Microsoft: WPF/e = Silverlight

April 16, 2007 at 11:19 am · Filed under RIA, Video, User Interface, User Experience

Microsoft announced the public release name for the technology/plug-in previously known by its code name “WPF/e” (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) today as “Silverlight.” Although Microsoft has preferred that the technology not be compared with Adobe’s (formerly Macromedia) ubiquitous Flash plug-in, it’s hard not to make the comparison. Both plug-ins leverage vector based graphics and scripting languages to allow the delivery of richer-than-HTML multimedia experiences, and both have a focus on the delivery of video content.

I worked at Microsoft last year for a few months prior to returning to my post at Terralever. While there, I participated in a program in which Microsoft brought in multimedia designers to put Silverlight through its paces. They were working on a version of the plug-in that was still in development and were working without documentation. Even with those limitations, the resulting demos did show promise in the hands of the highly qualified multimedia designers.

But, who would consider Silverlight over Flash? Here’s some thoughts on Silverlight:

• For designer-developers who are more fluent in JavaScript (or AJAX) Silverlight may be easier to transition to than Flash
• For RIA’s (Rich Internet Applications) that involve communication between an HTML page and multimedia content housed within it, Silverlight may prove to be a more seamless solution as the Silverlight object is a part of the DOM
• This is a v1 product for Microsoft, who usually starts firing on all cylinders around v3, and, Microsoft seem serious about its movement into this space
• Video is the hot topic on the web right now. Flash is currently able to stream a maximum of 576 lines (per Ars Technica) whereas video encoded with Microsoft’s VC-1 codec can be streamed at 720 lines. Silverlight also handles scaling video while it is being viewed beautifully.

Silverlight’s biggest hurdle? Gaining the mind share of multimedia designers—and doing so with a PC-only development ecosystem (Microsoft Expression).

The cross-browser plug-in is currently available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox on the PC as well as Safari and Firefox on the Macintosh.

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Joost Beta review

April 15, 2007 at 11:28 am · Filed under Usability, Television, Peer-to-Peer, Content, Video, User Interface, Applications, Beta, User Experience

I’ve been using Joost now on and off over several weeks.

A few thoughts:

• Video Quality: VERY good for the Internet. What the Joost team has done with Internet video quality is nothing short of remarkable. That said, it’s not ready for a high def set, however.
• Streaming: Fair to Good. At work I have a better experience than home. My home setup is broadband delivered wireless (Pre N). I experience streaming delays once every few to several minutes that last anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds.
• Usability: Good to Very Good. The user interface works well, but not great. On some of the menus, I have sluggish responses when navigating through lists of channels or shows. UI elements make sense to me for the most part, but I don’t think that the average consumer would understand it as readily.
• Overall Experience: Fair to Good.

In its current incarnation, Joost isn’t for me. Why:

• I want to watch video on a television. I don’t want to watch it on my computer.
• Video quality is important to me. While the quality of video is impressive for the Internet, the quality I’m looking for is better.
• The social networking aspects aren’t all that compelling at this time.
• Performance matters. Whenever the service stops to buffer video, the content consumption experience is abruptly interrupted.
• Dynamically inserted commercials (in the middle of viewing video content—not the bookend static ads that previously existed) are implemented poorly, derailing the consumption of content without warning. They also make it feel like… well… watching television.

Does Joost have promise? Absolutely. Why:

• Bandwidth and video compression technologies are improving rapidly.
• Whether it is a scramble to try to understand the streaming landscape and not miss the boat entirely, or, because they know more about Joost than we do, several premium content providers have announced content provision via Joost. Desirable content will bring advertising, and advertising revenue will enable continued improvements.
• If the service takes off, it will naturally be brought into the living room.

What else could propel Joost forward?

• A feature that is new and innovative; something that simply doesn’t exist right now at all which would allow a very different take on the way that users interact with video. For example, what if transcripts of all the video that Joost offered was indexed allowing more advanced ways of finding content and consuming it.
• A well thought out partnership. While the UI isn’t as polished as one coming out of Cupertino, it certainly feels Apple-esque. What if Joost was another option on the Apple TV interface? Joost would make it to the living room, and Apple TV owners would have access to FREE content.
• Killer content. What if Joost delivered new movie releases two weeks prior to DVD releases?

I’ll keep watching Joost, but that ‘watching’ will likely be in terms of reading the press to see what is happening as opposed to firing up Joost to watch video on my computer. I won’t be surprised, however, if next year I’m watching Joost in my living room and experiencing content in a whole new way.

Note: I’m currently viewing Joost on a MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram, utilizing the current version of the Joost client (0.9.2). At the time of writing this I have zero invites to give out.

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Joost upgrades client, adds channels to catalog

April 3, 2007 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Peer-to-Peer, Television, Video, Beta, Applications

Joost has upgraded the beta version of the Joost client to release .9. An email was sent out to current Joost testers notifying them of the release. I’ve only tinkered with it briefly this evening, but here is what’s new at a glance (from the Release Notes):

• User Registration and Login have been updated to use a user name as opposed to an email address. The client also retains your user name and password so you need not login each time you launch Joost.
• The Invitation System used to send invites to friends to participate in the Beta has been made a part of the user interface.
• Standby minimizes the Joost to the OS taskbar. The Power button pauses the the video, suspends the application, and minimizes it to the taskbar.
• Reception quality has been improved and streaming is more tolerant to poor network performance.
• The UI has been updated for ease of use, including the Channel Catalog.

There are several other features in the release notes which I have omitted. Oh, there’s one more thing—more Joost channels in the Channel Catalog including:

• MTV (Laguna Beach)
• VH1 (Hogan Knows Best, SoNoTORIous, Breaking Bonaduce, Two-A-Days)
• Comedy Central (Stella, Freak Show, Dog Bites Man)
• BET (American Gangster, The Christies, Beef: The Series, DMX: Soul of a Man)

Overall, the application seems to be evolving well. I’m still trying to gauge my affinity level for Joost, but regardless if it is for me or not, I think it will definitely be rattling some cages.

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Google TV ads trial announced

April 2, 2007 at 12:44 pm · Filed under Television, Video, Advertising, Beta

In print: AdSense for Newspapers. On the air: AdSense for Audio. And now, on TV, Google tests the waters with TV ads trial. Neither AdSense for Newspapers or Audio have caused much of a stir since the testing of those programs began. In fact, I was surprised to see that Google’s own internal link to the AdSense for Newspaper’s page (from the AdSense Help Center) goes to a non-existent page (at the time of this posting, at least). Could television be the next medium that thrives for Google?

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TiVo / One True Media UX

March 28, 2007 at 2:12 pm · Filed under Television, Video, User Experience

The overall TiVo / One True Media user experience is good. While there are some things about the service which could change to make it even better, as it stands, the service does what it says it does and does it well enough.

I created a video montage using still photographs from my iPhoto library. I published my montage out to my TiVo channel last night. I was hoping for instant gratification-that I would be able to instantly go to my TiVo and view the slide show. However, after submitting it the One True Media site informed me that the slide show might take up to twenty four hours to be available.

This morning, I clicked over to my TiVo Now Showing page, and the payload had arrived. The item in my TiVo list was right in the mix with my other programs, named consistently with the personal channel I had created.

The quality of the montage was surprising (if you go to the One True Media homepage, the slide shows they are showing on their home page are decidedly NOT impressive)-it was of the same caliber as the slide shows that iPhoto pushes out. The playback was smooth, and had the Ken Burns Effect as well as an audio track.

The good:

• The process of creating the slide show was straightforward as was creating and publishing to my personal channel.
• The quality of the slide show was better than I had expected.
• I’m using the service for free right now.

The not-so-good:

• The slide show creation process did leave me scratching my head here and there. I’m certain I did not check the audio track option, but my montage had one.
• The twenty four hour turnaround was likely less than twelve hours. However, within and hour or two would be more acceptable.
• While the slide show creation process was easy enough to get through, the user interface could use some work to get it up to snuff with today’s standards.
• The cost. After the Beta, the service looks like it would cost $3.99 per month, or, $39 for a year subscription. Personally, I don’t think I would pay that, in part because not enough of my family members have a TiVo Series 2 or 3 that is connected via broadband.

Many of the services that One True Media provides are available at no cost. None of those services wowed me that much. It seems like, from my perspective, the push to TiVo channel functionality is the site’s killer app at this point, and could be a lead-in to additional revenue. What other models might work? Micropayments might be one consideration; charging a small amount to publish a montage to a TiVo channel each time a montage is created (as opposed to paying an ongoing fee for a service that is likely only used sporadically). The service could also just be flat out free, but only allow a certain number of montages to be published each month. The idea would be to use the service as a lead-in to One True Media’s more expensive single-hit products such as a book or calendar which could be ordered from the TiVo interface.

Competition? I’d imagine we’ll see similar services like this from Apple, linking iLife to Apple TV. Apple has the infrastructure in place already, and it seems to me that Apple TV is going to need more than the ability to stream purchased iTunes media to the big screen to get people excited about it. We could also see this in Windows Vista Media Center (created by Microsoft or a third party).

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