If like me you are desperate to get a token for the Joost Beta program then stay tuned to Jooster.
Mat Hall from Joost dropped me an email earlier today and has promised me a few tokens for Jooster readers, so stay tuned to the blog for details on how you can get your hands on a token.
As I have promised you two days ago, I’m bringing you new details about the Joost application: screen shots with Linux install and some interesting answers kindly provided to me by Jillian Alexander about the possible selling of Joost and the technology used.
Despite the fact that on their official site they say Joost does not yet support Linux or Macintosh, I did manage to install the most recent build on an Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (Edgy Eft), of course using wine. Although I did install CrossOver Office 5.0 on my Ubuntu I haven’t yet been able to test whether I can run Joost with COO, but I will probably do that tonight. So, all in all, it did work on Linux. I shall soon ready some videos. I specified this because Marc James-Robbins (TVP) said that: “While a Linux version is definitely on the roadmap for the future, it will be a long way off before a version is able to be released to beta testers. As we have more info, we'll keeping people up to date via the blog and forums.”
I might also get the chance of running Joost on an iMac (with BootCamp installed, to see if and how it works), although from what I’ve been told, it does not yet work under Parallels (it needs to access the graphics processing unit for some of its operations, and Parallels does not support that at the moment).
There have been some discussions on the forum about a possible Pocket PC version of Joost, considering that mobile TV has a much larger audience. One beta tester even claimed that he managed to make Joost work very well on its HP iPAQ h6340 (168 Mhz), after wirelessly connecting it to his home TV (using 802.11b).
What I can also tell you is that Joost is using the H.264 video codec, which contains a number of new features that allow it to compress video much more effectively than older standards and to provide more flexibility for application to a wide variety of network environments.
Good news also for the open source community: it appears that the Joost client is based on XUL Runner platform, utilized by the developers of Mozilla (www.mozilla.com), which means that we might actually see in the future plug-ins or skins made by regular fans. The bad news though (as confirmed by Simon Lucy-TVP) is that the entire source code of Joost will not be open sourced: “There is considerable use made of open source software and where possible we will be contributing changes back not all those changes will be acceptable to the main trunk of whichever corpus but the changes will be available.
Already we've made contributions to the Redland project and had them either accepted or the ideas incorporated.
But no, the whole of the software cannot be made open source.”
The latest build is 0.7.3.1 and cannot be installed unless you uninstall the previous version (which is odd considering that they basically have the same code- but hey, it’s a beta right?).
PCs with the Intel 815 chipset and no extra graphics card can have problems with Joost, according to one post on the forum, and you should also NOT use any other Internet-based programs like Google Earth or even Skype (those limit the bandwidth available to Joost).
Using NetLimiter, I noticed that a channel that I watched usually downloaded around 450 kbits/s, which is impressive considering that my ISP has “reserved” for me only 512. But the upload was only around 20 kilos, which in my opinion should have at least two explanations:
1. no one wanted to watch during my test the same channel as me, so the upload was somehow being made “out of reflex” (we should also consider the size of the Joost actual network, which is quite restraint)
2. there might be some kind of unfixed bug or my Internet connection was bad at that time
And now the answers to my questions, posed in an e-mail from two days ago (thanks Jillian Alexander):
1. why was "joost" chosen as a name? It does not sound as good as skype or kazaa (according to comments from my readers it's quite confusing for them: they either pronounce it "djost" or simply "jost").
Joost is universally appealing and fits with our brand values. It’s a name that has energy. Additionally it’s a word that we like to use in a variety of different ways – as a noun, a verb and adjective, etc.
2. has the Joost team signed any contracts for streaming content on the Web, besides that already signed with Universal (at least that is what I have been told: that Universal agreed to put some content on Joost network)?
Joost has a number of content providers committed to it including
Endemol
National Geographic
Gamestar
North One
September Films
3. how is Joost positioned in the Web video business compared to YouTube? will you be fierce rivals or are you perceiving your brand as complementary to youtube?
Joost is a new way of watching TV – high quality, full screen entertainment combined with the scaleable, interactive and community benefits of the internet. NO other online video servie provides the breadth of content, full-screen viewing, instant channel-flipping functionality and channel creation Joost has developed. Joost does not show user-generated content.
4. some reports emerged concerning the bandwidth used by Joost (I personally tested the app and it worked fine on my home connection). Are users supposed to be scared that Joost will "eat" their entire Internet connection?
Just to put it into context, normally a video-stream in TV quality would set you back about 70GB an hour. As that rate is not currently possible over the internet, Joost uses state of the art compressing techniques to provide broadcast quality television, while respecting the bandwidth and keeping it as low as possible. Users are asked to check they have an upper limit on their monthly internet usage or that they pay for internet usage as they go.
5. besides the IM social feature of Joost, what other features are users supposed to wait for? Will users be able to upload content on your servers?
The Joost player includes links, ratings, chats, commentary, annotations, meta information and shared viewing. Joost content can be viewed through the player, integrated into webvsites or shared via email. There will also be several additional interview details released that will tie Joost into other community sites. Joost does not show user-generated content.
6. If the business has the expected success, will you sell it to others just like you did with Skype and Kazaa?
We are unable to comment at this time.
Thank you to Playfuls for this interesting post and Dan Nicolae for the Linux photos
We were invited to participate in the Beta testing of Joost, and I set out to visit the site and download the program. The program downloaded flawlessly, and startup was abundantly simple. The program is only a 12 MB download, but requires 500 MB of disk space to use as a cache. My dinosaur system was on the fringes of the system requirements in regard to processor speed, which turned out to be a slight problem that I will get to later. Starting the user interface almost immediately produced one of the coolest surfing videos I have seen in a long time. I must say, I was held spellbound for quite a few minutes.
The quality of video and sound at Joost is rather awe inspiring! The connection comes up full screen, and I scarcely noticed the UI until after the surfing stream ended. As with most new toys, we seldom read the directions and this makes any UI evoke a gasp, "Duh". However, like any 50,000 hour Internet veteran, I could figure it out - right? As it turned out, anyone could figure it out, as the interface utilizes subtle mouse-over prompts to direct the user through one of the sharpest set of controls I have ever seen.
As Paul Glazoski mentioned in one of his earlier posts, "Rather, it's the little things that make it shine brighter than the rest." Paul sure hit this one on the head, as this interface is exactly what many of us have suggested to other sites. The menu windows are transparent, with the softest impact on view-ability you can imagine. Whoever worked on this aspect of Joost is worth more money! The menus can be either dynamic or static, and the function inside the windows is as well thought out as the exterior. One almost has to get used to the controls being so clean and simple. You can view a much better example than mine of the combination of video and UI at Svetlana's earlier post.
How Does It Drive?
As I hinted to earlier, the full screen video and audio at Joost is fantastic. I use a Sony 19" LCD and the initial surfing video was like being there. Then I had a few problems, of course! The video began to skip a good bit, as did the sound. I suspected that the problem was my processor, so I put Joost on standby (which is a cool feature) and closed the few applications I had running. This seemed to help a little bit, but most of the rest of my tour was interrupted with spaces of skipping stream. I verified my CPU usage at MAXED OUT, and went about the business of finding similar problems from other testers. To my amazement, there really were not that many people with similar problems. The range of posts was very diverse, and most video aspects were related to ports, active-x controls, and the like. I am sure my difficulty was processor speed, as it is only 1.2 GHz, and not P4.
Is It Fully Loaded?
The site has almost all the options, but the 12 disc CD changer has only a few discs. Obviously, this Beta machine is not going to have this week's broadcast of "24", but I was extremely impressed with what is available at Joost. The list of available categories is really too long to list here, so I will simply tell you of the ones I could watch best. Fifth Gear is an automotive section where I viewed a great video on the new Porsche 911 Turbo. Hot and Wet is a section with hot stuff from the beach. There is a special broadcast of Paris Hilton that demonstrates a side of her personality we have not seen in her own section. The most unique and interesting streams currently are dealing with various topics from around the world. These video segments are of excellent content and quality, and the shorts are really captivating! These in particular, took on the flavor of National Geographic presentations, but with a more personable and original tone. This site can have anything the audio/video-file could ever want, but of course adding content will be up to so many factors.
Other features include: IM compatible with both Jabber and Gmail, notice board, news ticker news feed, Joost blog, chat channel with friends, rate it, and clock (which was cool). All these features came under the UI heading My Plug-Ins, with still more to come. All these features brought with them the same eclectic simplicity and function of the other tools. I can't emphasize enough to you that all these windows and tools are transparent. Every TV on the planet should have such a well thought out interface, seriously!
Negative Aspects?
To be honest, I don't see but one. The video bugs and compatibility problems are not worked out. Really, this is a non issue given any Beta release, and most of the problems I saw posted were not so serious. Any video streaming or transfer problem seems acute when it is happening on your computer, but once they are worked out people soon forget. From my perspective, any Beta of this complexity that did not have a few problems would scare me! The only other negative aspect of my test session at Joost was my old favorite nemesis the advertisement!
No free site can exist for long without them, but couldn't someone come up with a better commercial? Well, believe it or not they did! The commercials at Joost are brilliant! In between segments, rather than a 30 second tirade about how great some hyped up product is, Joost commercials are about 3-5 seconds long. Someone at Joost fabricated a commercial that is almost startling at first. The screen changes to (for instance) Cingular, followed by a short comment with high impact imagery. It is a little difficult to describe, but these are not ordinary frames of video. I think the message is,"Hi, Look at this, got it? Thanks! Now on with the show!" Very high quality, simple messages say it all and let you enjoy the show.
This is a lot to take in all at once. I am way out on a limb here, especially given my distrust of hyped products over the years. What Joost has done here is phenomenal, but it may be the tip of the iceberg given upcoming releases by other companies. At the very least Joost represents what really smart people can come up with given the resources and imagination to do so. At the other end of the spectrum, this could very well be T.H.E. web 2.0 release of the new year. With interactive and community capabilities, combined with superior audiovisual output and content, Joost looks like they are going to deliver on the promise. The bottom line is I gotta get a better processor!
Below is a screen from inside Joost. Capturing a still frame was difficult, but note the relative clarity behind the transparent UI. These elements can be customized to suit the user. Most frames set to the corners and set to static are virtually unnoticeable.
Yes, I have been testing the application since January 10, and trust me, it’s truly amazing.
It’s quite extraordinary to just think that I have probably been among the very few people in the world (around 200) who had the chance of testing the Venice Project from the beginning of the beta tests (except for its developers, of course).
The story goes like this: when the first rumors about the Venice Project came out, I immediately visited the previous official site (theveniceproject.com) and filled in the form for a beta-tester account (that was somewhere in October).
After that I have had no news from them until last week. On January 10 I received an e-mail which informed me that my request has been accepted and that I can now log in with the e-mail ID and the password included in the e-mail.
Of course, I immediately downloaded the 9.54 MB application from the site and logged in. Unfortunately, there was a glitch: I could not disclose any information about my experience with the TVP (the name of the application) because of the famous NDA (non disclosure agreement), Just as the e-mail said:
“Today, we're inviting you to take a sneak preview of our work and take part in The Venice Project's first beta testing phase. This is a private, invitation-only beta test and the software is still in the early stages, but we would greatly value your opinions. We ask that you agree to abide by our terms and conditions and privacy policy as part of your participation in the beta program. So please don't give the application to anybody else, or even show it to them. It's very early days for us, and we want to make sure that the right people see the right software, at the right time.”
It was somehow frustrating not to be able to share with anyone the extraordinary experience Joost offers. But the agreement stated clear: “during the period commencing on the date you agree to these terms and ending on the date that the Platform becomes generally available […] you hereby agree to keep confidential and to not disclose to any third party any information or data that you receive, directly or indirectly, related to the Platform or its technology, and/or the business, operations, projects, goods and, services, plans and activities, or the existence of the trial” (damn lawyers…).
Since the Skype founders launched the new site (joost.com) I thought the NDA is no longer in action so I e-mailed them this morning. Fortunately, Kate Larkin, from the veniceproject.com responded in due time, confirming not only their full support for my early review of the TVP, but also begging me to excuse them for the “variety of technical problems with the site” from last night (I haven’t had any problems last night with Joost but had there been any, I would have blamed my ISP rather than their servers)
Ok, that was the introduction that should clear out any legal problems I might have.
So what is so special about Joost? Well, to be honest, everything. The fact that you have access to any TV program you like (of course, we’re talking about TV channels that have agreed to stream their content in the beta-version of Joost) is simply amazing. Music, documentaries, sports, you name it. And all this while you read a .pdf document or archive a folder. That’s right: you can resize the window of Joost/TVP to fit in just one corner of your PC’s screen; you can then concentrate on something else, with your earphones on, listening to the music from MTV or hearing what Bush has to say about Iraq (I personally enjoyed a making-of-video documentary about Paris Hilton featured on MTV, in which she said she has brains…).
The menus inside the Joost application have a nice, glass-like effect (something that you also see in the Aero or XGL desktop) and allow you to clearly see what is “underneath”. I guess some of you have already seen the pictures provided on the joost.com site or those previously posted on flickr.com
The highlighted feature turns orange and you have some additional buttons: a small i, for information about the program/show you are watching and a small arrow which indicates that there is even more to learn about the program (click on the target, Enter or simply push the right arrow button on your keyboard).
The scrolling between channels is easy and intuitive, and very responsive (but I don’t know how responsive it will be when the TV streaming in the background will overlap with gathering the infos about new channels or the existing ones).
What I mostly liked was the social Internet-TV experience you get: as you can see in one of the photos, everyone will have access to a “My Venice” (or My Joost) feature. You will be able to rate the channel (and hopefully, even a particular show-that will be one of my propositions for them) that you are viewing, while in the same time talking on Channel Talk or Google Talk (yeah, they are present here too) which are two different IM channels. You also get your news delivered in real time thanks to the News Ticker you see in the pics. All these windows (including a clock) are transparent, and can be moved on the screen.
You can also search for specific channels (but the search still needs some serious improvements) and in the future we will probably have the possibility to search for specific shows. Everything works on the same basis as Kazaa or Skype: every logged-in user becomes a signal-carrier for others. The more users are connected, the better the signal. Of course, it is recommended to have a broaband Internet connection, but the application is said to work fine even on sluggish networks (I didn't test that, but it was specified on the site). The P2P network will be ad-driven (I have already seens some advertisement to T-mobile).
My overall impression is that despite what other news agencies have said (probably without having access to the real TVP client) Joost is NOT a YouTube killer. Most likely they will continue to co-exist for a long time, simply because Joost is a P2P TV application while YouTube is a user generated video site, where everyone posts (almost) whatever they want (which you cannot do on TV). Joost doesn't bring a better alternative to the Internet video, it brings TV to the Internet, thus becoming complementary to YouTube, rather than its rival.ç
Thanks to Playfuls for the excellent review
I took Joost for a test drive this morning, and it looks pretty slick besides the occasional beta bugs (for instance, it isn't working with IE or Safari right now for some reason). Joost uses a local video player client that interacts with the Web to stream videos using an H.264 video codec, and there's a modified Mozilla browser built over it all so the client will work with pretty much any OS.
I don't know how Joost's proprietary codec works, but I like what I've seen so far. The video streamed smoothly and the quality was very good, even at full screen resolution, and the stereo sound was clear and crisp. Channel changing did take some time, though. Channels and content are heavily weighted toward the 16-24 crowd; viral-ish stuff, pop-flavored rockumentaries, extreme sports footage, and so on.There are also widget-like plugins, like news tickers, a clock, a rating tool for rating videos, and an IM plugin that lets you use your Google Talk or Jabber account to IM through the service. (Click here to check out the on-screen widgets). Navigation takes a bit of getting used to, as Joost has opted not to use the typical Windows navigation symbols, but give it a few minutes and you'll be fine.
There isn't a lot of content yet, but as it's still an invitation-only beta product, that's to be expected. It's hard to judge a video service separate from its content though, since a video service is only as good as the video clips it delivers. Joost has the technical prowess to satisfy the video-watching crowd that wants a better picture and sound, but whether going after original content leads to a more compelling product than one that relies on user-generated/submitted stuff remains to be seen.
Thanks to Appscout for the review. Im still waiting.... anyone got a token they want to give me?
To start off, how do you move the video around? Do you have a CDN, or is it straight peer to peer?
Fredrik de Wahl: We have a hybrid peer-to-peer approach. P2P delivery is great for very popular content--for things that are really challenging when you want to have mass distribution. For less popular content, P2P does not provide the best technical solution.
In these circumstances, a centralized distribution mechanism actually has very few problems and provides the best solution for the end user. So what we have done is taken an approach to this where we have a "long-tail storage system" which is acting as a seeding server for the network. The LTS is the originating point in the system and also the fallback in case for some reason the content does not reside on the P2P network. There's absolutely no way [for the user] to determine how and where the user gets the content from and that's the reason we designed Joost like that--the viewing experience is all about getting the content in full-screen, high-resolution, and the technology is acting in the background. The viewer of Joost just gets an extraordinary viewing experience from the technology.
If it's P2P, where does the content actually live on a user's machine? It's not only a P2P network, it's P2P streaming. Everything is delivered to the end user or the viewer in bits and bytes which are a proprietary standard, and each packet is encrypted. Different packets are then cached after being viewed on your machine much like cached Web content from your Web browser, with the difference being that we then pass it on to others when they want to watch it. Everything originates from the long-tail storage server in Luxembourg, and then if the content is also available in caches, the caches will start to chip in. When there's enough content in the different caches, you can stream everything just from the peers. Are these Long-Tail Stations like Skype's "supernode" architecture? Does Joost own them or are they users?
How much bandwidth do you need to sustain the high resolution of Joost?
We are today working toward a half-meg DSL connection...the application absolutely works on that. But we are in the beta phase, and there may be circumstances where that's not enough. I normally recommend 1MB even though our specs are built around using half a meg.
So will it work over mobile networks like EV-DO?
The bandwidth of such networks is quite different and the availability of uplink and downlink is a little bit different. However, the technology itself can be ported to such platforms. Our technology has a very platform-independent consciousness. For instance, the client itself is based on Mozilla, a very portable and secure platform. We use an H.264 codec, which is a very portable platform. We're not locked into a PC codec on any platform. Another example is SVG. Our user interface is projected on top of the media with a transparent look and feel to it. So that user interface is made in SVG, a very portable standard for moving to different platforms which is most commonly used in 3G cell phones. For us to go to a new platform, we're talking a development time of weeks, not months, and certainly not years. It's more of when the hardware is available in terms of processing power and storage and when bandwidth is suitable, that's when we would move to different devices.
I noticed a WB logo on your site, is that a content partnership that is already in place? What kind of partnerships are you looking for?
Right now in the test phase, it's important that the content also represent the test phase. We have comedy, sports, and music; content which is very appropriate for the early adopters and beta testers. Examples of content providers are Warner Music, Endemol, a production company, September Films, and indie-car racing. After we grow and invite more people, we'll add more content.
Will you be soliciting user-generated video submissions?
No, that we will not do, for two reasons. We're all about the TV experience--full-length programming, full-screen viewing, and high quality not only in terms of entertainment value but in terms of resolution. All of our programming is put into channels and you never stop viewing something--there's always something following, as with TV. And replicating this TV experience has a lot of value to viewers. People spend a lot of time watching TV still, even though there are a lot of negative things about TV, such as you lock yourself into one location, you lock yourself in time, and there are limited interactive features. We take these TV features, bring them onto the Internet, and empower users with Internet technologies. That said, user-generated content does not really match the fundamental philosophy we have today about the TV experience. We are not in the business of small clips, short clips, and low resolution. And also there are the copyright infringement concerns with these self-uploading mechanisms. We have chosen not to enable that on the platform. That may change in the future when the two big factors--quality concerns and infringement concerns--are solved. That said, we will allow smaller production companies to upload. We're unlocking a huge "mid-tail" section of the content industry which does not have an outlet today.
What process will these small-scale video producers go through to get their content on Joost?
We have a manual startup process--you're in a dialogue with us and you sign a contract, so we have a personal relationship with everyone. Of course, that will not scale so we're automating that process. Due to the fact that different content providers use different formats, this is also an experimentation process for us and the entire content industry and how we'll go digital. Our quality desires are very very high--we are looking for higher-resolution and better quality media that we can transcode into a DVD-like experience on the Web.
Thanks to Appscout and PCmag for the story.
Zennström and Friis have day jobs as Skype's CEO and executive vice president of innovation, respectively. But in the cute way that Internet billionaires can do whatever the hell they want, they're teeing up the mother of all side projects.
"It's really pretty simple," Friis says, shifting into mantra mode. "We've taken the best things about television and added the best things from the Internet."
Can they wrestle the broadcast beast onto the Net? Friis and Zennström are players now, big names with a fearsome track record. Even more amazing (or scary, if you're a TV insider), they have zero stake in the traditional media pillars. They don't own shows, channels, or networks. They don't have billion-dollar ad deals to protect. Steve Jobs has married Walt Disney. Jeff Bezos is dating Hollywood. Google, the ur-online software company, is building a globe-girdling web of proprietary pipes and monster servers. And along come these two Eurogeeks -- where the hell is Denmark, anyway? -- toting serial-killer technology, a multimillion-dollar checkbook, a blank slate, and a crazy dream.
To pull that off, the history of both the Internet and television suggest an obvious price point: zero. "The ultimate value of Skype is free phone calls," says Friis, who cheerfully mixes rabble-rousing populism and cold-eyed business. "The ultimate value of what we're doing here is free TV."
The bad thing about being Internet rock stars is the temptation to jump into things that most people with a billion dollars would instinctively flee. The good thing is that you might actually succeed. Zennström and Friis have made larger-than-life careers of tackling ever bigger opportunities. Each time, they've dragged a hidebound industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Broadcasters, watch your backs.
At Skype's sleek London headquarters, the two Vikings are penned in a small glass-walled conference room. Zennström is still under the gun to prove the wisdom of eBay's purchase. He has confidence, though, in his recipe for turning bit-powered ideas into money-spinning businesses. "You can't just put a technology out there and hope there will be a business in it," he says. "You have to put together a whole consumer offering, a great instantaneous experience. A simple service that fills an obvious need and can be offered for free."
Read the most comprehensive article written to date on the Joost project.
Thanks to Wired News and Spencer Reiss.
I did it for an hour before I remembered that I’m actually supposed to review the thing. I guess there’s no greater praise, but for those who like details, I’ve included the details as well. So, here’s what I think about Joost, the latest project from the authors of Skype, formerly dubbed as the Venice Project, for whose beta I was lucky to be invited a couple of days ago.
Read the rest of this article here.
I am just itching to get an invite... anyone from Joost out there? please....
Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the duo that brought the world Skype and Kazaa, have chosen a name for their new online-video start-up.
The two want people hungry for Internet entertainment to roost at Joost.
Company executives had referred to the new company for months by the codename "The Venice Project." They chose Joost because they like the ring of it, according to a spokeswoman. The word doesn't have any meaning in Danish or Swedish--Friis' and Zennström's respective native tongues.
The plan, according to Joost CEO Fredrik de Wahl, is to offer studios, cable stations and anyone else who wants to distribute high-quality video over the Internet, a fast, efficient and cheap distribution method. To do this, the company will rely on the peer-to-peer technology that helped Friis and Zennström build Skype and Kazaa.
Their sparkling track record of creating hit companies aside, Friis and Zennström face a crowded field of competitors, such as YouTube and Apple, which are already well on their way to establishing themselves as video-distribution platforms.
Most important, Joost has yet to strike any marquee partnerships with top film or TV producers. Without them, the company's challenge is a tough one: convincing studio executives and the like to turn over their content to Joost when it has yet to attract a big audience.
BitTorrent, the San Francisco-based distributor of a competing peer-to-peer company, is also vying to license technology to Internet video companies. Another threat could come from the growing number of sites that offer top cable and movie channels without permission. One such company, TVU Networks, made a splash last summer by offering soccer fans the ability to watch World Cup matches on their PC. For a while, TVU Networks was offering HBO, CNN, the Disney Channel and NBAtv before many of those companies forced TVU to cease the practice.
What Joost has going for it is that the software replicates the TV viewing experience better than many of the other companies trying to wed TV to the PC. And this is a time when Hollywood is experimenting with the Internet. During the past year, Warner Bros. cut distribution deals with Guba, a little-known video-sharing site, and BitTorrent, a company that many consider to be synonymous with digital piracy.
Joost's nifty technology may be enough to sway the entertainment industry to place a bet on proven winners in Friis and Zennstrom.
A menu allows users to switch channels with a click of a link. Users will also have TiVo-like control of the content and access to any show offered regardless of time of day. They can also can skip ahead or backward within a show.
The Luxembourg-based company will support itself with advertising, specifically Internet ads that behave just like TV commercials.
"These are the kind of ads that the TV industry and viewers understand," de Wahl said.
Thanks to zdnet, and Joost Blog
This is a new blog to track the launch and success of Joost.
Heres what they have to say about themselves:
Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds. We're in the process of making it as TV-like as we can, with programmes, channels and adverts. You can also see some things that we think will enhance the TV experience: searching for programmes and channels, for example, as well as social features like chat. There are many more new features to come!
Currently, channels are like playlists of videos. You can flip between channels, or use the programme guide to choose a channel or a video to watch. The channels start when you play them and not at any particular day or time. If you let them continue they will loop round to the beginning again. If you change channel and then switch back again, you'll start at the beginning of the programme again. In later versions we will have different kinds of channels, including ones that behave more like ordinary TV channels. Occasionally, you may see an advert.
