Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I want my Joost TV

While I was in Davos, I got to meet Niklas Zennstrom, the founder of Skype. Somehow he neglected to mention that he was about to revolutionize TV. Later on in the conference, I heard rumors about Joost, his new service, but unfortunately I couldn't ask Niklas for a beta invite. It would help if remembered who I was along with other couple thousand people clambering around Davos.

The buzz is that Joost is the future of TV. I signed up for the Joost beta a couple of weeks after I returned and I got the download notice in my inbox two weeks ago. I finally have managed to download the beta today.

After a couple of sputtering starts on our home 5Mb DSL line, the thing finally got going. At first I thought this is not going to work as the image started and stopped, but when it did get going it was presenting me with near DVD quality images on my PC. I hear they have a new proprietary compression algorithm, but the image and sound are pretty good.

You are first confronted with a user interface for selecting channels of information. Since I live in the UK, I don't think I have heard of any of the channels or the programs on the channels, but I understand that they are signing up some pretty amazing media deals.

Joost1_2

From these channels, you can select specific programs to watch on demand.

Joost2_2

Once you start watching, you get a full screen viewing experience by default. It is absolutely nothing like YouTube. It is full screen with all the normal controls that you would expect.

Joost3_2

While you are watching, you can access a set of widget for adding comments or instant messaging a friend. If they open up the platform the way that Skype has, you can imagine all sorts of widgets being created for searching for related shows, looking up references to and from the show, historical references or simulcasting your own commentary and voice over.

Joost4

One thing you should watch out for. As soon as I downloaded this, I started taking screen shots. I live in the UK, so I don't know anything about a series called Total Recall 2070, but it looked interesting. After taking this screen shot, the couple take their clothes off and start getting it on when my wife walks in. I am only talking about the first few minutes of the program. I have to explain that I am doing this in the name of research! It could probably use some sort rating on the programs, at least while I am trying it out at home and not in the office.

Joost5

Anyway, I have invitations for 3 friends to invite to the Joost beta. Please let me know if you are interested.



VIA: http://newton.typepad.com/content/2007/04/i_want_my_joost.html

4 comments :

yanos said...

looks amazing.... i got to have this, any chance to get an invite?

yanilac@gmail.com

thanks

Unknown said...

Looks interesting ... especially I want to check National Geographic video quality. Can I get an invite ?

Thanks

Unknown said...

Looks interesting ... especially I want to check National Geographic video quality. Can I get an invite ?

Thanks,
key2wrld@gmail.com

fokka said...

Soy de Argentina. Hará unos 4 meses descubrí que existía joost. Como no conseguí ninguna invitación me dejó de interesar. Hace 2 semanas, volví a entrar al site y me enganché de vuelta con la idea. Pero sigo sin encontrar a alguien que me invite. Si me podés invitar, te lo voy a agradecer mucho. Si no... seguiré buscando. Un saludo. fokka85@hotmail.com