video

Archive for the 'video' Category

Joost now available for Mac

Published

on 18/2/2007

. 10 Comments

Joost is the new application from the makers of Skype which streams TV over the Internet to your computer.

I went to download the Windows version of Joost the other day, to try installing it in my Parallels VM (don’t bother - it doesn’t work) when I saw the following:

Finally, Joost for Mac has been released! Wohoo!

I downloaded Joost and ran it on the Mac.

It was a bit of a disappointment, I have to say. I wasn’t keen on it starting up in full screen mode but that is only a minor annoyance and quickly changed in the Preferences. The biggest letdown is the number of times the video stopped and started as it struggled to download the next chunk of the program.

My Internet connection is 3mb with a 20:1 contention ratio. I was watching on a Sunday morning so all should have been quiet and still the program couldn’t download the video fast enough. This makes for an irritating viewing experience.

I don’t know if this problem is peculiar to the Mac version or it is an issue with Joost in general. If it is not Mac specific, it needs to be fixed somehow or watching TV programs on the computer through Joost won’t catch on.

Microsoft ruins Christmas!

Published

Tom Raftery

on 26/12/2006

in Gadgets, hardware and video

. 19 Comments

I decided a while back to treat myself to a games console for Christmas and after some discussion, I settled on an Xbox 360. I would have bought a Wii except it doesn’t have a usable optical drive and we don’t have a DVD drive so I wanted the games console to double as a DVD drive.

I bought a Pro Console with wireless controllers to cut down on the cable clutter. I bought Viva Pinata and Pixar’s Cars which I could play with my three year old son TomÃ¡s (Cars is one of TomÃ¡s’ favourite movies).

He was very excited he was going to play these games as soon as his papa had set up the new Xbox on Christmas day.

Imagine the tears rolling down his disappointed little face when I had to tell him that he couldn’t play with his new games because the Xbox wouldn’t work with our TV (pdf).

I called Microsoft’s Support line and kudos to them for having it manned on Christmas day but the news wasn’t good. The staff there informed me that I needed to purchase a high def adaptor if I wanted my high definition games console to work on my high definition tv. Obviously.

And it is not that they wouldn’t work in high definition only, no they wouldn’t work in high def or regular.

And where could I get one of these? “At your nearest Xbox reseller” - yeah good luck finding one of those open on Christmas day.

This is completely ridiculous - this is a problem created by Microsoft. There is already a standard in place around high definition cabling. It is called HDMI. HD Ready TVs have a HDMI input, by definition. All Microsoft had to do was put a standard HDMI connector on their AV cable and their Xbox would work on every HD Ready TV out of the box.

But no, Microsoft go with their non-standard cable so they can gouge us for another 30 or 40 Euros.

In our house, Microsoft is not the Borg, Microsoft is the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Thanks a million Microsoft. Your cheapness destroyed my son’s Christmas.

Venice Project beta doesn’t include Macs

Published

Tom Raftery

on 22/12/2006

in Technology, iptv and video

. 5 Comments

Along with the rest of the world, it seems, I received my invite to try out the beta of the Venice Project. This is an IPTV project set up by Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (so straight away you have to start taking it seriously).

Mike Arrington has written it up on TechCrunch, Om Malik has posted some screenshots and a glowing report on its functionality and James Corbett has gloated that he had an invite long before the A-Listers!

It all looks interesting but unfortunately I can’t use it. Why? The system requirements call for a machine running Windows XP with Service Pack 2. No Mac software!

For the rugby fans

Published

Tom Raftery

on 5/12/2006

in Personal and video

. 0 Comments

Here is a short video of my son singing Ireland’s Call - the Irish rugby team’s anthem - listen out for the shout at the end of the song!

YouTube’s funniest video?

Published

Tom Raftery

on 23/11/2006

in Technology and video

. 12 Comments

Via Liz Lawley and Scoble comes probably the funniest video I have yet seen on YouTube.

I defy anyone not to laugh when watching this:

Soapbox - Microsoft’s YouTube killer?

Published

Tom Raftery

on 22/11/2006

in video

. 6 Comments

Following on from YouTube’s success in garnering audience, Microsoft have rolled out their own video sharing site called Soapbox. Right now, the site is in closed beta but I applied for an account and had one on a couple of hours!

The site runs out of Flash which means it looks very well, but it can take some time to load up initially. An idea might be to have a “Loading…” image appear at this point ‘cos several times I thought there was nothing happening and I was about to click away when it opened (and I’m on a relativelymfast broadband connection!).

For some reason Soapbox has an upper limit of five on the number of tags you can use to tag a video. I’m not sure why this is but it seems a silly restriction. Removing this restriction would seem like an easy way to quickly improve on the service.

As a quick comparison of the services, I shot a quick video on my cameraphone and uploaded it to three video sharing services (Blip.tv, Soapbox and YouTube).

Of the three, Soapbox has the furthest to go in terms of adding Social Networking functionality.

One other issue Microsoft need to address is Licensing - on Blip.tv I can add a Creative Commons License to my videos; YouTube has a share or private option, however with Soapbox, you agree to make your videos completely open. I don’t know that I’d want that. I think the Blip.tv option is best on this score.

Soapbox:

Video: View from our balcony

Blip.tv