugin so far - it only displays community photos, rather than my personal collection.
I do think you're right though... it's hard to compete with a full-featured MCE install on XP or Vista which will bundle those features.
A better approach to Flickr via MCE is to install the program Slickr. You can then point Slickr to your favorites stream, your own stream, your favorite Flickr member (hint Thomas Hawk), etc.
Slickr will then act as a screen saver for where you point it. But what it also can do is pull down high res images of whatever you point it to at Flickr. These then get saved in a Slickr folder that you can just point MCE to for Flickr type slide shows.
http://thomashawk.com/2006/03/hot-donkey-introducing-flickr-plug-in.html