Roku's November 13 note to customers asking them for help determining the cause of a dramatic decline in video quality.
(Credit: Roku)The Netflix Player by Roku, which enables owners to watch streaming Web video on their TV sets, has received plenty of applause from pundits and owners since debuting last May. But the box now faces its first major challenge.
Customers from around the country have been "experiencing inexplicable loss of video-streaming quality," for at least three weeks according to Roku's engineers, who have posted comments at the company's Web forums. Device owners have posted complaints to the same forums about receiving less than half of the video quality they've had in the past. One user told CNET that the video stream is now "unwatchable."
Tim Twerdahl, vice president of consumer products at Roku, told CNET News on Monday that the company is still unsure about what exactly triggered the problem, but he said indications are it originated at Netflix. Twerdahl added that the problem likely affects Netflix's other boxes as well as Roku's player.
"All we know is Roku didn't make any changes," Twerdahl said. "This is not a box problem. We know from some reports that this seems to be correlated with a change in Netflix's content distribution network (CDN), and Netflix is trying to figure out what the issue is."
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The player and page for Arrested Development on Sling.com.
(Credit: CNET)Sling.com, the streaming site of Slingbox maker Sling Media, has emerged from private beta and is opening up access to its video content to the public.
With the move, which was expected, Sling.com delivers TV episodes, clips, full-length movies, and professionally produced Web videos to a single destination. The free content is provided by the NBC-Fox partnership Hulu, along with CBS (parent company of CBS Interactive, CNET's publisher), PBS, BBC America, and Web video sites like College Humor and Break.com.
Viewers can subscribe to the video feeds of shows currently on the air like The Soup and House, as well as recently and long-canceled shows like Arrested Development and MacGyver. The movie selection, which appears to be imported from Hulu, is limited, but Sling says all categories of video will expand in the future as it works with studios and other content providers.
The site also has a social-networking element, allowing users to create profiles that show which videos, programs, and movies the person subscribed to or marked as a favorite. Users can also become a fan of other Sling.com members.
Sling.com appears to be a natural progression for the small Silicon Valley company, which was bought last year by EchoStar.
Sling Media first grabbed consumers' attentions with the introduction of its Slingbox, which allows owners to watch their own subscription TV channels remotely from a computer. Then the company began releasing the SlingPlayer as downloadable software for Symbian, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile that lets Slingbox owners also get their TV channels on mobile phones.
Sling then turned from just moving TV to the Web, and began pushing the idea of moving Web video to the TV with its SlingCatcher product, which started shipping last month.
CNET News' Erica Ogg contributed to this report.
Microsoft and Akamai Technologies are teaming up on high-definition video streaming efforts for PCs, the companies said Tuesday.
Akamai plans to release a beta service, AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight, early next year to select media customers. It will run on Windows Server 2008 with Microsoft's Silverlight media player.
The move comes as broadband increasingly becomes a fixture in homes and as consumer expectations grow for smooth-running video on PCs. The clarity of HD images is also in video on PCs.
Microsoft will bring its new Web server technology, Internet Information Services 7.0 Smooth Streaming (IIS7.0), to the table. It is designed to let people view video streams with instant start-up times and without the play-and-pause jerkiness that can come with buffering. The technology aims to provide smooth streaming video by making real-time adjustments to changes in connectivity speeds.
Akamai plans to market the service to media companies worldwide. It will eventually become a feature of the IIS7 Media Pack.
"We've seen firsthand the growing demand for HD online content among our customer base," Tim Napoleon, Akamai's digital media chief strategist, said in a statement.
He noted that images broadcast over the television offer the same consistent quality for all viewers, but that such is not the case with streaming video on PCs. Each viewer may have a different experience on a computer, depending on connectivity speeds at any given moment.
The announcement comes after Microsoft unveiled plans two weeks ago for its Silverlight 2 media player. The new version carries features such as deep zoom, enhancements to cross-platform support, and support for digital rights management.
Corrected at 11:10 p.m.: Amazon customers do not need to purchase the Sony Bravia TV before accessing the new Video on Demand download store.
Fresh from a failed attempt at online video, Amazon is giving it another go.
Amazon is opening a streaming video store, called Amazon Video On Demand, that will offer 40,000 movies and TV shows for download and rental to people's computers, according to a story that appeared Wednesday evening in The New York Times. The service will be made available to a limited number of invited Amazon customers initially and will be made more broadly available later this summer.
However, in another part of Amazon's strategy, the retailer signed a deal to include the service in Sony Bravia high-definition Television sets. To access the movies on their Bravia TVs, users must purchase a $300 Bravia Internet Video link, the Times reported. Brad Stone, who wrote the story, noted that this "was an awkward extra expense, for now."
Future Bravias are expected to have the video link built into the TVs, The Times wrote.
Amazon is looking to cut similar deals with other TV manufacturers and set-top box makers, according to the story.
Amazon faces competition from Roku, the company that makes the Netflix Player, which streams movies from the Web to an owner's TV set and costs $100. The box has been applauded by reviewers and fans alike.
In addition to Netflix, Amazon must compete with Apple, Microsoft and a host of smaller players that are trying to enable consumers to stream video to their TVs.
Seattle-based Amazon has already misfired with it's Unbox download store. In that situation, critics said the service was a bust because it required users to download a separate software application.
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