Joost beta client 1.1.4 available for download
March 28, 2008
Joost client 1.1.4 just got released for both Windows and OSX.
I assume that this new version of the client fixes some issues with UI and Live Streaming… but Joost is notoriously bad for documenting what changes from one client release to the next…
Any how, if you are interested to try the latest and greatest you can pick a copy of the client in the Joost download section.
Joost Hires Chief Architect
March 27, 2008
Joost has hired Jason Gaedtke as chief architect, the company tells us this morning. Gaedtke will not serve as CTO, as Multichannel News claims, but rather will report to Joost SVP of Engineering Matt Zelesko.
Gaedtke was previously chief scientist at CableLabs; before that, he was chief architect for Comcast Interactive Group. Zelesko has worked at Comcast Interactive Group as well, serving as VP of engineering.
A tipster also points out that Gabo Mendoza, another Comcast guy, has joined Joost, heading up user experience. So it seems Zelesko is getting the band back together.
Source: http://newteevee.com/
Alternative Distribution Methods and Impact on Film Festivals and Filmmakers Focus of the International Film Festival Summit Europe
March 27, 2008
The 2nd Annual International Film Festival Summit (IFFS) Europe (www.iffseurope.com) is taking place April 15-16, 2008, at The Cumberland Hotel in London. In this age of the Internet, various technologies and a multitude of new media outlets; alternative distribution methods are playing significant roles with filmmakers and film festivals. This is an important discussion that will take place at the IFFS Europe. The session - Alternative Distribution: New Opportunities for Festivals and Filmmakers - includes the following panelists: Claudio Scotto di Carlo, Chief Editor of Babelgum; Elliot Grove, the Founder and Director of the Raindance Film Festival; Michael Cowan, the Co-Founder & Managing Director and Joint CEO of Spice Factory and Velvet Octopus, respectively; and Bob Alexander, the President of IndiePix.
New York, NY (PRWEB) March 26, 2008 — The 2nd Annual International Film Festival Summit (IFFS) Europe (www.iffseurope.com) is taking place April 15-16, 2008, at The Cumberland Hotel in London.
In this age of the Internet, various technologies and a multitude of new media outlets; alternative distribution methods are playing significant roles with filmmakers and film festivals. This is an important discussion that will take place at the IFFS Europe.
The session - Alternative Distribution: New Opportunities for Festivals and Filmmakers - includes the following panelists: Claudio Scotto di Carlo, Chief Editor of Babelgum; Elliot Grove, the Founder and Director of the Raindance Film Festival; Michael Cowan, the Co-Founder & Managing Director and Joint CEO of Spice Factory and Velvet Octopus, respectively; and Bob Alexander, the President of IndiePix.
Film buffs are suddenly eager to watch movies on all kinds of new platforms - whether PCs, cell phones, portable devices, or on television sets linked to the Internet. Some festivals have experimented with making shorts and features available on these platforms for a limited time, expanding their audience reach. But filmmakers can be skittish, worrying that this new digital availability might damage their movie’s value in the marketplace.
“The new internet distribution platforms are an exciting opportunity for independent filmmakers,” said panelist Elliot Grove, founder of the Raindance Film Festival. “Everyone is talking about IPTV. Now is the time for film festivals to get a strategy together, and maximise the value of this brand new delivery medium.”
The unique and established group of panelists will discuss how festivals and filmmakers can work together to address the challenges and take advantage of the new opportunities that alternative channels of distribution create.
This highly insightful panel will take place on Tuesday, April 15th at 1:15 pm.
The Presenting Sponsor of the 2nd Annual IFFS Europe is Withoutabox, Inc.
The Platinum Sponsor of the 2nd Annual IFFS Europe is Babelgum.
Other Sponsors of IFFS Europe include IndiePix and the NEB.
Media and Association Partners of IFFS Europe include The Culture Business, Cineuropa.org, Fest21.com, FilmFestivals.com, FILM&FESTIVALS (formerly The FILMFESTIVAL Magazine), Film Threat, indieWIRE, NAMAC, New Producers Alliance, ProductionHUB, Screen South, Screen Yorkshire, South West Screen, The Filmlot, The Hollywood Reporter, The Reeler and Variety.
About International Film Festival Summit (IFFS):
The International Film Festival Summit is the only annual conference and trade show for professionals from the film festival industry. The IFFS provides a platform for the community to explore ways to collaborate and promote the advancement of the film festival industry. This is a place to dialogue with your peers, share insights and gain knowledge that will help you grow your film festival and foster sustainability. The IFFS is dedicated to providing resources, information and avenues of communication for industry professionals and the entertainment industry. For IFFS North America visit www.filmfestivalsummit.com. For IFFS Europe visit www.iffseurope.com.
Contact:
Chad Reott
chad@michaelbass.com
+1.330.294.0094
Guinness World Records(TM)TV Increases Online Video Presence
March 26, 2008
LONDON, March 26 /PRNewswire/ — Guinness World Records TV has this week announced an increase in the line up of portals on which its multi-language original TV programming may now be viewed. Building on existing successes with the likes of YouTube and Joost, new channels have now been added on Dailymotion and Veoh.
Over 50 clips ranging from 2 to 5 minutes are already available on YouTube with a total of over 7m views and an average viewing rate of 146k views per clip! The content is taken from official licensed GWR TV shows from all over the globe including those from RTL, France Television and Seven Australia.
Guinness World Records TV channel has been available on the Joost platform since launch and has consistently rated in the top 20 most viewed channels worldwide. The content ranges from shortform clips of 2-5 minutes right up to full 30 minute episodes from Ultimate Guinness World Records, a hosted clipshow which has been sold into over 30 territories around the world.
New plans on Veoh.com and Dailymotion include language specific channels to tie in with those territories in which the Guinness World Records brand is best known.
In addition to the mainstream Guinness World Records channel on YouTube, a new channel to specifically support the launch of its Gamer’s Edition book was launched in January 2008.
Rob Molloy, Director of Television at Guinness World Records, said ‘”Our growth in online video presence and plans to grow this exponentially in 2008 show our desire to communicate with our consumers through as many media as possible. We want them to be able to consume our content however they want and wherever they want.”
Guinness World Records TV will be exhibiting at MIP 2008
About Guinness World Records TV
Guinness World Records TV (GWR TV) produces primetime factual entertainment TV programmes in partnership with broadcasters or producers. Developing TV formats in a variety of genres which are flexible and custom-made for each client, it offers access to its entire TV archive of more than 400 hours of broadcast programming and the information featured in the Guinness World Records book.
For further information please contact Amarilis Espinoza at +44(0)2078914516 or press@guinnessworldrecords.com
Joost just issued a new Live Streaming beta client
March 19, 2008
Joost client 1.1.3 just got released for both Windows and OSX.
This clients fix bugs that where found during the course of the Live Streaming testing that took place over the last few days. If you intend to watch March Madness Live on Joost you better grab a copy of this new client.
You can pick a copy of the client in the Joost download section.
10 Livestation Beta invitations available
March 15, 2008
I have 10 LiveStation invitations left. If you are interested in one simple leave a comment here (don’t type your email address since I already have it via your blog user registration) and I will send one to you.
What is live station you ask:
Livestation delivers a range of live radio and television channels to your computer over a broadband network.
There is no need to install a tuner, aerial, or any additional hardware. Livestation works anywhere with a basic broadband network connection. Simply download the free Livestation player to watch television wherever you are, whenever you want.
You can watch television on your desktop, or on your laptop, at home, at work, on the move, or in a hotel room, provided you have a broadband internet connection or wireless access.
Unlike video-on-demand or download services, Livestation delivers live broadcast channels, so you can watch news, sports or live events as they happen.
Livestation offers an integrated player that allows you to choose from a number of channels and continue listening and viewing while using other applications. You can watch in a window while you work or play, or view full screen.
While you are listening or watching, Livestation shares some of the stream with other users. This allows Livestation to serve a very large number of simultaneous users.
Livestation is designed to be able to serve millions of users without many of the limitations associated with traditional online streaming services.
A number of new features will be added to Livestation over the coming months. Right now we are testing the technology and proving the platform. We want your feedback to help us to evaluate the network and improve the product.
Joost beta client for Live Broadcast viewing now available
March 13, 2008
It is official. The new beta client that will allow you to test the new live broadcase feature of Joost is now available.
The release is known as Joost beta 1.1.2 and download links for each supported platform can be found here:
This is what Joost has to say about the “Live Broadcast” feature of the client:
Joost Beta 1.1 includes support for the new Joost Live broadcasts. These are live broadcasts distributed using the peer to peer network. During the life of Joost Beta 1.1 we will be delivering a set of Live test transmissions. These test transmissions will be advertised on the Joost Web site and in the Newsletter.
For the most part Joost Live broadcasts are quite similar to the regular Joost shows. You still use Explore to discover Live content (the initial broadcasts will be on the Live Tests category in Explore with the ‘On Air’ icon), but Live shows have a slightly different appearance to regular on demand shows, an active Live show will have a red bar at the bottom of its thumbnail.
There are some restrictions on Live shows in that you cannot seek within a show and you won’t be able to play it after it has finished. There is no time shifting feature for Live shows and so you arent able to pause a Live show either.
Some of the test transmissions will be a licensed rebroadcast of a channel on another medium and in these cases the transmission will be continuously (as we progress in our tests these will be 24/7 transmissions), delivered exactly as it is received by us, the commercial breaks will be part of the stream unlike Joost on demand shows and we won’t be able to give any details about a particular show running on that transmission.
Other test transmissions will be a packaged set of shows in a live feed and in this case we will be able to give further information on each show as it starts. Its title will appear in the Controller when it is running and there will be separate shows in the EPG for that transmission.
Both types of transmission have Joost Links associated with them, for the 24/7 rebroadcast transmission it will be a single Joost Link, for the packaged shows in a transmission it will be a Joost Link for each show and one for the overall transmission.
If you click on a Joost Link for a show which is not yet showing Live (it may be delayed by the original broadcaster for some reason), then Joost will play whatever is playing on that particular transmission, in exactly the same way as if it was a cable or terrestrial TV channel.
Users of the new beta client are reporting better streaming quality as can be read below:
NO MORE STUTTER!
The developers have done a tremendous job with this release! I first installed on my 802.11n wireless Windows XP MCE 2005 HTPC with no stuttering at all and then on to my wired Vista Ultimate desktop. Both streaming at the same time for a couple hours now without one hiccup!
I know Joost is going to explode in popularity once it’s ready for prime time. It is apparent that it is finally getting close. I’ve been testing since the early invite only betas. Finally it seems to be dependable enough to add to my daily media applications. With over the air broadcast ATSC digital TV, Netflix, Gametap, and now Joost, I have one heck of a HTPC.
Good work! I look forward to more quality content coming down the pipeline.
Cheers,
Joe
Cheers to the Joost development team for keeping up the great work!
CBS goes live streaming on Joost today
March 12, 2008
Joost will make live-streaming video available to all its users tomorrow; it has also scored a deal with its investor CBS to live stream March Madness. A new client should be ready for download by about noon ET on Wednesday, the company told NewTeeVee today.
The first public live broadcast is on Thursday at 2 p.m. ET; it will be a video chat with the Joost technical team to give the software a run-through. From next Thursday, when the first round of the NCAA basketball championships starts, every game in the series will be shown live and commercial-free update: Joost got back to us and said they were mistaken; the broadcast will actually have CBS’ in-stream ads, but no additional ads. And expats and fans from abroad should be pleased: There will be no geographic restrictions imposed on the content.
This is only a test, warns Joost, which has had reliability problems in the past. “If you’re a sports junkie with money on the game you may not want to depend on us for the last 2 minutes of the game,” said Joost VP of engineering Matt Zelesko, who replaced fired CTO Dirk-Willem van Gulik. “We expect it will probably break.”
The company can’t simulate how things will work until it has a lot of users pushing video through the peer-to-peer network, Zelesko explained. “To evaluate how it scales we need to open this up to more public audiences.” Joost has been downloaded some 5 million times; Zelesko said he’s hoping tens of thousands of users will show up to bang on the new live P2P infrastructure.
Joost has been quietly testing live streaming over the past few weeks. Zelesko said that in early tests, video is delayed by under a second, which is pretty awesome compared to what you’ll get from other live video services (I did an interview on Ustream yesterday, for example, that was delayed a full 30 seconds).
Although the cost of such a project is going to be significant, Zelesko said that this spring’s March Madness will not include any advertising that nets revenue for Joost. When we asked about the advantage of using Joost’s client approach vs. streaming through the web (something Joost hasn’t done yet but has said it may), Zelesko said, “I wouldn’t rule out other ways of watching Joost content in the future, but for now it’s the client.”
Live streaming is becoming a necessity for every online video offering — which is somewhat ironic, considering we’ve all just been through the TiVo revolution. But for sports especially, live just makes sense. YouTube has said it will be the next to jump in.
Source: NewTeeVee
Hulu video site goes live tomorrow
March 11, 2008
News Corp. and NBC Universal’s online vid service Hulu is set to tear off the wrapping paper Wednesday, officially launching with content from several new partners, including Warner Bros. TV Group and Lionsgate.
That quadruples the previous amount of content offered, said Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, although the site has yet to seal deals with several more producers — most notably, Disney/ABC, CBS and “American Idol” producers FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment.
Hulu already offers programs such as “The Office,” “The Simpsons” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
“People will be very surprised at the content being made available on a free, ad-supported basis,” Kilar said.
Besides parent concerns News Corp. and NBC U, charter Hulu program suppliers have included MGM and Sony Pictures TV.
“The response from users has been extremely dramatic,” Kilar said. Meanwhile, Hulu said all its beta advertisers have agreed to renew their deals with the site. Hulu advertisers include Unilever, State Farm, Best Buy, DirecTV and Nissan.
As part of the launch, Hulu will introduce two advertising formats. Company also shares ad revenue with program suppliers on a show-by-show basis. Hulu provides ad sales in most cases, but the content providers on some shows sell their own spots.
On the programming front, Hulu will offer movies unedited for content; users will have to register and verify their age before watching movies rated PG-13 or above.
Kilar said he expects to continue to grow the Hulu library without phasing out current titles. Sci-fi programming rules the roost at Hulu, although popular programming on the site varies dramatically. Hulu’s heavy reliance on library content remains its biggest limitation.
Source: variety.com
Babelgum, now for Mac
March 10, 2008
Guess what just showed up in my mailbox? An email from Babelgum inviting me to have a second look at it! And what new platform just got added? Right, Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5! And apparently there is support for both PPC and intel processors!
This is great news and will certainly please the PPC Mac users. At least they can run Babelgum while they are still waiting for their Joost PPC client support.
The client is very clean and the integration on the OSX environment is well done. I particularly like they way it start… by showing at 50% transparency over the desktop.
I guess Linux users are getting no love from Babelgum and Joost.
So when will we see a Babelgum and Joost client for the iPhone now that the SDK has been released?
