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The curated video service from TiVo's founders, Qplay, is shutting down
TiVo's co-founders launched their Qplay service in hopes of becoming the central hub for all your online video viewing. Unfortunately, it looks like that media utopia wasn't meant to be. Just three months after its official debut, Qplay has revealed that it's shutting down; it's "not possible" to run the service any longer, the team says. You'll have until July 25th to get your fill of content, and you can get a refund for the TV adapter if you make a request before that cut-off date. The company isn't commenting on the exact reasons behind the closure, but this is certainly going to catch some internet video aficionados off-guard. If you're one of them, you'll have to turn to discovery services like Showyou to get a similar fix.
Qplay's video streaming service is now on Chromecast
When TiVo founders Mike Ramsay and Jim Barton announced their curated video stream service called Qplay earlier this year, the only way you could play those queues -- or "Qs" -- on your TV was if you also purchased the Qplay TV adapter for $49. Otherwise, you could only view them on the iPad app, which was opened up to everyone only a couple of months ago. Starting today, however, you can relay those video playlists to your television with a Chromecast as well, which is about $14 less and a whole lot more versatile. "We wanted to bring Qplay to a larger audience," says Phil Peterson, the CEO of Qplay, as the reason behind opening it up to Chromecast. "We definitely want to expand the number of devices that Qplay can play on."
TiVo co-founders' new Qplay web video service is now available for everyone
A little over a month ago, TiVo founders Mike Ramsay and Jim Barton announced Qplay, a service that lets users curate personalized video streams, or "Qs," from a variety of different sources. At the time, the only way you could use the iPad app and the service was to purchase the Early Adopter bundle, which gives you both the app and the TV adapter for $49. Today that restriction has been lifted and the app is now open and free to everyone, adapter not required. Along with the general availability of the app, Qplay has also introduced new video content from media curators like Vanity Fair and Reddit plus new video sources like College Humor, Funny or Die and the New York Times. If you'd rather have the service create a Q for you, the company has curated a few more new ones as well, such as Late Night Funny, Movie Trailers and Photography. Further, the latest Qplay update will let you share those videos via Facebook, Twitter and email, just in case your friends aren't hip to the whole Qplay thing just yet. Of course, if you want to watch those Qs on an actual television, you still have to cough up that $49 for the aforementioned adapter. But if you're happy with just your iPad, you can now at least try your hand at this new take on streaming video without spending a dime. If you're still a little fuzzy on how the whole thing works, there's a handy dandy tutorial video after the break.
TiVo's co-founders want you to use internet video for your own TV network
When TiVo co-founders Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay reunited a couple of years ago to come up with a new venture (Barton left TiVo in 2012, while Ramsay left almost seven years ago), they knew internet video was the next big frontier they wanted to conquer. To their dismay, they found it to be a mess. "There are all these different sources of video, and its search is just a mess," says Ramsay in an interview with us. They also discovered that the social aspect of recommendation and sharing doesn't seem to be as prevalent for videos as it is with music services like Spotify and Rdio. After some trial and error, the two finally came up with the idea of QPlay, a streaming-video service that launches today. According to Ramsay, the driving force behind QPlay is entirely focused on making sure there's always content you want to watch. At the core of QPlay are "Qs," which is the company's term for personalized video streams. Think of them as playlists, but ones that you curate and share with friends. You can create these fancified queues with videos from a variety of sources such as Vimeo, YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. It's not just limited to adding individual videos either; for example with YouTube, you can create a Q of just your channel subscriptions, and that Q will update automatically each time there's new content. Right now, you can add videos to your Q via a browser bookmarklet, though there might be additional ways to do so in the future.
TiVo co-founders joining forces for yet another set-top box
How on earth are you supposed to fill your days after leaving the successful set-top box company you created? Well, if you're TiVo co-founders Mike Ramsay and Jim Barton, the answer is to start all over again. You see, after Barton resigned from TiVo in early 2012, he and long-gone chum Ramsay set up InVisioneer, which has the pair "gearing up to do it again." Domain registrations, online polls and a barebones Twitter account serving up YouTube links are among the footprints Zatz Not Funny has been following to see what the new company is up to. Job listings say the outfit's crafting "a product that sits at the nexus of exciting trends in video, mobile, and social." It seems to have already passed through the FCC in the form of Qplay, a small TV adapter with HDMI-out and an iPad app for controlling it (according to the user manual). Most recently, a little more info popped up on InVisioneer's site, but has subsequently been taken down. This included word that Qplay will provide "new ways to discover, play and share video content," as well as imagery of an iPad app with YouTube and Vine among the tabs. With so many ways to get content from the web to your TV already, we'd hope for Ramsay and Barton's sake that Qplay has an innovative hook. They probably don't need reminding, though -- they're partly responsible for how saturated the market is in the first place. [Image credit: Zatz Not Funny]
