It’s kind of crashy, could use a better navigation UI and takes too long for movie streams to get going (and then when they do it’s kind of finicky) but we definitely appreciate being to stream The Fifth Element over Wi-Fi in decent quality, when it actually gets going. More than anything though, it just makes us soak our pillow with even more drool dreaming of a Hulu app. [iTunes via NewTeeVee]

NETFLIX BEGINS ROLL-OUT OF 2ND GENERATION
MEDIA PLAYER FOR INSTANT STREAMING
ON WINDOWS PCs AND INTEL MACS

Based on Microsoft Silverlight, New Player Features Enhanced Dynamic Streaming, First-Time Use for Macs and Breakthrough Navigation for Fast-Forward and Rewind

LOS GATOS, Calif., October 27, 2008 – Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world’s largest online movie rental service, today announced it has begun the deployment of Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant watching component of the Netflix service and to allow subscribers for the first time to watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.

Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of Play Ready DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.

“Silverlight with Play Ready offers a powerful and secure toolkit for delivery of dynamic streaming, which offers faster start-up, and higher quality video, adapted in real time to users’ connection speeds,” said Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt. “Members who enjoy watching movies and TV episodes from the growing library of choices that can be instantly streamed at Netflix will be thrilled with this next generation improvement of access and quality, on a broader range of platforms, including Intel Macs and Firefox.”

“Instantly streaming from Netflix directly addresses the needs and wants of today’s Web users by providing on-demand, high-quality online video,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp. “By using Silverlight, Netflix can deliver to its subscribers a higher quality video experience on the Web, on more platforms.”

Silverlight was tried and proven this summer as NBCOlympics.com streamed thousands of hours of live and on-demand online video for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

For Macintosh users, the Silverlight player will work only on Intel-based Macs, which currently account for roughly three-fourths of Mac units operated by Netflix subscribers.

The Netflix instant watching catalog of more than 12,000 choices continues to grow with significant new titles from CBS, the Disney Channel and Starz Play, which the company announced recently. In addition to watching instantly on the PC and Mac via Silverlight, Netflix members can enjoy the same movies and TV episodes on their television with a Netflix ready device such as the Netflix Player by Roku, which was introduced in May, the LG Electronics BD300 Blu-ray disc player and the Samsung BD-P2550 and BD-P2500 Blu-ray disc players, which are on sale now at retailers nationwide, and, soon, the Microsoft Xbox 360.

[Crunchgear, Engadget]

The channel streams live video of the latest news, finance, politics, sports and weather directly to your browser or mobile phone. It’s powered by Sky News content, but BigPond has control over how it is delivered to the audience, so it can cut to breaking news or stick with the latest sports updates, depending on how they feel.

The online portal at BigPond is available to anyone, although unless you’re a BigPond customer, you’ll pay for the bandwidth (which is the same as watching any other video site). BigPond customers watching the channel have unmetered access. NextG customers can pay $4.95 a month or $1.95 for a day pass.

The only problem with the offering is that the online version uses Windows Media for streaming the video channel, meaning Mac users are left out in the cold.

Full release is below:

BigPond pioneers 24/7 online and mobile news

Telstra BigPond has launched Australia’s first online and mobile dedicated 24 hour news channel.

The new channel, called BigPond Live TV News, is a continuous live video stream of general news, politics, finance, sport and weather. It will combine regular news bulletins with wider coverage of business, health, environment, entertainment and technology. The new channel is available online at bigpond.com or on compatible Telstra Next G™ mobiles 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Telstra Media Group Managing Director, Mr Justin Milne, said the new service will serve the growing number of Australians who want the convenience of online or mobile news.

“Telstra’s new service will provide Australians with a whole new way to receive their news, because from today they can watch and listen to live video news almost anywhere they go and exactly when they feel like it,” Mr Milne said.

“Telstra is challenging other news services by offering a dedicated 24 hour online and mobile streaming video service. We cross live to important events as they occur. On our first day we covered the US Presidential debate and Prime Minister Gordon Brown announcing his rescue package for British banks. If there’s something worth knowing it will be found at BigPond News,” he said.

“It means our customers could be on the bus, in a paddock or waiting for the dentist, and still watch live news as it happens,” he said.

The BigPond Live News service is continually updated with video bulletins and also has the ability to break to live news when this occurs.

“Telstra continually pioneers new and innovative content for our customers. We remain committed to being the leader in the region for delivering the best and exclusive mobile and online entertainment to our customers,” Mr Milne said.

“Our news channel is yet another example of how Telstra’s high-speed networks, whether they are fixed or mobile, are used to deliver high-quality media entertainment,” he said.

Telstra 3G and Next G™ mobile customers with compatible handsets can subscribe to BigPond Live TV News for $4.95 per month or $1.95 for a day pass. The news channel is also available online at bigpond.com by clicking on the TV tab. The online service is unmetered for most BigPond broadband customers, which means viewing the video does not count towards your monthly data allowance.

[BigPond NewsTV]

But maybe things have improved, now that Telstra’s streaming the upcoming Indian tour to their NextG network. The tour, which starts today and runs until November 9, will cost $9.95 a month or $3.95 a day.

Not my thing, but if you’re a cricket fan, and a NextG customer, hit the BigPond button to get started.

[Telstra]

The Price: $US299

The Verdict: The Mediasmart Connect is a decent video player, Media Extender and photo viewer, but it doesn’t shine in any area other than video quality. We compared the Mediasmart Connect to an Xbox 360, streaming the exact same episode of Entourage from the exact same Windows Home Server and the video quality was noticeably better on HP’s unit. Great, except you wouldn’t really notice the difference unless you had them side by side like we did.

One other problem we noticed is that browsing speed (browsing a folder file system) is pretty damn slow. Paging down takes upwards of seconds to refresh, forcing you to hold the down button one by one to save yourself from the delay. The same “page down” action on an Xbox 360 is near instantaneous, so we know it’s not a server issue.

It does, however, have features that other extenders or media streamers don’t. For one, there’s the ability to aggregate videos from various networked sources, including DLNA-capable servers. Again, nothing spectacular, but it’s a feature that’s nice to have. 802.11n streaming (a/b/g are also there) is another nicety for people who hate wires. More bonuses are YouTube, Snapfish, CinemaNow and Live365, services you may or may not use and want on your set-top streamer.

Compared to the Xbox 360, both can act as Media Centre Extenders, both can play back DivX and XviD files and work as a photo viewer, but only one can play a donkey-load of video games. On the other hand, the Mediasmart Connect does have on-board storage, which is great if you want to dump a bunch of videos onto it and delete them out of your BitTorrent folder on your PC.

At $US299, it’s hard to recommend the Mediasmart Connect over something like an Xbox 360 because of everything else the 360 can do. If extras like YouTube and CinemaNow (as well as media aggregation over all servers), built-in 802.11n wireless, DLNA compatibility and better video quality appeal to you, this may be your ticket to streaming video anywhere in your house. [HP]

If you’re not near a TV or computer tonight Verizon’s VCAST service will be streaming CBS’s feed live. Of course, there are streams from CBS’s regular site, CNN and C-SPAN, who has probably the best and most forward-thinking—for Web 2.0 fanatics anyway—online coverage around. Hulu’s Election ‘08 hub also aggregates everything from speeches to punditry to funnies from The Daily Show, Colbert, Conan and more if you want to flip something more engaging during a particularly snoozy stretch of the debate. Or if your politics appetite is just insatiable, there’s Obama’s maybe game-changing iPhone app if you want to put your fingers in your ears whenever McCain speaks.

Where else are you guys planning to peep the debate? [paid content]

Price: $US300

The Verdict: Sling Pro HD is a worthy successor to previous Slingboxes for a number of reasons. Primarily, because it streams in real 1080i HD. Previously, you could connect a component source to the Sling Pro and Sling Solo, but it would down convert the HD signal, merely preserving the 16:9 ratio.

In addition, you can connect more than one HD source — not only is there a set of Component video inputs, but there is a coaxial input for over-the-air HD. This gives you two HD options, plus composite inputs for SD video. Another plus is that you no longer need to buy the special HD connect cable from Sling. You can use any component cables (or the ones they include) and connect it to your HD source. Easy.

(Click here for full-sized comparison)

Once I properly configured the router to work with the Sling Pro HD, I had plenty of bandwidth to stream in HD. As far as picture quality, there is a noticeable difference in sharpness between the HD streaming and down-converted 640×480 video. Is the HD stream jaw-droppingly, awe-inspiring, hands down more rad than the SD stream? No. But videophiles will likely agree the HD stream does look better.

Currently, the lack of Mac support for HD streaming hurts. But (at the time of publish) it is in development, and will arrive in the near future, so its not a huge deal. Secondly, if you’re using a smaller laptop or smaller external monitor, you’re also not going to notice that much of a difference between HD and SD. But if you use a largish external monitor with your Sling stream, the HD stream will be more prevalent.

We streamed over LAN and over a remote broadband connection, and noticed little drop off in picture quality when connecting outside the network. But that’s not so much the fault of the Slingbox as it is the ISP. When the remote connection had enough bandwidth to stream HD over a remote connection, it was pretty close to the LAN in quality. As a note, most of our testing was done over wi-fi, and the results were equal to testing done via ethernet.

If you’re willing to pay a little extra for more (and easier) HD input options, and a slightly better picture, by all means, consider the Sling Pro HD. It rarely sputters when the connection is sufficient, and with the program guide and ability to rewind up to 60 minutes built into the new 2.0 software, It’s easier than ever to use. [Sling on Giz]