Joost - Internet Tv tryout
Posted on May 6, 2007 - Filed Under NetFinds |
A buddy of mine sent me an invite to the beta trial of a new internet tv service called “joost“. I generally like television in English, so gave it a shot at once.
The client has an interesting feel to it. It doesn’t look like a normal Windows program, it lacks a menu bar, standard window controls, etc. The background is basically the stream you’re watching at any time, and when you’re not watching anything, waiting for a stream to buffer, it shows an animation.
The controls appears at the bottom, the sides, and the top of the “window” when you move the mouse. They are pretty straightforward, and you don’t have to set up a whole bunch of technical details, but I’d like to get a little more information on whatever the program is doing. Sometimes the streams don’t start for a long time, or not at all because I got tired waiting, and that’s when a progress bar or something similar would come in handy.
The offered channels appear to emphasize music as a topic, but I might not have gotten the complete picture yet. Being a series buff, I went for the science fiction channel immediately and watched an episode of Earth-final conflict. What really caught my intention was a fitness channel that featured very detailed training tips from professional bodybuilders. From what I saw, serious information. Very useful.
The viewing was flawless, once I got the stream to start. (it didn’t at first, no idea why). Picture quality was good, hardly any stop and go. Occasionally, the stream is interrupter by a commercial. That occurs about as often as I’m used to from german private tv channels, so it’s not that big a deal. The commercials I saw appear to be from the sponsors of the channels and I sort of liked them, compared to what is shown on tv here.
I’d say it’s worth a look. Let’s hope they get some more series (comedy).
nc
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