Verizon Launches Updated FiOS Interactive Media Guide
Finally a GUI that can rival TiVo. The new GUI is launching in Fort Wayne, IN, and will be rolled to everyone else during the summer.

Vista Media Center and Cable Card
Video showing the capabilities of a Vista media center HTPC. The HTPC has two cable cards for recording/viewing and can also record over-the-air shows. The video shows how you can watch a previously recorded show as well as record 2 cable card shows and 1 over-the-air show. 

80GB Sony PS3 set to launch in South Korea
The PS3 will launch in South Korea with 20 GB more than the North American, Japanese, and European models. The PS3 will not have the emotion engine, which could cause some backswords compatibility issues. 

Latest SED news
Unfortunaly, the only SED news lately has been focused on legal side instead of the technology side. Nano-Proprietary, Inc. owns SED technology patents and sued Canon for sharing the technology with Toshiba. An American court awarded Nano-Proprietary, Inc. $5.5 million, and the termination of its Canon contract. Nano-Proprietary can now sign an exclusive SED technology royalty contract with other companies like Samsung.

Most internet video is meant to be watched a foot or two away on a computer monitor, which lets sites like YouTube get away with having low resolution video that only takes up part of the screen. The low resolution won’t do if you’re trying to watch internet video on a HDTV. So far the only thing I could find (that’s legal!) capable of streaming internet video at resolutions watchable from a couch is Joost.
Joost streams at broadcast resolution as seen from the pictures below. It’s not perfect, but it is watchable. My biggest complaints would be with the stuttering and the motion artifacts, but Joost is still in beta so I’m not going to be too picky.

The picture below is a scene from the first episode of Transformers with Optimus Prime’s first fight. Boy, this took me back. I wound up watching the whole episode, and didn’t get any stuttering or motion artifacts. Then again, the source is a cartoon from the 80’s.

I did get lots of motion artifacts from a show on the National Geographic channel about avalanches. There would be pixilated white blocks every time they showed an avalanche.

Here is an example from the pilot episode of Stella on Joost’s Comedy Central Channel

Here is Larry King having an interview with David Spade.

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2008 – The Year Internet TV Became Mainstream

Front Panel:

Rear Panel:

Where to Find the Onkyo TX-SR505:

• Amazon.com
• Onecall.com
• Vanns.com
• Price Comparison

Front Panel:

Back Panel:

Where to Find the Pioneer VSX-817V-K:

• Amazon.com
• Onecall.com
• Vanns.com
• Price Comparison

Will 2008 be the year we can finally drop our expensive cable bills? It’s sure looking like it with Joost constantly adding content, ABC announcing it will stream shows in HD, and media boxes such as the Apple TV becoming popular. Television networks finally seem willing and ready to distribute their shows on the web, and hardware manufactures are finally making easy-to-use media boxes that will bring the web to the living room.

Google’s purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion made YouTube a household name. The large deal also brought internet video into the mainstream. While YouTube is great for everyday people sharing their videos, its low quality stops it from streaming broadcast quality TV shows. Joost gets around the low quality and low bandwidth issues by using a peer-to-peer (P2P) network structure. Once the user base is large enough, the P2P network should lower Joost’s server costs and allow it to stream HD video.

Now that video content is available online and in broadcast quality, how are people going to bring it to their living room TVs? The answer is found in media boxes such as Apple TV, Netgear’s Digital Entertainer HD, and the Home Theater PC (HTPC). Apple TV and Netgear media boxes make it easy for the average Joe to form a home theater network between their TVs and computers. More tech-savy users can connect a PC to their TVs since new HDTVs come with VGA or component inputs.

The content is there, and the hardware is there. The year 2008 might just be the year people start dropping their expensive cable bills and start watching TV through the internet.

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Joost on a HDTV With Pictures