All PVR

From Teleglass comes the T4-N Limited Edition Video Glasses. The glasses create a simulated 45 inch screen (as if sitting from six feet away), with a resolution of 640 x 480. Coolness abound, you can focus and adjust each monitor to reduce eye strain. As you can see by the picture above the audio comes from frame-mounted earbuds.

Just connect any NTSC viseo player and enjoy. They look stylish, unlike the competition, and it’s hidden components reside in the frame and nose-piece. Word on the street is that they cost $1150 per pair, but you’ll have to hurry, because there’s only 500 available.

Pink Tentacle via Teleglass

And now for something completely different… Athusa and Backyard Birding

The “mythical” Traveling Terabyte Gear

In reference to an entry published on Sept. 23 (“Hacker Sends War-Tough Marines a Befitting PVR�?), I have received a generous update about the Traveling Terabyte Project. Go to www.travelingterabyte.org for all the official information.

This is an important project that connects us to our beloved Devil Dogs (Marines). It provides them a care-package that we can all share in to show support. Hopefully it gives the soldiers a bit of home when they’re abroad, and keeps them grounded when they’re in hell (Ooo-Rah!).

They are not yet taking donations (as this is a grassroots movement stemming from the generosity of one person, Deviant Ollam), though there should be something set up soon.

And, as a big fan of this project, I will also be posting updates and hopefully finding more supporters, at Athusa.net. Let make it work.

Very, very special thanks, and American gratitude to: AST Cell. As well as to all the people involved with this project.

To follow up on a 22 Sep 07 entry, this was announced today from Western Digital:

My Book Studio Edition

Sorry PC-based PVR-lovers, this one’s for Mac users only. Here’s excerpts from the Western Digital press-release:
“From storage-hungry high-definition video editing to big design projects and managing photo shoots, creative professionals require high-speed performance and huge amounts of storage capacity for the rich multimedia content generated by their work.”

“Equipped with high-performance quadruple interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire® 400/800 and eSATA)”

“,Offered in capacities from 320 GB to 1 TB (terabyte),”

“Estimated pricing for the My Book Studio Edition storage appliances ranges from $199.99 USD to $399.99 USD depending upon capacity.”

Click here to read the entire press-release. Snoogins.

“Deviant Ollam” is a New Jersey hacker/network engineer who saw fit to create the Traveling Terabyte Project (TTB). A program in which he sends hard drives, filled with popular movies, television shows and music, in Pelican cases, to Marines in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

Deviant said this about his revelation, “I’ve got this extra storage and thought ‘what could I do with it?’. It didn’t really make sense to put the disks into my already hugely ridiculous raid array.�? So, why not send them to a few Leathernecks? Everyone needs a little inspiration (even tough-guys). But, shipping the drives to a war-torn country could’ve been an obstacle, “You can’t really put the drives in bubble wrap and throw them in the mail,�? So he instead packed the equipment into the olive-drab cases with international power adapters and USB cables.

Once Marines receive the cases they often add their own files customizing and personalizing their gifts (becoming a snapshot of our modern heroes lives). And, like any grassroots movement, these drives have become a small overseas urban-legend. Eventually being delivered to the American embassy in Dushanbe Tajikistan, just to prove they exist.

Hopefully the Traveling Terabyte Project will get legs. I’m still searching for a donation website. If anyone knows of one, please comment. Anything we can do to remedy some of the stress of being in a war zone, is something we should do. They’re heroes.

From one American cyber-geek to another, thank you, ‘Deviant Ollam’.

More thanks to TG Daily for getting the word out on this project.

Need an external hard drive for movie storage? Look no further, Western Digital has come to the rescue. Introducing “My Book Essential Edition 2.0″, a hard drive the size of a paperback book. Contained within it’s cover is 1 TB of disk space, and a 2.0 USB port. It’s a plug-n-store device for all your PVR needs, and it costs $349.

The Diamani DUO line of LCD’s from Viewsonic has been launched. It’s a unique hybrid of TV and computer monitor. There’s a 19″ version for $349 and a 22″ version $399. Both sporting slim, sexy HDMI inputs, as well as HD tuners. They’re also equipped with VGA inputs. And to address your analog desires, there’s component, RCA, and S-video inputs. It’s the “be all to end all” of TV’s… I mean monitors… I mean… where was I? Oh yeah, It’s fine time someone tried to invent something useful for the practical man.

Electronista

At HGTV Marketplace, they’re offering a 4 seat spa with a motorized 61″ LCD HDTV. It’s a custom order through Catalina Spas, so there is no price listed. But, I’m sure if you have a vivid imagination you could conjure up a price close enough to what they’re asking. Who says the US economy is bad?

Yes, Joost just added Paramount Pictures channel. There are several movies currently available already, and of course I tried one already.

Clockstoppers, a Nickelodeon Studios movie, is a great teen movie I sat down to watch with my kids. And I have to report, it was totally Ok on our 19″ LCD. During few scarce fast moving scenes, there was visible compression artifacts, but overall, it was really fine. In fact, my kids didn’t complain at all!

Very few titles are available right now, but I am sure more will be added in the future.

With Joost being free, and staying free, this seriously changes landscape of Movies on demand on the Internet. Soon you will be able to do a quick search in Joost library of movies, hopefully from multiple major distributors, and simply watch on-demand.

These sure are exciting times!

joost, paramount pictures, on-demand

Still deciding on which flavor you prefer? 

Don’t trouble yourself too much. Babelgum is actually another newcomer in the Internet TV category, closely resembling Joost, and based on similar P2P technology, as I understand.

I downloaded and played around with their first beta recently. Overall, the experience was positive, though the content available on Babelgum at this time is extremely limited.

Every step of the way it reminded me of Joost, but I did notice some interesting differences. First, I felt that the video quality is a bit sharper, though it’s hard to tell in my very unscientific eye test.

Babelgum attempts to more closely replicate TV viewing experience. It starts with providing a mini remote-control that appears on the left side of your screen and continues through to ‘Channel Surfing’ like experience. There are only few “core” channels, that are more like Categories than anything else.

Another interesting difference is a DVR/PVR like feature, where you can choose to “record” a video you are watching. This adds the watched video to Your collection, later accessible as a big Tivo like list. In fact, the show isn’t being recorded at all and the whole thing is more like Bookmarking video. When you do activate it from Your collection later, it streams then, in a same P2P fashion as everything else.

Finally, Babelgum promises to offer Custom channel, where content will be automatically matched to your likings, though it’s unclear to me how will they figure out what it is we like…

Babelgum has no deals with major content providers, and instead plans to focus more on high quality Indie produced content. It plans to remain completely free for viewers and plans a revenue model similar to Joost.

You can check out Babelgum by downloading their beta right here.

babelgum, webtv, internettv, joost

I have been playing with Joost during the last few days, so here are my impressions thus far. I only noticed minor quirks, but since it’s Beta version, those are expected. Still, here they are:

• It had a minor glitch on my Windows Vista machine during initial installation. Joost officially supports Vista, and ended up working fine after restart. Before that, however, it complained that it needs DirectX 9.0c (and my Vista has 9.0c, I confirmed), and it had some sound issues.
• Video playback over wireless seem to be problematic, with more frequent video playback hickups and degraded quality, or so it seems. However, it could be due to particular wireless hardware or some other issues…
• Quality overall is disappointing. It is full screen, but compression artifacts abound. It sure seems to me that it can stream much better quality and maybe it’s scaling back until more Joost users (and thus P2P nodes) are out there

Now to the positives:

• It’s COOL! The Interface is clean and done well, with many translucent components and big clear icons.
• It has integrated Search, which is very important! You can search shows across networks using simple keywords. Once found, click Play and enjoy!
• Good content is coming from major networks, though right now it’s still scarce, now while it’s still in beta.

Overall, I am impressed. It’s TV over the Internet with potential to disrupt, as it really should. I am also thrilled that it seems to be Free and Advertisements supported by design. There may be hidden Pay-per-View functionality somewhere, but I didn’t see it (and don’t want to !!)
Majority of other competitors that are trying legal Internet TV, such as BitTorrent and Vuze (based on bittorrent protocol) have a Pay-per-View model. I think most people hate paying for each episode or each separate show.

Gosh, people are still having major arguments whether paying per Channel A-La-Carte is a better alternative then packaging! But, paying per individual episode, I say this model won’t last!

But what about the sneaky title of this little post, you ask? The other side of Joost is it’s social aspect, which is very initial right now, but possibilities are endless.

I think Joost is actually quietly taking Metadata it even further — They actually can collect statistics about your viewing habits, shows, related-shows, length show watched, etc.

Think about it! Joost can actually figure out that 85% of the people watching turn off the show on the 4:17 second mark. Producers armed with that kind of data can see what happens around 4:17 mark and figure out how to improve it in future episodes, to retain their viewers 100% ! Now, that’s metadata!

Furthermore, Joost is by definition a 1 viewer experience. In other words, whereas traditional TVs are often being watched by 2 or more people, Joost on PC represents single viewer, which gives Marketing folks even bigger satisfaction, since now it’s easier to count / analyze and, most importantly, Advertise To, that individual.

To summarize, as long as Joost can get their quality to near HD and with bigger content selection and no streaming disruptions, things will really take off.

joost, newteevee, internettv, web tv

Even more exciting news from the WebTV frontier. I must say, CBS really impresses me with their Out-of-the-Box approach and willingness to grow! I am pretty sure others will follow suit, but the brave souls that pave the way will go down in history!

So CBS is now officially going to distribute their shows over many channels, not just Joost or the big 3 Veoh venture, but MSN and others.

I am also reading it as ‘Shows will be free and Advertiser supported’, but we’ll have to wait and see.

So, any thoughts on what this will do to their revenue from shows’ DVD sales? I think that will still continue to thrive, most people, at least today, find that DVDs are better experience and get to watch it on the big screen. Of course this will be changing, in a few years. Yep, this is my official prediction, so now save this post in time capsule and pull it out in about 2 years!

via TV-Squad.

cbs, webtv

Joost is a new P2P service coming soon from the good folks that brought you Skype VoIP revolution, and it continues to generate buzz. It promises instant streaming Peer-2-Peer TV, and if the Internet doesn’t collapse under it, should be able to deliver near HD digital quality playback on your computer.
While Joost is still in closed beta, somewhat simplified service in this space, called Pando, is already live and kicking! Pando is designed to download Video Casts, usually in High or HD quality, onto your computer, automatically. Right now it only has few channels, but more will get added, I’m sure.

But, onto the big announcement - Joost struck a deal with CBS ! Yes, big time shows, like the Excellent CSI series, NCIS, Numb3rs and other prime time favorites will be available on Joost !! This is a huge win for all of us, and once it materializes, I predict the shift to the Internet TV will grip hold of everyone, like a wild fire spreading.

So take this weekend to reflect on the following burning questions:

1. Will CSI, Numb3rs and other prime-time shows be free via Joost? Or will they try to nickel and dime us for shows that are otherwise freely broadcast in HD over the air?
2. Will you still need your Cable or Satellite provider after this? Maybe just keep Cable around, for their high-speed Internet only?
3. Why keep a DVR at all, if you can watch with Pause/Play via the Internet at your leisure?
4. Do you have a PC connected to your TV yet? If you did, would this news take on different light for you?

Not ready to ponder these questions just yet? Then click through to official CBS/Joost press release instead.

webtv, joost, pando, internet video, dvr, cbs