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TV on Your PC: Hulu, Joost and Miro Reviewed
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 7:00 AM on November 21, 2007
The Writers Guild strike already stripped us of our Daily Show and Colbert Report, and now it may take away Heroes and House as well. Looking to escape Reality TV hell? We've painstakingly reviewed three free (and mostly legal) video services—Joost, Miro and Hulu—for your faux-TV enjoyment during these dark times.
The Contenders:
Hulu: NBC Universal/News Corp.'s mutant is a sandbox-y YouTube for their properties. Joost: Streaming P2P service from Kazaa/Skype founders that wants oh so badly to be real TV. It's got deals with Viacom and other name players—News Corp.'s rumoured to be at the table as well. Miro: Open-source Cory Doctorow-anointed Joost-slayer. You download, rather than stream. It uses RSS-based channels and BitTorrent for its P2P workings.
How They Look (and Feel):
Joost's translucent black interface wins hands down in the Slickness Dept., and its channel grid layout is the standout of the three. One issue is that player controls disappear when you're going through channels or shows, so you can't mute or pause a video playing in the background while surfing. But in terms of intuitiveness, on Joost, it's naturally apparent how to click around then start watching shows. (The "oh no, we can't play this now" error message assailed me more than a couple of times, showing there are still some P2P kinks to work out.)
Miro is more powerful for tweakers and creators, which contributes to it being less straightforward. It's not immediately obvious how you start watching stuff. Since its channels are RSS-based, you have to subscribe to them first, and then pick episodes to download. I should add, the best (though perhaps non-legal) content might require you to hunt outside Miro's interface for a torrent. Miro's the least flashy, using a modified browser scheme that takes longer to zoom through than Joost or Hulu, which is a problem when it overwhelmingly features the most content.
Hulu's good for a browser-based streaming player, as I've said, with a clean, mostly easy-to-navigate system.
In the end, no one's really nailed the content organisation bit. None of them are bad, but they don't make surfing for new stuff particularly intuitive or fun. It can be a chore, and sometimes it feels like a long one.
Ads, I mean uh, "Revenue Model":
Miro is blissfully ad-free, but the other two are not. Joost's bumper ads are quick and not overly annoying. The ones that occasionally interrupt shows without rhyme or reason, however, are too long and randomly timed. They'll drive your head into your monitor. Hulu's gotten worse since its debut week, where I saw a single 30-second clip per 40-minute show. Watching Heroes the other night, I got slammed with an ad at each of the dots in the timeline.
The Meat:
Joost has 356 total "channels," though some aren't channels in the traditional sense. There's stuff from MTV, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, CBS, Warner Music, as well as channels of CSI, Happy Tree Friends, Transformers and GI Joe. There's offbeat stuff, too, like the Really Terrible Film channel.
Used within legal boundaries, Miro lacks solid mainstream content. Comedy Central's "channels" are stand-up clips and web shows only, and Adult Swim just contains their video podcasts. But Miro boasts 2,756 channels, with everything from "Ask a Ninja" and National Geographic to NASA and Wired Science. But yes, you can start your own channel—all it takes is a torrent and a dream.
Hulu's the slimmest, but it has the most recent episodes of the best shows: House, Battlestar Galactica and any other popular shows from NBC Universal and News Corp., like SNL, The Office or Family Guy. There's no indie or offbeat content whatsoever—it's a totally corporate venture.
Across the board, scattershot content is still a major issue. Joost has a Comedy Central channel but no South Park or Chapelle's Show. Miro's kind of defined by being whatever from whoever. Hulu's trimmer offerings at least have an internal logic, with the newest five or six episodes of current shows available, and full seasons of past shows like Buffy.
What You Now Know:
No matter what service you pick, you won't find everything you want, thanks in part to corporate hang-ups and in part to the primitiveness of these early stages. They're maddeningly incomplete, like a crappy library in a rural town. Joost is probably your best bet in terms of quantity and quality, with Miro working better if you want a ton of new programming but don't care about corporate quality. And if you want Battlestar, well, the choice will be made for you. [Joost, Miro, Hulu, Flickr]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
fred
Posted March 24, 2008 11:18 PM
none of Hulu's premium content is able to be viewed in Australia
Fuzz
Posted 4:57 PM 20/11/07
I would love to use Joost, but until they fix the multiple monitor bug it is useless to me. You can't watch it on anything other than your primary monitor without it stuttering like crazy. Its to bad. I filed a bug report on it over 6 months ago, and it has been confirmed by many others, but they haven't fixed it.
Fuzz
Palestina
Posted 4:46 PM 20/11/07
JOOS IS CRAP: It can't run thought proxy! Most of the time I'm logged on computers witch I just can't chose using the proxy or not.
Palestina
edmicman
Posted 4:43 PM 20/11/07
Do any work cleanly with MCE 2005? I tried using my Joost install on it, and it works, and even sorta recognizes the remote. But remote integration is still frustrating. Sure, I can have my PC hooked up to the home theater and watch things from the couch. But I don't want to have to use a keyboard, or hack registries and batch files to open and close third party programs.
Where's my Joost MCE plugin??
edmicman
Kaiser-Machead
Posted 4:14 PM 20/11/07
@MakGeek: And as my macbook is sitting at home downloading gigs of adult swim stuff (ATHF and Venture Bros.) I wonder how this will ever be worth it for me :p
Kaiser-Machead
Suffer
Posted 4:09 PM 20/11/07
I've been playing with Joost for a while now and I'm really impressed with how far it's come. Granted, random commercial placement can be irritating, but not put-your-fist-through-your-monitor kind of irritating imo. I connected an old desktop to my 42 inch plasma in the living room and fired up Joost just for giggles. I was impressed with how well it looked even at full screen.
Recently, I decided to ditch cable and just go with online offerings (Joost, iTunes, network sites) for what little TV I do watch.
-Suffer
Suffer
MakGeek
Posted 3:57 PM 20/11/07
@camelontherun: you're not missing much. Just got access today to Beta, full screen quality is pretty weak, content is light and commercials and ad overlays. I would rather pay $1.99 or d/l a torrent.
MakGeek
EMoShunz
Posted 3:51 PM 20/11/07
@dubalstr1: don't get too upset, i have joost on my mac...it sucks.
EMoShunz
OldSchoolGadgetLover
Posted 3:40 PM 20/11/07
It's a good thing so many good games are coming out now... I for one am looking forward to playing Rock Bank over the weekend.
OldSchoolGadgetLover
dubalstr1
Posted 3:31 PM 20/11/07
damn joost and there intel mac support!! PowerPC Rocks!!
dubalstr1
conglomerate
Posted 3:21 PM 20/11/07
i personally like joost.
it's more of a..."hey i have some spare time, so i'll fire up joost and watch some random transformers/adult swim/natl geographic"
conglomerate
camelontherun
Posted 3:19 PM 20/11/07
id like to use hulu but the damn thing is in beta.
they want us to watch, but dont give us access.
camelontherun
discounteggroll
Posted 3:14 PM 20/11/07
read a book?
go outside?
or just find an alternative to the already obesity-causing epidemic
discounteggroll
JJ910
Posted 3:07 PM 20/11/07
So years after the 1st PC comes out, we figure convergence is a key issue to adoption and usability! Good. Its a step in the right direction. But content will still dictate everything . . . . and that is still a big issue.
JJ910
smeee
Posted 6:33 PM 20/11/07
Joost is pretty cool, theres nothing sexier than an all black background interface on my macbook.
smeee
arkowi
Posted 8:59 PM 20/11/07
joost suucks.
moving on.
i just got my hulu beta thing today and i used it all day long. the commercials where very short and unobtrusive. there was usually a brief ad at the beginning and usually one in the middle. both usually around 10 seconds or so in length.
i like the ability to make playlists. plus the content is great: battlestar, arrested development, simpsons, heroes, office, 30 rock, 24...
it was something i was going into expecting to not like, as I was kinda sorta miffed that NBC was leaving itunes. however, now i want a flash plugin for my iphone.
arkowi
manenfuego
Posted 4:21 PM 20/11/07
Joost has indeed come a long way, but it's still a closed network, which I think is really limiting. Veoh has a lot of the same TV shows and movie content, but it also lets in the indie-pro stuff, so I get everything all in one place. Interface is really easy to navigate and it looks great on a plasma TV screen too(except the YouTube content they carry, which is usually piss poor no matter where you watch it).
manenfuego
LikeVid
Posted 10:37 PM 20/11/07
Yawnn... try [freetube.110mb.com]
[www.paulyanez.com] (joost emulator)
LikeVid
jmoo2
Posted 2:48 AM 21/11/07
Joost also doesn't work if you increase the DPI so like FUZZ I can't use it either :( I lodged a bug report and was told they know about it. I wonder if they'll ever fix it???
James
jmoo2
AndersonBMX
Posted 9:10 AM 21/11/07
and what about the porn?
AndersonBMX
axiomatic
Posted 11:53 AM 21/11/07
Call me when they are serious about dumping DRM and the video quality hits at least 720P. Until then, these solutions are worthless.
axiomatic
smcasey
Posted 2:40 AM 22/11/07
I have found that people take to watching TV on the PC faster then everyone realizes. After the same sitcom has been remade 20 times over people start wanting anything to watch.
I have just completed a site for my kids to watch YouTube videos on the Wii console. They got hooked on YouTube videos but I didn't want them watching everything that was there. So I used WordPress and a video plugin to setup a site with all the videos they like. Then I created a theme that is viewable on the Wii browser.
Now I can get them off my development computer and they can watch videos on the TV via the Wii. Check it out with you get a chance --
[wiikidstv.chimpsimple.net]
If anyone is interested I can post how I set this site up. Then you can make your own personalized TV channel for the Wii
smcasey