watch

Boxee gets support for Netflix streaming

Boxee is releasing on Thursday a new version of its media center software that adds support for Netflix Watch Instantly streaming movies.

Unlike streaming solutions from Roku and Microsoft's Xbox 360, Boxee's effort includes the option to both browse and search through Netflix's library. Roku's box and the Xbox are currently limited to showing users the videos from their saved queues. The two also require special hardware (and in the Xbox's case a paid Xbox Live Gold membership), whereas Boxee works on any Intel-Mac or Linux PC. Boxee's service is not yet available for … Read more

Get your sports fix here

If it's a crisp-looking score-tracking app you're looking for that follows major U.S. sports associations and leagues, you've come to the right place. The free Sportacular is abound with week-by-week standings and scores that auto-update every 30 seconds when there's a game on. The flood of stats is easily navigated and read thanks to well-placed tabs and menus. You can view updated stats by player and by team, and can even create and track your own fantasy team. Sportacular also keeps fans up-to-date on their sport with RSS feeds from ESPN, Yahoo, and FOX. In … Read more

Netflix tells all about video encoding process

Netflix's streaming movie service is finding itself on more and more devices, and recently the company's blog featured a detailed account of exactly how movies are encoded. While many companies hide behind misleading resolution figures like "720p video," video geeks know that bit rate is a much better indicator of how good a video will look. Netflix gets pretty in-depth with the specifications of the new encodes:

"The VC1 encoders are more efficient than the WMV3 encoders, so we are currently encoding VC1AP at slightly lower birates: 375, 500, 1000, and 1500kbps, all square pixel. … Read more

StreamDesk brings Web shows to your desktop

If you've ever wanted to watch streaming video right on your desktop, and organize all your favorite streams in a single bucket, it's worth checking out StreamDesk. This cross-platform desktop application plays video streams from a variety of sources in a simple player that cuts out the browser completely and turns each show into a small, floating window.

Included are more than 100 various streaming video shows from a small handful of providers. If you come across one that isn't live, you're out of luck, otherwise live shows begin to stream in almost instantly. Shows you … Read more

'Fire' lights up your wrist, but probably not your life

Tokyoflash, which previously brought us such aptly named wristwatches as the Infection, has alerted us to its latest vexing timepiece, the Fire. But not to fret: if you have trouble telling the time with this thing (which you almost certainly will), at least you'll be a conversation piece.

The sci-fi-looking cuff, which weighs about a tenth of a pound, features plastic wrapped around a sheet of polished stainless steel with holes drilled into it. Beneath each hole are LEDs that represent units of time. Yellow LEDs indicate hours 1-12, red LEDs indicate groups of 10 minutes, and green LEDs … Read more

Netflix to discontinue sales of used DVDs

Netflix plans to stop selling DVDs that were rented by subscribers, another step toward expanding its subscription focus from DVDs rented by mail to include movies streamed over the Web.

In a Netflix blog posting Monday, the company announced that it would discontinue sales of previously viewed DVDs on November 30:

As you know, our core business is delivering great movie rentals to you on DVD by mail and instantly to the computer and TV, so we've decided it makes sense for us to focus exclusively on that. This means we will stop selling previously viewed DVDs through the … Read more

Netflix welcomes Mac users to 'Watch Instantly'

Netflix has expanded its "Watch Instantly" movie-streaming player to include Macintosh-owning subscribers.

The company announced on its blog Friday that it is past its first phase of beta testing and invited subscribers who wanted to opt in to do so. But the company had a few warnings for prospective users:

• There may be bugs. We are logging all errors, but if you run into problems, you can help out by posting details here in the blog comments.

• Not all movies are available to watch with Silverlight. You may notice errors or lower than normal quality when … Read more

Hands-on with Netflix Watch Instantly for Mac

Since Netflix introduced its Watch Instantly service back in January 2007, Mac owners have been left out in the cold. Besides using Apple's Boot Camp software, or third-party solutions like Parallels and VMware to use Windows, there was no other way to watch Netflix's streaming videos with out-of-the-box Mac software.

That's changing as of Tuesday, as Netflix has begun rolling out its new Microsoft Silverlight-based streaming service to a small number of monthly subscribers. I've been playing with it all morning, and it works marvelously. Both the Mac and PC players are identical, and in side-by-side … Read more

Brandwatch tracks your brand's online reputation

I'll never forget my online correspondence with Comcast's Frank Eliason earlier this year. The small Twitter message I sent chronicling my woes in setting up my new Internet connection got an immediate response from him. As "Director of Digital Care" for Comcast, Eliason frequently goes above and beyond the call of duty by tracking and responding to nearly all mentions of his company on social networks and blogs (you can track his efforts here).

Most companies don't have a Frank though, and in a time when layoffs mean deep cuts in staffing, sometimes it's … Read more