Just Announced: Google TV

Come one, come all, here comes Google's answer to the living room. Aptly named Google TV, the geeks at Mountain View have just recently launched their new portal with videos, demos and FAQs forging the way for this autumn season's cluster of new television consumption devices. Featuring Search, Google Chrome and Adobe Flash 10.1, apps like Netflix, Twitter, CNBC, Pandora, NBA Game Time, Amazon's VOD and Gallery and even HBO, Google aggressively catapulting themselves as the God box for your living room. Eclipsing what Apple TV represents, Google is launching with just about every other company providing them content and support. Other features include, using your mobile telephone as a remote, "Fling" (the ability to send the website or show you are watching on your mobile phone with a press of a button), YouTube in full screen HD, watch and simultaneously browse and even create TV Playlists!

With my recent crashing of our Samsung UN46C8000 46-Inch 1080p 3D 240 Hz LED HDTV, I'm all for letting Google into my living room and letting the programmers do their thing. Now only if I can find a way of wiping the Samsung OS off of my television and loading up some Google TV goodness...there's an idea! Get it this fall on a Sony Internet equipped television or the new Internet Top Box by Logitech dubbed as Revue. Check out the video below!

Netflix iOS goodness

I've been using the new Netflix iOS application on my iPhone for a couple weeks now. Initially released on Thursday, August 28, 2010.  This is a wonderful addition to my already growing application library on my iPhone. This app allows you to access the Netflix Instant Streaming library of Movies, TV Shows, and Documentaries .

Cost of the App:

The Netflix iOS application is available for iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store for free. Who doesn't like free? I also have a Slingbox. To access it, via my iPhone,  I needed to purchase the SlingPlayer Mobile app ($29.99 USD) plus the cost of the Slingbox device.  When looking at how much a somewhat similar application costs to access a device you had already purchased, free is a great move by Netflix. This allows more people who do not have a Netflix account consider joining.

Netflix :

To access the content, you will need to have a Netflix account. The most basic Netflix account allows you access to 1 DVD out at-a-time and unlimited instant access for $8.99 USD per Month. Don't bother with the Limited account, you won't have access to the instant streaming library.

I've been a Netflix member for a while now and I have to say the online library gets better with each week. There have been recent agreements with studios that allow their content to be streamed online increasing the quality of the content avoidable to users.

Use:

I've had the pleasure of using the app for a couple weeks now. I've tried it out on both by home wireless network and the AT&T 3G network. I have to say, it works well. The online content streams at a resolution of 480 x 360. On my iPhone 3Gs this looks great. I can notice some jagged edges, but the normal everyday user won't see those imperfections. On a mobile device, watching online content in HD resolution is a waste. It would cause a lot more bandwidth to stream the content and the mobile device size wouldn't do it justice. The only other reason to upscale the resolution would be to connect your iPhone to a TV.

The interface is rather easy to use. The layout is simple which is good. When you start the application, you are brought to the Home menu which displays Netflix's categorized recommendation to you. If you don't want to view those recommendations there is a option to browse via Genre. If you are looking for something specific, there is a Search option available.  You also have access to your pre-existing Instant Queue. All of these feature work as they well as they should. The only improvement I would recommend to Netflix is to add the functionality of using the horizontal on screen keyboard instead of slaving me to making spelling errors with the vertical one.

I've been using the Pushing Daisies: Season 1 content as my test for this application. Using my home WiFi connection, the content load quickly and streams well. I also turn off my WiFi connection on my iPhone and do see a slight degradation in quality of the picture, but not enough to lessen my enjoyment. It's so insignificant that a normal person wouldn't see it. So big kudos to Netflix for the online content on the iPhone. The only issue that have is with switching from WiFi to 3G on the same episode. When I stopped the playback and changed to the 3G network, the app seams to have an issue with picking up where it left off. Sometimes it's able to correct itself, but often I'm having to start the show over again.

One last warning. If you already have a Netflix account and have several Netflix approved streaming devices (PS3, XBOX, Roku, Approved TV... etc.) you want to make sure you haven't reached your limit. Netflix allows for 6 devices to stream online content. Using your preferred browser counts as a streaming device. I was surprised to find out that when I added my iPhone I maxed out and was not able to watch the online content from my browser unless I removed one of the devices from my profile.

Overall:

I would recommend this app to anyone who has an iPhone and unlimited data plan. If you don't have unlimited data, you don't want to be wasting your data minutes on watching movies at work, on the bus, or on the train.  Go out there and get it! Watch some good movies on your iPhone and recommend some to me.

Additional Links:

Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/?

Official Netflix Blog: http://blog.netflix.com/2010/08/netflix-now-available-on-your-iphone.html

Sling Media: http://slingmedia.com/

Hulu and PSN: Double Plus Power!

Yesterday, there was news that the new Hulu Plus service would be available to select PlayStation Network Plus users. This is something that I've wanted on my PS3 for a while now, the ability to play Hulu content on my PS3 since they disabled it to move to the newer version of Flash. Really, this is allowing us access back to what we already had, but this time you have to pay for it. Let's break this down for a second:

The selling factor for a lot of PS3 gamers was the fact that playing online games is free. You can log into a hosted session of Call of Duty 3 and begin to start frag'n noobs with the best of them. Now they are offering their PlayStation Network Plus membership that adds a few new features; discounted prices on game purchases, early access to demos, and some "free" games that you can play as long as you're a PSN Plus member. To pick up this service you need to pay approximately $50/year to use these features. Alright, not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, Personally, I'm going to opt out of using it because I don't care to get demos early or any of the other useless options.

Now let’s look at Hulu Plus. Hulu Plus is like regular Hulu but now you have the option of watching seasons of select shows and you get to watch the same amount of commercials as the rest of us. Yes, there might be all of the 5 seasons of News Radio up there, but I'll still have to sit through commercials. I can also accomplish the same task with my subscription to Netflix, and I'm already paying for 1 disc in the mail and unlimited use of the online content. Granted the availability of some shows up there is limited to maybe 1-4 seasons, but Netflix's content database is becoming deeper as we speak. Did I mention that Hulu Plus membership is $9.99/Month? Well I just did!

Putting the two together, Hulu Plus and PSN plus, is something of a joke. I would consider a Hulu Plus subscriptions if the option to use it on my PS3 was free. Hulu's going to take $9.99/month from me already, come-on PSN be the cool kid and let me watch the content for free. Now if I really dig into it, the PS3 isn't what it was suppose to be for me, a full Home Entertainment device. Yes, I can play games, watch Blu-Ray movies, and listen to music, but it doesn't seem to go as far as to replace my laptop. If I’m going to buy into he Hulu Plus brain washing, I might as well as hook my laptop up to my LED TV via HDMI and be done with it.

PSN, give me something to excite me, like cloud based storage and DVR functionality. Think of it, I could go to a buddy’s house and ask them if they saw the last MMA fight, when they say no, I could just pull up my PSN account and start playing it from the network. I know this is a little counter-intuitive with the PSN Movies Store and some of that content, but when you any Shows or Movies from the store, you can only watch it on the PS3 you purchased it from. LAME! Also, PlayStation USA let me have that DVR attachment you've been taunting me with from your European division. That's just mean! Booo!

Double Plus Power, I'm going to have to skip it!

Playstation Blog post about Hulu Plus http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/07/14/hulu-plus-streams-its-way-to-the-ps3/

Information about PlayStaiton Plus http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-plus/