Joost Beta
28/02/2007 08:00 PM Filed in:
Miscellaneous
I've been beta testing Joost for
a while now and just as Skype changed the entire
telecommunications industry, Joost is about to do the same for
television.
Sky, Virgin Media and the BBC have all been prattling on about how each company will change the face of television as we know it in the UK. These grandiose claims all seem to refer to the introduction of advanced VOD features that add to their existing services and nothing more.
Sky are about to launch a revised Anytime service that will grow beyond its limited Windows Media PC incarnation and expand to a pseudo VOD service for Sky + and Sky HD owners. I say pseudo VOD because the choice of content is selected for you from Sky's existing content by some anonymous individual who has no clue what your viewing preferences are. If you want real VOD via Sky you'll be waiting for a long time.
Virgin Media will offer VOD via their national digital cable network formed by the recent NTL and Telewest merger. The general cable service is fine but when you compare Virgin Media's selection of channels to those offered by Sky, choice is definitely lacking especially if you're after some decent HD content. Which leaves you with the VOD service that has some HD content but otherwise offers you pretty much the same selection of content that you will find rotated on Sky's Box Office service. Oh and it's limited to a cable box. No computer based television viewing via Virgin Media despite their revolutionary TV claims.
And then we come to the BBC who will be launching their iPlayer service later this year as a result of their recent iMP trials. iPlayer is a computer based VOD service that will grant you access to a select amount of BBC content. Unfortunately this is yet another over-hyped Windows Media crippled service which I'm sure will anger TV Licence paying Mac/Linux users (like me) everywhere. If you feel strongly enough to complain about it, the BBC Trust is accepting public input on the matter.
Which returns us nicely to Joost, an online VOD service created by Skype's founders and seemingly capable of doing the one thing Sky's Anytime and the BBC's iPlayer have so far failed to do - run on multiple platforms (a Linux version is promised soon).
Joost has been in beta for quite a while now (it previously used the codename The Venice Project) and is shaping up to be everything you expect from a computer based VOD service. A variety of 'channels' are available with a selection of episodes available to watch under each channel.
To begin you require a login that you can obtain once you have been invited into the Joost beta. Prepare to wait quite a while as the waiting list for beta invites is a long one. If you happen to know someone already taking part in the Joost beta, go ahead and pester them (not me) for a login. You'll find this might be the quickest way to obtain one.
Once you have your login, this is the screen that will present itself each time you start Joost:
Once you have logged in, the main Joost interface will appear:
The interface is very cleanly laid out and unobtrusive. You'll find My Channels to your left, the channel ident at the top, My Joost (widgets) to the right and the main channel controls at the bottom. Everything is self-explanatory except for the circular icon in the top-right corner. This removes all the interface elements leaving just the television image behind.
Clicking on the My Channels button opens up the channel list:
And clicking on a channel presents you with a list of episodes for that channel:
Selecting an episode returns you to the main screen and your selected episode then starts playing after a few seconds:
As I said it's all very logical and works well. No over complicated interface to annoy you and it nicely fades out after a few seconds to let you enjoy your viewing.
At the moment the selection of channels is fairly limited but those that are present seem to be of good visual quality (pretty much the same quality as that of a TV card) which serves to give you a good idea of Joost's potential. No HD content is available yet but the use of the CoreAVC codec hints at that content making an appearance sometime soon.
One of Joost's greatest features is widgets. These can be accessed via the My Joost button and currently offers a selection of widgets that allow you to do everything from chatting with others about the channel you are watching to rating episodes, instant message or even catch up with news posted by the Joost operators:
Further widgets are planned so it'll be worthwhile keeping an eye out for them.
Returning to the main screen and clicking on the preferences button in the channel control panel reveals a limited set of preferences:
At a guess these will expand with Joost's final release and be a little more user friendly.
You may be wondering how Joost works. Joost operates much like Skype and the current Sky Anytime service in that they are all peer-to-peer applications. This implies that some of your bandwidth will be used to distribute content to others on demand who then further distribute that content on to other Joost users.
While the peer-to-peer backend enables Joost to work well on moderate broadband connections, it also forces your internet connection to be in constant use whilst Joost is running. It also limits your ability to record any of the content available to view. That said this isn't a major issue given that it's a true instant VOD service and similar limitations exist with all the other computer based VOD services outlined earlier.
Unfortunately, the current beta appears to sap quite a bit of CPU time as a result of this peer-to-peer activity. I witnessed between 10-20% CPU usage when Joost was sitting in the system tray doing nothing (standby mode). Hopefully this is something that will be optimised for the final release.
Mac users may be wondering what is different in the Mac client. I'm happy to say nothing that I can find. All the same functionality is present in the Mac client even if it is limited to Intel only Macs for technical reasons. The expected Linux client will also be identical in functionality when it finally makes an appearance.
Joost is highly recommended to television fanatics who want a little more control over their viewing. With recent Viacom content agreements expect to see the channel list and content expand further as more content providers sign on.
It's time for Sky, Virgin Media and the BBC to take note. This is how user controlled television should be done.
Sky, Virgin Media and the BBC have all been prattling on about how each company will change the face of television as we know it in the UK. These grandiose claims all seem to refer to the introduction of advanced VOD features that add to their existing services and nothing more.
Sky are about to launch a revised Anytime service that will grow beyond its limited Windows Media PC incarnation and expand to a pseudo VOD service for Sky + and Sky HD owners. I say pseudo VOD because the choice of content is selected for you from Sky's existing content by some anonymous individual who has no clue what your viewing preferences are. If you want real VOD via Sky you'll be waiting for a long time.
Virgin Media will offer VOD via their national digital cable network formed by the recent NTL and Telewest merger. The general cable service is fine but when you compare Virgin Media's selection of channels to those offered by Sky, choice is definitely lacking especially if you're after some decent HD content. Which leaves you with the VOD service that has some HD content but otherwise offers you pretty much the same selection of content that you will find rotated on Sky's Box Office service. Oh and it's limited to a cable box. No computer based television viewing via Virgin Media despite their revolutionary TV claims.
And then we come to the BBC who will be launching their iPlayer service later this year as a result of their recent iMP trials. iPlayer is a computer based VOD service that will grant you access to a select amount of BBC content. Unfortunately this is yet another over-hyped Windows Media crippled service which I'm sure will anger TV Licence paying Mac/Linux users (like me) everywhere. If you feel strongly enough to complain about it, the BBC Trust is accepting public input on the matter.
Which returns us nicely to Joost, an online VOD service created by Skype's founders and seemingly capable of doing the one thing Sky's Anytime and the BBC's iPlayer have so far failed to do - run on multiple platforms (a Linux version is promised soon).
Joost has been in beta for quite a while now (it previously used the codename The Venice Project) and is shaping up to be everything you expect from a computer based VOD service. A variety of 'channels' are available with a selection of episodes available to watch under each channel.
To begin you require a login that you can obtain once you have been invited into the Joost beta. Prepare to wait quite a while as the waiting list for beta invites is a long one. If you happen to know someone already taking part in the Joost beta, go ahead and pester them (not me) for a login. You'll find this might be the quickest way to obtain one.
Once you have your login, this is the screen that will present itself each time you start Joost:
Once you have logged in, the main Joost interface will appear:
The interface is very cleanly laid out and unobtrusive. You'll find My Channels to your left, the channel ident at the top, My Joost (widgets) to the right and the main channel controls at the bottom. Everything is self-explanatory except for the circular icon in the top-right corner. This removes all the interface elements leaving just the television image behind.
Clicking on the My Channels button opens up the channel list:
And clicking on a channel presents you with a list of episodes for that channel:
Selecting an episode returns you to the main screen and your selected episode then starts playing after a few seconds:
As I said it's all very logical and works well. No over complicated interface to annoy you and it nicely fades out after a few seconds to let you enjoy your viewing.
At the moment the selection of channels is fairly limited but those that are present seem to be of good visual quality (pretty much the same quality as that of a TV card) which serves to give you a good idea of Joost's potential. No HD content is available yet but the use of the CoreAVC codec hints at that content making an appearance sometime soon.
One of Joost's greatest features is widgets. These can be accessed via the My Joost button and currently offers a selection of widgets that allow you to do everything from chatting with others about the channel you are watching to rating episodes, instant message or even catch up with news posted by the Joost operators:
Further widgets are planned so it'll be worthwhile keeping an eye out for them.
Returning to the main screen and clicking on the preferences button in the channel control panel reveals a limited set of preferences:
At a guess these will expand with Joost's final release and be a little more user friendly.
You may be wondering how Joost works. Joost operates much like Skype and the current Sky Anytime service in that they are all peer-to-peer applications. This implies that some of your bandwidth will be used to distribute content to others on demand who then further distribute that content on to other Joost users.
While the peer-to-peer backend enables Joost to work well on moderate broadband connections, it also forces your internet connection to be in constant use whilst Joost is running. It also limits your ability to record any of the content available to view. That said this isn't a major issue given that it's a true instant VOD service and similar limitations exist with all the other computer based VOD services outlined earlier.
Unfortunately, the current beta appears to sap quite a bit of CPU time as a result of this peer-to-peer activity. I witnessed between 10-20% CPU usage when Joost was sitting in the system tray doing nothing (standby mode). Hopefully this is something that will be optimised for the final release.
Mac users may be wondering what is different in the Mac client. I'm happy to say nothing that I can find. All the same functionality is present in the Mac client even if it is limited to Intel only Macs for technical reasons. The expected Linux client will also be identical in functionality when it finally makes an appearance.
Joost is highly recommended to television fanatics who want a little more control over their viewing. With recent Viacom content agreements expect to see the channel list and content expand further as more content providers sign on.
It's time for Sky, Virgin Media and the BBC to take note. This is how user controlled television should be done.