TVSquad

Microsoft is a big company. And while I'm not trying to imply that one arm might not have known what the other was doing, any company with a lot of arms is bound to flail them occasionally. So it's kind of nice to see that Microsoft is combining several related departments into a new Connected TV business group.

On the other hand, you would have thought that a company that is focusing as heavily on digital technology for the living room would have already had a strategy for coordinating its various entertainment divisions. But until a few months ago, separate teams were responsible for IPTV, HD-DVD, and Windows Media Center developments.

I think that's the sort of discoordination that leads a company to launch a new software feature called "Internet TV" that is essentially just a 10-foot interface for MSN Video while Microsoft had a team of people working on providing actual TV through Internet protocols. I'm not saying that Microsoft should deliver IPTV solutions for free to Windows Vista Media Center users, but if you're going to call something "TV", perhaps you should provide more than just 3 seasons of the brilliant but canceled Arrested Development. Otherwise, just call that ta what it is: Internet Video.

Sony and KT, a large Korean telecom company have announced that they'll launch an internet-based service next month that will turn a Playstation 3 video game console into a television receiver.

This brings the number of ways to watch television on your PS3 to two: In August Sony announced the PlayTV, a digital TV tuner for the PS3.

The new service will allow PS3 consoles to tune into Mega TV, KT's IPTV service. Mega TV lets customers with high speed internet connections download and save programs for viewing later. It's kind of like a subscription-based video-on-demand service. There's no way to watch live content. The Playstation 3 hardware could certainly support live video streaming, but so far Sony has not reached a deal with any streaming IPTV providers.

There's no word on how much Korean PS3 owners will have to pay to access Mega TV.

[via Engadget]

There's one big difference between internet TV platforms like Joost, Vuze, Babelgum and VeohTV and live television. Internet TV is almost never live. And it's delivered over the internet. OK, I guess that's two things.

But Joost plans to test a system that will let you watch TV shows as they air live. PaidContent:UK reports that Joost will be offering live streaming television to US customers during the first quarter of 2008.

Programs that are transmitted live will also be available on demand after the live transmission is finished. For example, if you want to watch a sporting event, you can either sit down and watch the game as it happens or "catch up" with a game you missed. You'll be able to use Joost widgets to keep track of scores, bookmark favorite moments in a game, or share links with your friends.

You know, normally when a software company releases version 1.0 that means it's time for the product to leave beta. But Joost 1.0 is out this weekend, and it's still in private beta. That means you can only download a copy if you're already a beta tester or have a friend who's willing to share an invite.

And that might not be such a bad thing, because despite the new 1.0 label, Joost is still definitely beta software. Version 1.0 sports a redesigned interface, improved performance with low-performing internt connections, and an integrated update service so you won't need to download an installer from the web next time you want to install a new release.

Or at least, that's what the release notes say. We weren't able to see the new interface on either of our test rigs running Windows Vista. While we followed the directions requiring Vista users to install Joost 1.0 as an administrator, we couldn't get the channel menu to show up. When Joost 1.0 loads, it automatically begins playing the last video we'd been watching. But if you want to change channels or switch to another video in the same channel, you're out of luck. Or at least we are. Anyone have a better experience with this "update?"

Update: It looks like Joost has added a download link to their front page, meaning the public beta has begun. No more invitations needed. Also, a few days into the beta, we noticed that our difficulty pulling up the channel guide has disappeared. Perhaps it was a network congestion issue, but the beta seems to be working well now. And finally, Joost has added links to featured content to their web page. Want to watch La Femme Nikita episodes? Just click the "play now" button to launch Joost and the show will begin to play.

[via eFluxMedia]

Microsoft has given its awkwardly named TV IPTV Edition a slicker name: Mediaroom. This isn't something you can download and install on your home computer. Rather, it's a platform for television service companies that want to provide internet-based television services.

Along with the name change, Microsoft has introduced a series of new features including:

• Enhanced picture in picture support allows you to view multiple channels or different camera angles, with support for up to 16 separate picture windows on one TV screen.
• View pictures or listen to music stored on a PC connected to the home network
• Microsoft has opened up the platform for development of 3rd party applications with a new HTML-based Multimedia Application Environment

Ten service companies around the world, including AT&T, BT, and Deutsche Telekom are using Microsoft's current IPTV platform.

Internet video is all fine and good, but let's face it. Right now, most people want to watch TV on the TV.

And as we've described before, getting Joost to work with your TV set isn't exactly easy. First youneed tomake sure you've got a video card with TV-out, a computer that you're willing to plug into your TV (not a problem for many PC-based PVR users), and the time and energy to figure out how to program your remote control to flip through Joost channels without a keyboard and mouse.

So it's good to hear that Joost is in talks with hardware makers to embed Joost in devices like cable boxes and HD-DVD and Blu-ray players. No more fighting to connect your PC to your TV. Turn on your cable box, and Joost is right there. But at that point, isn't Joost just a new interface for video on demand, with less programming than you'd get from Comcast?

It's the age old story, company launches nifty new product, everything works great. Company upgrades said project, it breaks.

A few days ago Joost moved from a closed private beta to an almost-public beta by giving every current and new user 999 invitations to give away. Apparently the servers couldn't handle that much traffic and Joost CEO Fredrik de Wahl writes on the Joost blog that the company is working on a fix.

For a company that's signing advertising and content deals left and right in the hopes of being the next big thing on the Internet, this is a rather unfortunate setback. But it's better to have these kind of errors during beta testing than after the product is officially launched.

A new study shows that 45% of European broadband customers use their high speed internet connections to watch television programs.

The BBC is taking advantage of this customer demand, forging ahead with plans to offer every program aired by the British network online with a new iPlayer service. At the same time, Internet TV platform Joost is moving closer to an official launch.

The survey of 2500 broadband customers was conducted by Motorola and shows that 35% of respondents want the ability to pause, rewind, or fast forward live television broadcasts.