Joost lost the video war a while ago, thinking a P2P app that imitated TV would be the way people wanted to watch TV and movies on their computer. They were wrong, and only recently rectified the mistake. It's probably too late for them. But their new iPhone app, which streams over 46,000 videos including full movies like Men in Black and Starship Troopers for free over Wi-Fi, is actually kind of exciting.

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The poor kids at Joost—and their partners at Viacom—thought the future of TV on the computer would be a discrete app that blended a slick TV emulator with internet power. They were wrong, Hulu and Google were right: It's all about the browser. So that's where Joost is going. Its Flash-based player officially launches full-throttle tonight. The early word from paidContent is that it's still no Hulu—the best place for CBS content, maybe, but it's got a lot of catching up to do. Though really, it's not clear that it ever can. There's a reason our internet TV remote is heavy on the Hulu. [Joost via paidContent]

Sling Media (makers of those nifty Sling boxes) has just notified their beta community that new and improved Sling.com services are soon to go live for testing. The first major feature is web-based content viewing for subscribers, eliminating the need for separate players. The second major feature, teased way back in early 2007, is Clip+Sling content sharing.

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Today, a startup called ZeeVee is launching the ZvBox, a three-part plan for getting all the good HD video content from your PC out to all the TVs in the house:
• The box itself converts the video from the PC's VGA port into a high-def channel and sends it out to your home's coax cable network.
• A PC app acts as a launcher for all the good PC-based internet video clients, like Hulu, Joost and even Microsoft's own Media Center.
• The remote controls not just your TV, but the app on the PC too, giving you decent control over the otherwise PC-locked experience.

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About a year after its beta launch, Adobe Media Player is in full effect, or almost. Adobe's little Flash-only scheme for making money on the internet has lined up CBS and Viacom properties MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, plus PBS, Universal Music Group and a few others, though not all of them show up yet in the list of stuff to watch. (That tantalising Daily Show you see in the promo pic—not available yet.) Remember, unlike other similar programs, this one lets you watch online or off. But like all the rest, it's only as good as the content it brings to the table. And its interface. And the picture quality. Any beta testers out there want to comment? We'd love to hear your impressions. [Adobe (download) via CNet]

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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.

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Joost will test live streaming TV in the US in early 2008, alongside its pre-packaged on-demand video. The key here is sporting events, which are always better the first time around. But sports mean express written consent, and rather than try to compete with the big boys, Joost may be planning to start at the lumberjack/rodeo/dodgeball level.

When pressed about the high cost of sporting rights, content strategy and acquisition EVP Yvette Alberdingkthijm told paidContent:

"I don't have to play in that league. I do know that, within my own universe of free online viewing, I can do live really, really well, and I'll be starting with that in the US in Q1 next year."

The DivX connected platform, which we had a hands-on with back in August, may just get an injection of Joost internet video. DivX founder stated that their two companies were working together to enhance DivX connected—which already lets you stream music, photos and video from your computer—to add a Joost plug-in by the time the platform launches in November. No specific details are known, but unless Joost gets much more content, it still doesn't compare to broadcast or cable. [Pocket Lint]

Until late last week, if you wanted to use the potentially cable-TV-replacing video streaming service Joost, you had to have friends. But now anybody can watch Joost online from dusk until the dawn and beyond, because Beta 1.0 of the P2P (peer-to-peer) video service just hit the streets. The good news? The company's just about gotten it right after umpteen betas, and it's looking good. However, it remains to be seen whether Joost techies have figured out how to scale the network without crashing it. Hey, let's all pounce on it and see if it holds up! Take a look at a screen shot and our impressions, after the jump.

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