Project Leap hopes to hop into your TV screen, source-agnostic VOD in tow

Last year, Bittorrent portal Vuze allowed you to push downloaded video directly to game consoles and iDevices, sure, but the company's latest product promises to let you pull media from the internet and any network-connected device right to your TV. Dubbed "Project Leap," the application lets you simply type in the name of a film and searches your local computers, attached storage, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix databases for a match, after which point you can play, add it to your queue, begin instant streaming or purchase (if need be). The program pulls up a widget-like selection of additional data as well, including Rotten Tomatoes reviews and YouTube trailers, and those who enjoy company with their digital celluloid will be happy to hear to hear Twitter, Fandango and live internet chat might make appearances as well.

Though we didn't get hands-on for ourselves, the scrolling, card-based interface seemed plenty polished in its present, five-button (up, down, left, right, ok) iteration -- the challenge now is to find a device manufacturer who'll build it into a set-top box or connected TV. Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa said he might settle for it becoming a Google TV app or Yahoo widget itself, but only if the final combined product was simple; no offense to septuagenarian matriarchs, we're sure, but he told us it must be "grandmother" easy. While he said he's already received interest from unnamed consumer electronics companies, the product will launch one way or another -- even if Leap doesn't land in embedded hardware quite yet, a beta will be available in September for Mac and PC.

[Protato Posted Jun 11th 2010 4:16AM]

sounds good

[Teslanaut Posted Jun 11th 2010 4:42AM]

@Protato Ladies & Gentlemen, the obligatory "First" comment. Brought to you by "Protato". Nothing to say about it but two, simple words. "Sounds Good".

To get to the article at hand, the UI looks quite good, AppleTV-esque, but not as...refined. I am assuming they just scan whatever content you have and just take the File Names and puts that in the queue? Or does it actually scan the content itself (be it audio or visual), looking for references to what they have in their or other databases? Or does it find your content and offer up higher quality for purchase? Regardless this seems like a great idea... I just don't really trust the thing behind it.

What about an Open Source alternative?

[Carnival Posted Jun 11th 2010 4:45AM]

@Protato Actually, it does sound good:)

[Protato Posted Jun 11th 2010 5:21AM]

@Carnival
Lol thanks for the support

[donv69 Posted Jun 11th 2010 6:51AM]

@Protato

It's a good simple option for the older generation that doesn't want to get all involved with Google TV, but still wants to go digital. But can't see it being a seperate box though. Maybe built into a tv or something.

[canny Posted Jun 11th 2010 5:22AM]

So.. and correct me if I'm wrong.. but this seems like a real legit reason for torrent services.
Well that sucks... :p

[Plight Posted Jun 11th 2010 10:31AM]

If only this could be integrated into XBMC.....

[Microbreak Posted Jun 11th 2010 12:22PM]

Make it a boxee app please.

[LANjackal Posted Jun 11th 2010 9:07PM]

Good concept, but Vuze's offerings haven't impressed me so far, and I doubt they'll be able to execute effectively here either.