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Microsoft temporarily suspends Sky Player for Xbox 360
"Very fast," "a dream," "fantastic." It looks like you can add "on hiatus" to the list of superlatives -- at least for the time being. That boffo Sky Player that Microsoft debuted for the Xbox 360? "Suspended." Why, you ask? "Due to an unforeseen technical issue." Luckily for Britons and ex-pats, the £15 monthly service should resume tomorrow, barring any further technical issues. In the meantime, it looks like the poor avatar above will be stuck watching Benny Hill on Netflix like the rest of us. Statement after the break.
Sky Player on Xbox 360 receives first eyes-on analysis
Sky TV has made its arrival on the Xbox 360 today in prompt fashion, with live streaming and on-demand video available, and the keen lads over at Electric Pig already have a preview of the service in action. Their immediate reaction was that the Sky Player interface was "ultra-speedy" and easily navigable using the 360 controller. Streaming at the high-quality setting (alas, there's no HD on offer yet) was also no problem on a 4Mb broadband connection, though they reserve their highest praise for the on-demand content which was pumped through within a couple of seconds of selection and benefits from an "astonishingly well-designed interface." For the full impressions of the subscription-based service, which starts out at £15 per month, hit up the read link below.
brite-View's CinemaTube adds 1080p streaming, YouTube XL to the mix
We're not sure who decided to follow up the award-winning brite-View CinemaCube with something called the CinemaTube, but the latter certainly lives up to its change of a single letter, adding full 1080p streaming and embedded YouTube XL to its predecessor's already potent mix of supported video and audio formats (including H.264, XviD, and MPEG1/2/4), a bit.torrent engine, and USB storage support. Shipping on September 21, it'll retail for $129.99 -- but if you pre-order now you get it for $99.99. Hit the read link for all the gory details. We're praying that the company's next device is not called the CinemaRube -- that would be just plain mean. [Via GizmoScene]
ZINNET debuts brite-View media players, streamers
ZINNET, a company we've mostly seen hocking digital converter boxes to old-school broadcast TV owners, has just announced the brite-View line of media devices for digital download fans. The CinemaCube ($89.99) plays media from either an attached USB hard drive or over your home network, supports RM, RMVB, MP2, AVI, H.264, VOB, MOV, MKV, DivX, Xvid, and WMV video files up to 1280X720 HD (720p), and sports its own bittorrent client. Air HD ($399.99) is a wireless HD transmitter and receiver kit that supports up to 1080i@60Hz, 1080p@24Hz HD picture quality / 30Hz HD quality with less than 1ms latency, up to 70 feet. We'll be interested in seeing how these guys stack up against some of the other players out there -- in the meantime, peep the gallery below.[Via I4U News]
Netflix lays out official response to bandwidth capping allegations
After a small but vocal amount of Netflix users got the world thinking that it was pulling a Comcast and putting caps on computer-based Watch Instantly users, the outfit's Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt has come forward to clear the air. He makes clear that Netflix's aspiration is to "deliver to everyone the best bitrate that their broadband connection can support," also noting that congestion "could affect some users, but not others, at some times, but not always." He also notes that different titles and encodes for different playback device types "may come from different CDNs or different servers at a particular CDN, so they may have different paths and different bottlenecks." We'd encourage you to hit the read link for the full explanation, but we're already seeing enraged Roku users bark back by his dodging of the so-called out-of-sync audio issue that's evidently still present. We'll go ahead and warn you, Netflix -- you can't please 'em all.
Is Netflix putting caps on computer-based Watch Instantly users?
Depending on your choice of computing platform, possession of dedicated streaming hardware, and love of otherwise forgettable '80s films, Netflix's Watch Instantly service is either a godsend or a gimmick. Regardless, nobody likes arbitrary bandwidth caps, and that's what Riyad Kalla at The "Break it Down" Blog claims to have spotted, finding that Watch streams on his Xbox take multiple minutes to buffer, but that those on his PC (using the same connection) can take hours -- if they work at all. Doing a little snooping he found he was being capped to about 50 KB/sec per download thread on his PC, but if he spawned ten such threads he was able to get over 700 KB/sec. Something, it seems, is issuing a per-thread cap, but is it really Netflix? Or, rather, is it his Qwest DSL line doing a ham-fisted job of managing bandwidth? We've seen similar issues intermittently, but nothing consistent, so we're not quite ready to call this an internet-wide conspiracy just yet, but would love to hear about your streaming experiences lately. Update: Based on the volume of "It's working just fine for me" comments both here and elsewhere it seems safe to say that if there is a conspiracy at work here, it's not Netflix's. [Via Slashdot]
Netflix streaming-only subscriptions coming 'in the future'
This news may not be a surprise, given the huge success of Netflix's Watch Instantly streaming service, which had been activated over 1 million times on Xbox Live the last time we checked -- accounting for about 10 percent of its subscriptions. Regardless, word has come from Netflix's CFO Barry McCarthy that the company plans to offer a streaming-only service "in the near future." The Watch Instantly service currently offers about 12,000 movies (around 100,000 titles are available if you order the physical discs), on a variety of devices, including Xbox Live and Roku boxes, so it seems like a smart move, though we don't know the timeline or pricing of the stream-only service. Here's to hoping they expand their offering a little before then... maybe Final Destination? Just a suggestion. [Via Joystiq]
Hands-on with Sling Media's Slingbox SOLO
Considering that the cat's out of the bag, we couldn't help but take the opportunity to get a closer look at the newest Slingbox. The unit boasted a small frame and plenty of ports, but it still rocked that tried and true Slingbox look throughout. Go on, check the gallery below to get up close and personal with the SOLO.%Gallery-7835%
Hitachi develops AVSM software to make DVR hard drives "smarter"
It's one thing when the most taxing task your DVR will ever face is the furious fast-forwarding necessary to get the next scene in your favorite recorded drama, but if you've got over 100 hours of HD VOD to churn through while recording tonight's game and sifting through next week's programming list, having a more intelligent hard drive just might help out. In an effort to reduce DVR hard drive fragmentation, lengthen the life of set-top boxes, improve the quality of service / speed to the end user, and give your average DVR the ability to "manage up to 14 HDTV (19.3Mbps) streams from a single 3.5-inch HDD," Hitachi has developed AVSM technology to help your DVR's HDD think things through before going through the motions. The background software differentiates between "streaming applications and best-effort, non-real-time applications" such as electronic program guides, IPTV downloads, and photo browsing in order to manage the line of tasks more efficiently. Overall, the software reportedly reduces duty cycles "by up to 60 percent" and all but eliminates disc fragmentation, but realistically, with new units popping up entirely more frequently than your average hard drive takes to perish, hooking DVRs up with all these smarts might be a bit unnecessary for those who stay on the bleeding edge.
Twinbird's Link Zabady: for za splash-proof stream
Twinbird is tightening their grip on the nascent waterproof media device market with this, their Link Zabady video streaming solution. Plug the included black-box transmitter into your television or DVD player via S-Video or composite connections and stream the A/V out to that splash-proof, 7-inch LCD with 480x234 resolution. The kit features a remote control and charging dock for the LCD allowing for about 2.5-hours of untethered playback while scrubbing your tomato or perhaps even polishing your apple. Good times if you don't mind watching your vids on that highly reflective screen covered in droplets as pictured above. Expected on December 1 in Japan for ¥70,000 or about $591. [Via Impress]
NuVo NV-M3 streams multi-zone PlaysForSure
Maybe we're a little dense, but we're having a bit of a time trying to figure out why someone would plunk down $2,200 for a 160GB PlaysForSure enabled audio streaming device -- even one so sexy as NuVo's (no, not that Nuvo) new NV-M3, above. Granted, NuVo seems pretty proud about implementing PlaysForSure in a multi-zone system, something Sonos users have been waiting a while to get going, but for a substantially smaller price you could go with something a little more versatile, like a Media Center PC or an Xbox 360 or a long list of other devices that wouldn't only limit you to playing music, either. Still, now apparently the onus is no longer on the PlaysForSure team to create a multizone standard for streaming DRMed audio since it can obviously be done without Microsoft's backing, so expect to hear more about this little number when CEDIA rolls around.[Via eHomeUpgrade and Talk About CEDIA]
Novac's TV for Skype Anywhere: watch TV via Skype, seriously
Twas only yesterday the lads in the Engadget mansion were lamenting about giving Skype a try if only it streamed some of that hot analog TV we've been hearing so much about. Little did we know that in some back alley of Akihabaraville, a team of hucksters from Novac in Japan were putting the finishing touches on their TV for Skype Anywhere (or something like that) product. Just load-up Skype and Novac's software onto your home PC, slip in their USB stick with integrated analog tuner, and voila, you're ready to stream the sweet, sweet TV out the Internet to any of the newer Skype clients capable of video calls. The TV will even call you and then allow you to change channels via a chat window if we're reading the machine translation correctly -- enter "the ##12#" to switch to channel 12, for example. Not likely to give Slingboxers any competition in terms of functionality or quality, but for ¥9,800 or about $85, you're not likely to find a cheaper solution boxed up so neatly. Oh Skype, come 'er and give us a cuddle.[Via Impress]
BenQ's VIIV-friendly DMP300 Digital Media Player
Now that you've picked up a brand new VIIV-powered PC (because computing just isn't computing without VIIV), you probably want a media streaming device to watch all your digital swag on regular TVs, and BenQ's got your back with the new DMP300 Digital Media Player. Like many of the other similar solutions on the market, the DMP300 streams your music (MP3, WMA, PCM), vids (MPEG-1/2/4, WMV9, XviD), and pics (JPEG, JPEG2000, BMP) over a wired or wireless (802.11b/g) network, but also leverages the power of VIIV for accessing certain remote applications and premium content. This model sports a full range of connectivity options -- HDMI, component, S-video, and digital audio outputs are some of the highlights -- and will be available for an undisclosed price under generic branding sometime next quarter.
