streaming-video

LAS VEGAS--When Looxcie, the wearable video recorder, came out last year, we thought it was a bit over the top: "The completely awkward-looking earpiece/camcorder fits the bill for William Gibson-style folk who fear ever missing a moment of reality that can't be recorded."

Now, at CES this week, the folks behind Looxcie say that they will take things even further when, in the first half of 2011, they release LooxcieLive, the first wearable live video streaming from Looxcie headsets to iPhones and Android phones.

Yes, it is now so easy to share our lives with those … Read more

I've got something special today. A few months back, I approached AppSumo (known for putting together great software and service bundles) about creating a package that would benefit charity.

They agreed, so I got to work rounding up some of my favorite programs, games, Web services, and so on. And I'm happy to share the result: The Windows Holiday Bundle for Charity. It has a combined value of $220, but a sale price of just $19.

For every bundle sold, AppSumo will give a full 40 percent of the proceeds to Charity:Water, which provides clean drinking water … Read more

Adobe Systems' Flash Media Server software is now available as a pay-as-you-go option on the Amazon Web Services cloud-computing technology, the companies announced Wednesday.

Flash Media Server 4 lets customers send streaming video across the Net. By using it hosted on AWS' Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, customers don't have to worry so much about installation and configuration details.

The service costs a flat rate of $5 to set up and $5 per month to use, with variable costs according to the video-streaming capacity needed and data transferred. For example, an extra-large server instance that can manage up to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The iPad and other tablets might be the future for a lot of media, but Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a panel discussion at the Web 2.0 Summit this afternoon that the tablet craze affects his company's strategy "very little."

"People prefer large screens," Hastings said. "So the impact of Xbox, PS3, the Wii phenomenon--huge impact. The impact of the iPad--it's a great system, but the Mac laptops outstrip the iPad for Netflix viewing by a huge factor." Long-form video viewing does not translate that well to mobile platforms, … Read more

YouTube Grabber & Accelerator is a free YouTube downloader that actually works well, even in Windows 7. It's also a download accelerator that speeds downloads by simultaneously combining multiple threads as they're downloaded and displays useful data while it's doing it.

Downloading Flash videos from YouTube and other video sharing sites with YouTube Grabber & Accelerator is as easy as copying and pasting a URL. We browsed to YouTube and selected some short animation. We copied the page's URL from our browser's address bar into YouTube Grabber and clicked Start. A compact download dialog opened … Read more

Hey, PBS! How do you expect to make any money if you give away your app?

I'm kidding, of course. I love free stuff, especially when it's awesome free stuff like PBS for iPad. The new app streams full-length episodes of shows like "Antiques Roadshow," "Carrier," "NOVA," and the much-ballyhooed new "Sherlock Holmes."

It also serves up "PBS NewsHour," "Austin City Limits" performances, and previews of nearly everything else in PBS' prime-time lineup. (Alas, previews are all you get of PBS Kids. If you want full-length episodes of, say, "Sesame Street" and "WordGirl," you'll have to pony up for them in the iTunes Store.) … Read more

Apple really is making good on its promise to ease the restrictions that previously plagued developers such as PlayOn. The service initially had to rely on Safari power to bring its video-streaming goodness to iPhone and iPod Touch owners, but now there's an official, approved PlayOn Mobile app.

As someone who loves TV, we really wanted to like it. But PlayOn Mobile suffers from the same irksome (and in some cases inexplicable) limitations as its browser-based counterpart.

In case you're not familiar with it, PlayOn is an Internet-TV service that slings shows from your Windows PC to your … Read more

Apple really is making good on its promise to ease the restrictions that previously plagued developers such as PlayOn. The service initially had to rely on Safari power to bring its video-streaming goodness to iPhone and iPod Touch owners, but now there's an official, approved PlayOn Mobile app.

As someone who loves TV, I really wanted to like it. But PlayOn Mobile suffers from the same irksome (and in some cases inexplicable) limitations as its browser-based counterpart.

In case you're not familiar with it, PlayOn is an Internet-TV service that slings shows from your Windows PC to your game console, various media center boxes, and, now, your iPhone or iPod Touch. It's kind of like Roku, with your PC filling the role of "the box."

However, PlayOn offers a more compelling mix of channels than Roku, including Netflix, Hulu (the free, non-premium version), Amazon VOD, CBS, Comedy Central, ESPN.com and ESPN3, PBS Kids, CNN, and MLB.tv (which requires a subscription).

That's an impressive lineup, though somewhat less so now that Hulu and Netflix have standalone apps (each with dramatically better interfaces). On the other hand, Hulu's app works solely with Hulu Plus, the $9.99 a month subscription service, whereas PlayOn serves up all of Hulu's free content.

Speaking of money, the iOS app is free, but the PlayOn service costs $39.99 for the first year and $19.99 annually after that. You can also buy a lifetime subscription for $79.99--less than you'd pay for a single year of Hulu Plus.

Now for the bad news. The console versions of PlayOn have long been plagued by a poor interface, and I'm sad to say the app version is no different. For starters, the only way to access content is to drill down through extensive menus. There's no search option, which I find inexcusable.… Read more

Sports fans can easily find the live stadium experience to be paradoxically out of touch compared with the instant stats, superior commentary, and HD replays available to home viewers. DVRs, HDTVs, and smartphones can't follow you to the live game. At stadiums, it's hard to get any smartphone to work properly. Streaming radio apps black out live game broadcasts, unless you're using Sirius. As for video, unless you've got some portable TV with an HDTV antenna converter box, you're out of luck.

This is the promise that NFL FanVision offers to a seasoned fan. At first glance, the device--a dedicated ruggedized handheld with a 4.3-inch screen formerly used at Nascar events--looks like a castoff from the early '00s, some idea of a personal media player from the early age of iPods. Purportedly waterproof (though we didn't test it) and boasting a 6-hour battery life for streaming, it's a bit too big to pocket and hangs from a lanyard around one's neck. Sure, it's not nearly as elegant as an iPhone. What it does, however, bears consideration. A live TV feed of the current game (plus audio commentary), multiple viewing angles, instant multi-angle replay after every play, plus live video of other games around the league, the NFL Red Zone channel, and stats...it's compelling for a hard-core fan.

How it works Others might ask, why not just watch the real live game in front of you? That's a valid point, but not for me. I'm a New York Jets fan, and my dad has been one for 45 years. We know the players, and we like to know what's happening down to the fine details. FanVision's audio commentary and stats offer more than what's given via the minimalist PA system and the infrequently updated HD megascreens. And instant replay, the killer app for the home user, is offered up at the press of a button.

Even better, FanVision seems to be set up to be overload-proof. FanVision works via a dedicated local UHF channel that's licensed to broadcast in the stadium and the parking lot area. The device is really a higher-tech TV, one that can receive up to 10 channels of digitally compressed video and stat data and cache highlight videos for replays. Once booted up via a small power button, the device locates the nearby broadcast tower and downloads team-specific data and channel programming. After a few minutes of initialization, the device is up and running. By avoiding Wi-Fi or 3G, FanVision's broadcast concept shouldn't suffer from slowdown.

It all sounds great on paper, but we wanted to test it for ourselves.… Read more