Online Video Content Aggregator:
www.ovguide.com -> this is basically a traffic stat app which tracks a bunch of submitted sites and presents them as aggregates to the masses. I use this when the sites I like get shut down – in order to find new sites. Lots of specialty sites like Simpsons Video, South Park etc. with ALL episodes. Good to dig around in the verticals listed in the left side tab.
Streaming Media Sites (some with download options):
www.joox.net -> this is a divx site and is worth keeping an eye on, stage6 shut down so this site basically has no content.
www.quicksilverscreen.com -> this is an any media site, I don’t have much luck streaming Megavideo or YouKu videos in Canada. Try the QSS forum as people post links to DivX movies that are dependable in there (usually the host of the video doesn’t have bandwidth for the masses so it’s a bit hit and miss - oops the secret is out).
www.redcurtainmovies.com -> not too sure what is going on with this one, use to be divx but used stage6 as the backbone … haven’t used it in a long while but the interface is clean (when adblocker is used).
www.surfthechannel.com -> this is a TV & Movie Social Network for links. I’ve had a great deal of luck with this site and even though the majority of the video is flash format the quality is surprisingly good (videos usually come in parts which makes it a tiny bit annoying).
www.watch-movies.net -> this site specializes in movies and usually has every new release in varying quality, best bet is to go the veoh download route on this site or just use it like I do and hit mininova.org.
www.atomicmovies.net -> good site that actually has a summary of each movie. The major plus is they give you a link to download movies where applicable. Nice clean inter
http://www.nabolister.com -> this site seems to take the card for traffic. I hate it, but people flock to the site.
IPTV / Internet TV Applications:
http://www.joost.com/ -> there are an abundance of channels to search through, lots of music videoish stuff. Bikini search for those long poker nights. They are planning on streaming sports events in the near future (and already support HD Video). This app is too choppy for me to use even with a nice broadband connection. I usually do a search mute the audio and play music over top of it. Lots of specialty channels.
http://www.getmiro.com -> this is a pretty cool open source download based Internet TV application that uses the VLC media engine to play video (can play anything). You can make youtube, google and etc. Channels VIA Search Terms (it will automatically download to your preference). You can hook in any video RSS feed (where RSS items are actually video files) into this application (EX// use a mininova.com search to make a channel).
http://www.veoh.com -> this is probably one of the better TV Apps for syndicate video. Keep in mind it’s built in America for Americans so in order to stream some shows you need to go through an American proxy. A bit annoying but you can usually also download the video right from the site. Downloads ARE higher quality than streaming. There is a type of DRM built into this application so IF you download an obviously copyrighted video you need to move it out of your Veoh library or Veoh will delete it when it realizes the infringement. I have also heard people complain this is spy-ware, I don't really care, if it is it's not obvious and Canada doesn't enforce downloading rules so whateva. To be frank, I think someone could beat this company in court to remove the DRM feature as it does directly mess with your hard disk.
Those are basically the sites / apps I have experience with. I really stopped using the streaming sites once stage6 shut down because the quality is terrible. If I was downloading video, I might use BitComet for torrents.
Another note here: all of these sites require some sort of mouse interaction, it would be very nice to be able to swich / pick videos using a remote control. Site owners, get your JavaScript handy for those arrow key events.
Over And Out
Showing posts with label Streaming Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Streaming Media. Show all posts
07/02/2008
RE: BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=274969
Mom, do I still have my old stereo in storage somewhere?
Behold RIM Genius ... God bless the two CEO's who let this idea roll ... RIM in all of it's success has finally developed a 21st century device to support the increasingly plummeting 20th century technology base. About 8 years too late, but good work I guess. I honestly can't remember the last time anyone I knew bought a stereo or a component device and hence would like to reinforce this being a "pivotal moment in the history of the BlackBerry franchise," .... gotta keep these trade secrets close RIM, never know when someone will make a UHF/VHF antenna to output their iPod / Zune to a rabbit ear (read VHF/UHF) based COLOR TV from the 70's ...
What really rattles me timbers is: there is something called WiFi that pretty much does all this stuff VIA standard interfaces. Hmm, why not use a 1998 Blue Tooth based connection ... we have 802.11n but why not use 802.11a ... good idea!!!
I tip my hat to your engineers who have obviously outdone themselves with this over engineering effort. Didn't Apple do this in the form of an FM Transmitter you plug into the headphone jack of an ANY DEVICE WITH A HEADPHONE JACK? I mean, i can play an ANY DEVICE WITH A HEADPHONE JACK and listen to it through my Zune Radio or 20th century
stereo. Anything that has a radio (not even a headphone jack or any hardline input device) can play the music. Oh, but this is high fi - well then look at the bitrates in MP3 and say that again, HiFi doesn't exist in this realm, and to be frank, how many dusty 1900's stereo's can actually play hifi??
Remote control, wtf... this has to be a joke or the marketing people are just illiterate. RIM may want to actually look that one up in the dictionary: REMOTE: __ CONTROL: ___. There is nothing remote controlling anything!!! All you're doing is playing songs on your Blackberry and streaming them to the air. So what you've developed is a local control with a wireless data stream and a name that makes absolutely no sense.
Better Ideas:
Develop a base station like all the iPod Docks? How about a set of wireless speakers you can stream media to over 802.11n? Native support of MP3, DivX, and even wmv or flv? How about a PC to TV device, a freaken trackball that lasts longer than 6 months, or a base install of Firefox Mini on the device? I mean sweet baby JC, imagine how far ad hoc wireless networks could go for Blackberries creating wireless LANs on the fly?
You guys basically pioneered the smart phone and now your happy to announce a hybrid 20th / 21st century device? Holy crap that's backwards ass backwards.
Over And Out
Mom, do I still have my old stereo in storage somewhere?
Behold RIM Genius ... God bless the two CEO's who let this idea roll ... RIM in all of it's success has finally developed a 21st century device to support the increasingly plummeting 20th century technology base. About 8 years too late, but good work I guess. I honestly can't remember the last time anyone I knew bought a stereo or a component device and hence would like to reinforce this being a "pivotal moment in the history of the BlackBerry franchise," .... gotta keep these trade secrets close RIM, never know when someone will make a UHF/VHF antenna to output their iPod / Zune to a rabbit ear (read VHF/UHF) based COLOR TV from the 70's ...
What really rattles me timbers is: there is something called WiFi that pretty much does all this stuff VIA standard interfaces. Hmm, why not use a 1998 Blue Tooth based connection ... we have 802.11n but why not use 802.11a ... good idea!!!
I tip my hat to your engineers who have obviously outdone themselves with this over engineering effort. Didn't Apple do this in the form of an FM Transmitter you plug into the headphone jack of an ANY DEVICE WITH A HEADPHONE JACK? I mean, i can play an ANY DEVICE WITH A HEADPHONE JACK and listen to it through my Zune Radio or 20th century
stereo. Anything that has a radio (not even a headphone jack or any hardline input device) can play the music. Oh, but this is high fi - well then look at the bitrates in MP3 and say that again, HiFi doesn't exist in this realm, and to be frank, how many dusty 1900's stereo's can actually play hifi??
Remote control, wtf... this has to be a joke or the marketing people are just illiterate. RIM may want to actually look that one up in the dictionary: REMOTE: __ CONTROL: ___. There is nothing remote controlling anything!!! All you're doing is playing songs on your Blackberry and streaming them to the air. So what you've developed is a local control with a wireless data stream and a name that makes absolutely no sense.
Better Ideas:
Develop a base station like all the iPod Docks? How about a set of wireless speakers you can stream media to over 802.11n? Native support of MP3, DivX, and even wmv or flv? How about a PC to TV device, a freaken trackball that lasts longer than 6 months, or a base install of Firefox Mini on the device? I mean sweet baby JC, imagine how far ad hoc wireless networks could go for Blackberries creating wireless LANs on the fly?
You guys basically pioneered the smart phone and now your happy to announce a hybrid 20th / 21st century device? Holy crap that's backwards ass backwards.
Over And Out
23/05/2007
Internet vs. Satellite Radio: Mobile Pandora.com + Sonos Zone Player + Sprint MP3 Purchase Solution.
Sometimes I feel like I’m on some sort of corporate marketing see saw that just keeps going up and down and down and up and up and down and … a couple years ago we started hearing about XM satellite radio, then Sirius (and we built their Canadian web site).
But seriously, who hasn’t heard of satellite radio yet? Who has heard satellite radio? Who listens to satellite radio as their primary audio consumption channel? I think I know one person who got a device for free at work and bought a subscription for a couple months. They genuinely enjoyed it, but they definitely were not into the wide variety of programming (hell I dated her for two years and she still couldn’t remember my 4 digit buzzer code, that has two unique numbers repeated once). How can you expect a person like this to remember the satellite radio channels without using the paper menu / radio programming guide – especially if they only use it in their car? Needless to say she listened to about two satellite radio channels and then probably forgot that she even had it or a subscription. She could however remember the artists she liked.
Nobody really blogs about the business behind internet radio, the silent player making big headway over digital delivery channels. I’m sure internet radio can be just as easily piped over a satellite connection, but I mean typically web based internet radio. Built for indiscriminate web based consumption. I’ve fallen in love with Pandora.com, an web based radio disc jockey. It’s possibly the best automatic DJ solution I’ve ever come by. It plays what I like, skips what I don’t (after one single thumbs down click), and keeps the music fresh by compiling lists of similar songs / artists / albums and grouping them into radio stations for playback. It makes it easy if I want to listen to Linkin Park, I click on the Linkin Park station. So on and so forth. Another site and community is Fine Tune (http://www.finetune.com/), I don’t like it as much because I have to do stuff. But if you’re a doer, and you like more control over your play-list, then it may be for you.
I’ve been fighting the iPod / MP3 player craze for a number of reasons. The biggest reason being that I think it’s silly and borderline crazy to store up to 80GB of music on a portable device that you carry around with you. It’s too easy to lose, too easy to smash up, drop in the water, and well, I already have a mobile phone to carry around and smash up so I don’t need more junk. Thus it’s not very shocking that we’re seeing MP3 players being pushed into mobile devices – and I cite the clunky iPhone as Apples’ last ditch effort to get in on that consolidating market.
I woke up last week to find out that Pandora was being shut down perminently in Canada. I said boo for a second, configured my proxy, and can still connect (note to US congress: we will always find way’s around your soft embrace with the RIAA).
OK so back to Satellite Radio, the thing that really sucks about the Satellite Radio we have up North is I have to purchase a device and another subscription to the Satellite Radio service. I once asked my uncle (CEO of a major multinational corporation) if he’d consume news information on his Blackberry. He looked at me, laughed, and asked: “why would I use my blackberry when I have a newspaper”. I didn’t retort to the many reasons why he could get better more global information delivered to his Blackberry in a more timely manner. I could tell in his eyes he thought I was crazy. He could tell I thought he was crazy. And we had a silent moment where I understood what a newspaper meant to him. To be frank, news isn’t that important to him, he got all the information he needed for his life for free – and didn’t have such urgency to consume information in real time.
Possibly this is what radio is to us? An audio media channel we consume in a manner of complete and utter convenience. I wouldn’t personally pay for both a device, and a subscription! That just seems crazy for someone like me that doesn’t commute above ground where the signal is available, nor even drive into work. And still, I’d have to carry another little annoying device around like the iPod that will break down and see me losing my music (please no stupid back-up your data comments here cause I’ll be frank and cite Murphy’s law in retort). But that technology can only get better (Note: most likely a hybrid approach with like an “underground cache”).
Sprint has announced a deal to bundle Pandora and Sonos with it’s next generation mobile devices. Not only is this my dream come true, but it’s my worst nightmare as I can’t subscribe to this service in Canada. Nonetheless, if I could, the cool part is, I can get a subscription to Pandora content for merely $2.99 per month on my cell phone – compared to $15-$30 per month on Sirius. I just think that’s a great price for a great service of convenience. I really want Pandora to succeed because I think Satellite radio is just too complicated – and I want internet based mobile CDN’s to take off and kick start the mobile network supply chain. The Sonos device allows users to stream media from their home PC to anywhere with a wireless connection – but at over $30 per month, I think I’ll continue to pass on that one!
This leaves me with one major question for satellite radio providers. I know the scale of the Sat CDN is huge. But the internet will deliver similar quality content in the very near future with equal reach but with many more devices. What is satellite radio going to do when bandwidth is inconsequential and digital music can just as easily be streamed over the mobile web in mass? Wouldn’t it be smart for XM and Sirius to partner with the Motorola, Nokia and RIM’s of the world to get their “radio bands” built into these consumer devices? I guess ultimately this is the Carriers decision.
Stay tuned for the big picture coming tomorrow …
But seriously, who hasn’t heard of satellite radio yet? Who has heard satellite radio? Who listens to satellite radio as their primary audio consumption channel? I think I know one person who got a device for free at work and bought a subscription for a couple months. They genuinely enjoyed it, but they definitely were not into the wide variety of programming (hell I dated her for two years and she still couldn’t remember my 4 digit buzzer code, that has two unique numbers repeated once). How can you expect a person like this to remember the satellite radio channels without using the paper menu / radio programming guide – especially if they only use it in their car? Needless to say she listened to about two satellite radio channels and then probably forgot that she even had it or a subscription. She could however remember the artists she liked.
Nobody really blogs about the business behind internet radio, the silent player making big headway over digital delivery channels. I’m sure internet radio can be just as easily piped over a satellite connection, but I mean typically web based internet radio. Built for indiscriminate web based consumption. I’ve fallen in love with Pandora.com, an web based radio disc jockey. It’s possibly the best automatic DJ solution I’ve ever come by. It plays what I like, skips what I don’t (after one single thumbs down click), and keeps the music fresh by compiling lists of similar songs / artists / albums and grouping them into radio stations for playback. It makes it easy if I want to listen to Linkin Park, I click on the Linkin Park station. So on and so forth. Another site and community is Fine Tune (http://www.finetune.com/), I don’t like it as much because I have to do stuff. But if you’re a doer, and you like more control over your play-list, then it may be for you.
I’ve been fighting the iPod / MP3 player craze for a number of reasons. The biggest reason being that I think it’s silly and borderline crazy to store up to 80GB of music on a portable device that you carry around with you. It’s too easy to lose, too easy to smash up, drop in the water, and well, I already have a mobile phone to carry around and smash up so I don’t need more junk. Thus it’s not very shocking that we’re seeing MP3 players being pushed into mobile devices – and I cite the clunky iPhone as Apples’ last ditch effort to get in on that consolidating market.
I woke up last week to find out that Pandora was being shut down perminently in Canada. I said boo for a second, configured my proxy, and can still connect (note to US congress: we will always find way’s around your soft embrace with the RIAA).
OK so back to Satellite Radio, the thing that really sucks about the Satellite Radio we have up North is I have to purchase a device and another subscription to the Satellite Radio service. I once asked my uncle (CEO of a major multinational corporation) if he’d consume news information on his Blackberry. He looked at me, laughed, and asked: “why would I use my blackberry when I have a newspaper”. I didn’t retort to the many reasons why he could get better more global information delivered to his Blackberry in a more timely manner. I could tell in his eyes he thought I was crazy. He could tell I thought he was crazy. And we had a silent moment where I understood what a newspaper meant to him. To be frank, news isn’t that important to him, he got all the information he needed for his life for free – and didn’t have such urgency to consume information in real time.
Possibly this is what radio is to us? An audio media channel we consume in a manner of complete and utter convenience. I wouldn’t personally pay for both a device, and a subscription! That just seems crazy for someone like me that doesn’t commute above ground where the signal is available, nor even drive into work. And still, I’d have to carry another little annoying device around like the iPod that will break down and see me losing my music (please no stupid back-up your data comments here cause I’ll be frank and cite Murphy’s law in retort). But that technology can only get better (Note: most likely a hybrid approach with like an “underground cache”).
Sprint has announced a deal to bundle Pandora and Sonos with it’s next generation mobile devices. Not only is this my dream come true, but it’s my worst nightmare as I can’t subscribe to this service in Canada. Nonetheless, if I could, the cool part is, I can get a subscription to Pandora content for merely $2.99 per month on my cell phone – compared to $15-$30 per month on Sirius. I just think that’s a great price for a great service of convenience. I really want Pandora to succeed because I think Satellite radio is just too complicated – and I want internet based mobile CDN’s to take off and kick start the mobile network supply chain. The Sonos device allows users to stream media from their home PC to anywhere with a wireless connection – but at over $30 per month, I think I’ll continue to pass on that one!
This leaves me with one major question for satellite radio providers. I know the scale of the Sat CDN is huge. But the internet will deliver similar quality content in the very near future with equal reach but with many more devices. What is satellite radio going to do when bandwidth is inconsequential and digital music can just as easily be streamed over the mobile web in mass? Wouldn’t it be smart for XM and Sirius to partner with the Motorola, Nokia and RIM’s of the world to get their “radio bands” built into these consumer devices? I guess ultimately this is the Carriers decision.
Stay tuned for the big picture coming tomorrow …
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