Reports that Joost is now talking to hardware vendors about embedding Joost into set-top boxes and televisions will change the market as we know it.
While Joost is generally now regarded as the leader in the television over internet, the market for watching television on a computer remains limited. Sure it’s nice for a lark or good for an occasional break, but as Microsoft has proven with its attempts to bring a computer into the livingroom with Windows Media Center, computers as a focal point for watching television is not a popular idea. Recent reports even have the Apple TV box going the way of the Apple Lisa, straight into the dustbin of failed convergence history.
Joost on an actual TV set without the need for a computer is a different proposition.
Millions of American’s pay for cable television services that require a set top box. Imagine Joost becoming available for free on these boxes, or better still embedded directly into television sets; Joost is currently discussing this very option. Millions of people world wide will be upgrading to next generation BlueRay and HDDVD players in the coming years, imagine Joost embedded as standard in these players. Network devices that play video and music from a network alongside standard DVD’s from companies such as Netgear and Zensonic are growing in popularity, the move to include Joost in these sorts of devices seems like a natural progression.
Of course there are still issues to be worked out. Viewing quality on Joost isn’t perfect and the need for high speed broadband is a given. Presuming that these will be overcome with time will result in a product that married with a television set will deliver a choice that many will happily embrace, after all free is the ultimate price point in a crowded marketplace. Millions, tens even hundreds of millions of people who aren’t fussed with watching television on their PC’s are suddenly dealt into the Joost world. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice but with Joost’s founders it could well become three in a row in terms of phenomenal startups. I’m also looking forward to the day I can sit back on my couch and surf Joost, it’s a much more appealing proposition than doing so from my computer.
(in part via El Reg)
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Not surprising. This kind of stuff should be expected. things have been converging to IP for a long time now and the WSJ reported on tvs being wired to the web last year. It won’t be like what was seen in the past. it’s not going to be surfing websites but more like tv as you know it with cool features like tivo, etc.
this is just IP replacing traditional broadcast networks, or convergence. expect it
The Archos TV+ would be the first VOD set-top-box with Flash video streaming support, all codecs up to 720p with HDMI output, up to 500GB 3.5″ HDD and connects to a pocket WiFi connected video player.
It’d be great if Joost would be integrated to work on such set-top-box, together with Sopcast, octoshape, zattoo, maxtv, pplive and all kinds of other live p2p video streaming technologies. As long as people have more than 1mbit/s in upload, they should be able to get DVD quality live video over p2p.
Nice one. They’d have to provide a Joost client for Linux also, since that’s what’s mostly running in those settop box or TV environments. Hopefully they’ll also make it available for download.
On another note: how would they handle the p2p aspect in embedded clients, would they be forced to offer x gigabytes of internal storage? Otherwise these devices would just be taking from the network, but not giving back.
about one month ago, I made same forecasting for joost. now it seems natural, great:) http://titanoasis.com/blog/200.....evolution/
do you guys just make this crap up as you go along? you can embed all the crap web streaming software you like into as many boxes as you like, the basic problem that the webs cable infrastructure is just too slow and too unreliable and the video quality is shockingly bad (HD my Arse). Writing like this just cements the notion that you have no idea what you’re talking about!
Furthermore, it will take years, maybe decades, for all of this hardware to become ’standard’ even if it does work and Joost isn’t even out of beta, if it ever will be.
Joost is a innovation which will change the way we percieve Entertainment over net.
Embedded Joost Will Change The Market - OBVIOUSLY!
So this is basically just Comcast’s OnDemand, but with Joost providing the content and selling the box, instead of the cable company?
I mean, the technology behind it is obviously different, but as far as the user is concerned, this isn’t a new thing, it’s just a different set of content and a new box to buy or bill to pay.
I don’t know, it doesn’t seem all that revolutionary to me. Especially since Joost still doesn’t have a lot of compelling content.
Browsing Joost from the couch? I did that yesterday:
1) Put Macbook Pro in the living room so you can see it from the couch
2) Start joost
3) Control joost with the Mac remote from the couch
Optionally put an audio jack in the laptop to connect it to living room sound system. If you have a big screen TV or a projector you could plug in a DVI jack to get Joost on a bigger display.
This should work with other macs with remotes as well. ie. iMac, MacBook, Mac Mini.
Media Center is down but not out. It is having problems becuase there are problems with Cablecards. The problem with TV is that you just can not watch YouTube (or for that matter Soapbox, I am a Microsoft fanboy) on TV. When Soapbox (or YouTube) reaches good enough quality, mark my words, Media Center will arrive.
Obviously, as you may have guessed, embedded Joost is a bad idea.
I totally agree that internet-tv providers like Joost will change the face of TV to the average viewer. Joost does have a ways to go to get their interface reliable, but this is part of a major change towards internet-tv as a major content-provider. This shift is much like the shift towards dvr’s in my opinion.
http://brentevans.blogspot.com.....as-we.html
Emma - although blunt- you are right on!
But this is the line that makes me laugh - “While Joost is generally now regarded as the leader in the television over internet”.
500K registered users (i am one too - but not using it), a few million in funding, a lot of hype, and a new CEO does not make a company the “leader in television over the internet”.
Duncan - how about Techcrunch doing a survey of registered Joost users to see what they really think of this service - you might be enlightened!
I was a beta tester and Joost has a long way to go, a long way. It slowed my PC to a snails pace. God knows what it would do to my already slower than molasses set top box. Even if that is fixed, as Emma and G already stated, HFC plant is shared and the MSOs bread and butter is CATV so joost packets will go to the bottom in terms of QoS priority. Furthermore, the MSOs can block Joost traffic in a heartbeat. Mike can try and may be successful in getting some MSOs as partners whereby they don’t block traffic but the dude moved to London. If that was his plan wouldn’t he stick around? Didn’t Doerr already try this? Remember @Home Network?
@ Emma, nobody’s saying the infrastucture can support it entirely right now, because it can’t. But, believe me, that’s changing fast. Lots of people on the back end are working on it. Not only will it improve over the next two years, but the convergence of the networks will continue - so actually players in the space positioning for that now are actually kinda smart. I can remember when internet video couldn’t work - at all - on the web because it was too slow. Now, YouTube.
It’s no different than VoIP eight years ago - it was just an idea and just starting out, then, too. Now, obviously, VoIP works and millions of people use it.
There is huge evolution on the back end of the internet in addition to the front. It’s smart to pay attention to both because then things like this make sense
Emme is absolutely right. Anybody who understands the basic telco/cable infrastructure knows that it will be a very, very long time before any form of “television over the internet” be it Joost, IPTV or any of the many VOD-products, will become a reliable mainstream product, even in those places where there is currently decent broadband available.
It just isn’t going to work, and there isn’t enough of an incentive for the owners of the infrastructure to make it work. The revolution may come, but it’s not going to be anytime soon.
How long before ISPs start blocking Joost?
@ Rick, four to five years is what all the engineers I know have said. I think it’ll be at least 4-6. I have eight years of telecom infrastructure experience, starting with voip moving into convergence including all of this stuff, have sat in on tons of analyst calls on the infrastructure side, and spent every Tuesday learning about all of it on calls with a pretty experienced engineer whose company is building it.
It isn’t that far away.
ps3 does this already, it can stream data from Digital Media Server (audio, video, image, radio) and its browser can play flash but not joost. joost is 480p standard def, proprietary codec approach is somewhat dated, they should make codec availale for all players/browsers not just theirs.
I see cable providers / companies unable to compete with the delivery of content. However they still own the infrastructure. The best thing they can do is charge the customer for bandwidth (don’t leave your joost settop box on all day). I think it will go two ways…great broadband wireless, or fiber to the home (which are both offered) + better codecs for delivery…I see great high quality IPTV to your HDTV in 2 years. It will be a long time before we get any really good high quality User Generated Content though. So the major networks will still dominate IPTV good quality content. And Yes. The beta of joost is a no go for now! http://www.im.com -Instant Media I have found to be some of the highest quality content. Not streaming however. The Future is exciting!
“…computers as a focal point for watching television is not a popular idea.”
so true. one set top box is enough. the video on demand providers need to partner with the tivos and comcasts if they want to get anywhere.
This is an interesting development that I’ve been predicting, especially following comments made by Joost’s new CEO (ex-Cisco guy).
http://www.last100.com/2007/06.....ox-future/
Also, UK broadcasters are built into Freeview digital TV boxes.
Hi Duncan. You reporting some great stuff man these days. Keep up the good work.
Wait, I thought Bittorrent was generally now regarded as the leader in the television over internet.
Come on now.. this is SO lame…. What is so unique about Joost?? MTV, G4, TechTV etc… and so on have been doing the very same in different variations off and on for years…! I’d put my money on the telcos and cable companies creating interactivity within their existing set top boxes as a software upgrade to compete with Joost. They did it with TIVO they will do it with Joost. Why am I nearly the only one who has the blueprint? Joost is DOA because of the download anyway, seems like a waste of time to be tooting them up without acknowledging these huge weaknesses. I’d like to think there is a more universal solution that doesn’t involve buying another TV set, because soon, everyone is going to get blipd!
Not sure why any MSO would allow this - Joost online is a threat and if they help Joost in distribution today, tomorrow with fatter pipes and “thin” TVs/ network appliances, it would eliminate MSOs
I like Joost, and the non-tech people I’ve showed it to are impressed as well. There are slight quality and speed issues occasionally, but I’m viewing it on a 100″ projection, so I expect that with anything sub-HD.
The thing to remember is this doesn’t necessarily have to be number one, or domainate, to succeed. They need to please their advertisers and content providers. So far, the content, the advertising, and the experience as a user are a ton better than anything else, and I think they’ll continue to be successful.
It’s going to be tough for cable companies to change current set-top boxes into P2P-enabled systems, so I don’t think anyone has a particular head start here.
And if people like Ty are right, great. If you think MTV, G4, and TechTV are doing the same thing I don’t think you maybe have not used Joost yet, but again, if you’re right you’ll have saved yourself some time and or money by being so cutting edge.
I would use Joost just to avoid ever having to get my ‘Strangers with Candy’ DVDs out again or save them locally. I don’t even have my cable box plugged into my TV anymore, I just use it if I want to save something to an HD stream.
Joost is cute, sleek, but come on… “generally now regarded as the leader in the television over internet”?
Anyone here ever heard of DivX? They’ve already successfully embedded their Internet video technology into devices. Their codec been enabling video to be played back on the TV for years now, and from the looks of it, they’ll be expanding beyond just providing a codec with their new connected hardware play: http://www.engadget.com/2007/0.....-revealed/
which could be a killer platform to enable all types of content to flow to the TV easily and cheaply (if that’s even a word). Combine that with services like Joost, their own high-def YouTube, Stage6.com, BitTorrent (yeah!) and now we’re talking!
But, alas, as many of you point it, it won’t be as quick and easy as we’d all like to imagine to get all of this “embedded” into set-top-boxes, through MSOs, and into consumer hands. But its exciting to see guys like Joost and DivX go for it, rather than the Media Center and VIIVs of the past 5 years…
Recent reports even have the Apple TV box going the way of the Apple Lisa, straight into the dustbin of failed convergence history.
Not if they’re putting direct YouTube watching capabilities, Geek Ball.
The problem with tv over the internet is quality. I believe this is one of the core reasons the appletv will fail. It has an hdmi connection and its marketed at big screen hdtv’s, but for customers who are accustomed to even broadcast hd, the appletv quality looks ipod quality - intolerable junk. Until we can get the bandwidth in our homes, or some really nifty compression, its just not going to happen.
Apple TV is the 2007 version of the Newton 1994.
And the hype of Joost seems to have died, lately.
I still want to see TV the way I described it a few months ago:
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....o-you-want
Joost is a great idea (although I’ve never personally used it as no one has invited me
) I definitely agree that the cable companies will probably squash this idea though which is kinda sad.
Joost has done a great job making watching TV on a laptop a viability, TV 2.0 if you will, in the same the founders did of making phone calls on a laptop @ Skype. Jaman http://www.jaman.com by contrast is redefining the way people watch movies - Social Cinema in high definition or Movies 2.0 and already 4 times as many movies available for download as Apple’s iTunes.
This makes no sense to me either. Joost is TV on the Internet, but it is like cable TV because the only content on Joost are content deals Joost makes - mostly with those already with other broadcast outlets. So why would cable want that? They have that already. So it’s on demand. Between Tivo and On Demand, I think we have that already also. And, as someone pointed out…. the big companies own the tubes (to steal a phase from Senator Stevens). So all this is is convergence that you have to pay the cable company or the telco for any way — either as TV or super-high-speed broadband access. And you can subscribe already to the content the infrastructure folks provide — much of it commercial free — or you can watch Joost, which in this world looks to me like simply another kind of network — one with worse content.
The promise of video on the net is freedom from the walled gardens, a place where anyone can be a broadcaster, using standardized encoding and software to be available to anyone anytime. And Google can help me find what I am looking for. So I don’t know how this will play out really, but I think Duncan is missing a level of sophistication in his praise.
I’m late to the joost party having just downloaded it on my MCE PC yesterday, I’m loving it. I have my PC in my living room between my sub and my plasma and I can surf joost from my couch with my wireless keyboard. It is changing the TV watching experience for sure. of course, you do need a fast connection and hook it up to your TV and entertainment system to really enjoy it, watching it on your laptop or desktop monitor just ain’t the same.
Joost in a CATV network is not as high-overhead as you’d think. True video on demand is high overhead, and you do not want to be doing that for the Daily Show. Deploying practical video on demand in an IP based CATV network is a different story.
I think the real significance of Joost’s P2P strategy is for CATV deployments where everyone is using a settop box running their software. In this type of environment, you have 100-400 nodes that share a network segment. If each of these nodes is both a P2P relay and storage server, you can do some really interesting things without clogging the upstream network.
Assume each of these boxes has 500GB of disk or thereabouts in 2008 (and more each year), and the system is configured so each program is stored on at least 2 different boxes. This means you have about 25-100TB of shared storage on each network segment. That’s enough for 25,000 to 100,000 hours of standard definition programming, and 2,500 to 10,000 of HD, depending on encoding format.
That’s enough to cache the majority of the stuff that people are likely to want to watch using a brute force tactic. Add other smarts like syncing the set top boxes with Netflix and Blockbuster watchlists, and you can record even more stuff 24/7, available for local playback as needed.
The point here is that bandwidth is not the issue. It is storage. If every set top box is a P2P Tivo, more or less, then you can background record virtually everything within a local subnet, and know that there is a 99% chance you can copy it off your neighbors set top box.
So yes, Joost’s P2P system is broken if its throttled by the CATV provider. But if Joost is in the cable box and CATV network itself, their system will work very well. As with Skype, I think they’re ahead of everyone here, and have spotted something that went unnoticed by most.
Watching TV on the Internet is hardly a lark! In Europe, nearly 50% of broadband users watch TV online. Watching TV series (not just downloaded but streamed) is both hugely popular in Europe and South Korea - because the shows are usually broadcast on national TV channels 6 months to one year later than in the US. Watching them online is a huge attraction.
Read: America lags behind Europe and S Korea in watching TV Online
@ Emily, yes. Everybody knows.
Emily
you are right of course, I was thinking more in context of the Joost experience, I’m in Australia with the exact same issues you have in Europe with the delays and what not, although having said that the experience isn’t the same…and for me at least I usually stream the downloaded stuff through my Zensonic Z500 to my TV
MyTVPAL.COM is 1000 + Free TV channels and Thousand of Hours of Free movies, documentaries, extreme sports, in DVD and 1080p high definition on PC Player for PC and set top box for TV.
Free high definition PC Player = http://www.mytvpal.com
Why should big networks work with Joost? They lose the current model that delivers 15 minutes an hour of commercials through a variety of distributors (cable, broadcast) with a single outlet (Joost) that only shows three minutes of ads. Now you may not like ads but that’s what keeps the network guys in their BMWs. What’s in Joost for them?
What makes you think Joost is the leader in Internte video? ABC.com is streaming miillions and millions of episodes of their TV shows over the MoveNetworks infrastructure. Its cheap, fast, very high quality, and their is no download — just a plugin like Flash.
This would be interesting, but you cant forget about the network.
Why have Comcast, AT&T, etc not rolled out their own IPTV solutions yet? Because the network can’t handle it. And even when joost, a pure IP solution is launched, trust me, the network owners will be able to provide a much better “switched broadcast” type product in a few years that will obliterate Joost unless they get some serious content.
IP based solutions are great, but limited to the bandwidth to the home (don’t forget that a 6mbps connection from comcast should be thought of as a 1.5mbps connection with burst potential to 6mbps - ie if everyone on your node is “joosting” it ain’t gonna work.)
watch live tv and free movies on http://www.freetv4ever.blogspot.com
I’m over Joost already. I didn’t find much there. Also, I tried opening again the other day and it indicated that I needed to upgrade it, for the second time. That’s like any TV show, if it’s not good and consistent, people lose interest and move on to something else.
What’s going to happen is this - people will migrate from their TV’s when computers are as simple to use, as versatile and have as much content (or even less) that Cable - because the price will be right. How does “free” sound. It used to be free over the airwaves, now it is free over the Internet.
TVMama.com and JuicedonJoost.com both are following these developments:
yeah at some point
- the Idea that is now “UnPopular”
- will become “Popular” - how does this compare with Unbox? … by Amazon
For Joost to me a success, it’s gotta have good content. I’ve been testing it out for months now and so far there’s nothing to keep me interested enough to want it in a set top box or any other device. I’ve watched a Spider-man cartoon or two, but other than that, I find myself heading for the TV remote.
“I’m also looking forward to the day I can sit back on my couch and surf Joost, it’s a much more appealing proposition than doing so from my computer.”
Well, I can already do this. I bought video and audio cables to connect my Macbook to my TV. Then, I use the remote control that came provided on my Mac and can surf the programs, play and pause them right from my couch while my Macbook sits on the other side of the room…
“While Joost is generally now regarded as the leader in the television over internet…”
This non-thinking rubbish pisses me off. Joost is the “leader” in the sense that people write stuff about it over here in the West because the founders have used all their marketing savvy to get attention.
You go to China or Japan or Hong Kong. There you’ll find millions of simultaneous users logged on to services like pplive, ppstream, uusee, maxtv, etc. And they’ve all designed their own p2p backends that can stream stuff in watchable quality even to people watching in the West.
And yeah, as someone else mentioned: television over the internet = bittorrent, this side of the pacific.
I think its too early to call Joost a leader. They have excellent timing and potential but its too early. At any point any of the big networks can throw money at the problem and push ahead of Joost. What Joost has going for it…
1. Amazing technology timing, Joost was in Beta when everyone realized internet connectivity and user density is finally fast enough.
2. Great social timing, users love online and on demand, just look at YouTube and Launch from Yahoo.
3. Good economic timing, the rest of the world is waking up to the internet, they cannot afford cable, satellite, and fast internet. They choose the latter.