Media Archives - Page 32 of 75

YouTube Gets Mobile

Without any fanfare, Google quietly launched YouTube Mobile. The web page is slimmed down for your portable, and video selections are streamed 3GP. Interesting to see YouTube move beyond Flash as their sole video format. (H.264 coming to AppleTV.)

So far, I haven’t had very good luck with the mobile offering… On a Treo 700p, clicking a YouTube vid brought up a blank web page. On a 700w, Windows Media Player launched with an error. Brian Lam over on Gizmodo had better luck on a 755 and Helio Ocean (above).

BitTorrent Good For TV?

Though the studios just enlisted AT&T to go after their file-sharing customers and Azureus is being sued in France, I wonder if BitTorrent has some legitimate value for the content owners/creators. (Sure, BT can be used to share non-copyrighted media – but let’s be serious.)

Here’s the situation: My buddy Jason told me to check out Traveler, so I set up a Season Pass on TiVo. Only problem was, the third episode was airing and TiVo didn’t find any repeats of the earlier shows. Now what? I visit ABC.com and discover they have the first and third episode available for web streaming, but they’re missing the second (and now the fourth). Considering Traveler is a serial, I can’t miss any episodes. So off I go to pay the iTunes tax of $2/show only to discover they don’t offer it. Xbox 360 Video Marketplace? Microsoft doesn’t have a deal with ABC. All I (and ABC) am left with is BitTorrent – I downloaded the still-buggy FoxTorrent and headed off to The Pirate Bay. And guess what… BitTorrent helped make me into a live ABC television viewer. Not to mention I’m now pitching their show to others. Will it be enough to save Traveler?

In order, here’s how I watched the first four episodes:

ABC.com – The interface can be a bit tedious at times, but hey it’s free and works on Macs.
Xbox Media Center (XBMC) – The Xvid download looked nice on my HDTV.
TiVo Series3 – Timeshifted HD.
ABC – The series is so good, I’ll watch it live going forward.

Archos Preps TV Plus Media Extender

Two media extender announcements in one week! Can it get any better than that? ;) Archos joins DivX in by releasing details on TV Plus. Engadget had some hands on time with the prototype and reports Archos will offer DVR functionality including an IR blaster to control that cable box, in addition to typical media … Read more

Chime.TV Web Video Aggregator

The web video train keeps on a-rollin’… Chime.TV is a video aggregator consisting of human-generated “channels” and custom searches that pull content from a variety of online destinations such as YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, and MySpace. The web interface is relatively pleasant and can be sent full screen. Creating an account allows you to save … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. A Gazillion HD Channels: Connected Home 2 Go Build Your Own OCAP App: Connected Home 2 Go The Cost of Adding CableCARD: Connected Home 2 Go BabelGum Internet TV to Contend With Joost: Web TV Wire

SanDisk To Incorporate DivX Support

The DivX news just keeps on coming… As they work on expanding their ecosystem, SanDisk has announced DivX support – including web video site Stage6. I think it’s safe to say SanDisk will beef up their portable Sansa media players, and perhaps will be one of vendors to brand the upcoming DivX media extender, later … Read more

YouTube Tests Video Identification Technology

YouTube will soon test a new video identification technology with two of the world’s largest media companies, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. This technology, rolled into Claim Your Content, will help copyright holders identify movies that have been uploaded without their permission. Testing of the identification technology, developed by engineers at Google, will … Read more

Front Row… Looks Like Apple TV

I didn’t find much of interest reading the WWDC keynote today… I’m not a developer and most of the Leopard features are a rehash of what we already knew or not so grand. ZFS has been a no-show so far. And Safari on Windows? Yawn. Now a Windows port of iPhoto – that would have been exciting. Or how about a .Mac photo and video sharing YouTube/Flickr mashup.

However, in the aftermath of the keynote and the apple.com site refresh, at least one interesting nugget has turned up. Front Row, under Leopard, gets a makeover:

When you summon Front Row in Leopard, you’re greeted by an elegant interface much like the one on Apple TV. Finding and enjoying whatever you wish couldn’t be simpler. Just click the Apple Remote (included with most Macs) to step through the options: music, movies, TV shows, and photos. You can even view slideshows of iPhoto albums on other computers in the house.

Makes perfect sense to me. I’d suggest Microsoft do something similar in merging their Media Center experience and Xbox 360 blades… but without the banner ads currently plastered all over my console.