My Joost Experience So Far
Well after a day and a half of not being able to connect to the Joost network for absolutely no reason, the software finally decided to just work, and I’ve had no issues since.
Joost is a peer to peer streaming television service — kind of a mix between OnDemand services through your cable company and something like Bit Torrent. Through a translucent menu overlay (widgets), you create a custom list of channels out of all available, then you can browse through the shows each channel has to offer. Clicking one starts the show immediately. The software also tries to foster a community through interactivity as well. You can join channel chats, vote and rate channels and shows, invite friends (if you’re lucky enough to get invites), and subscribe to RSS feeds so news headlines are streamed over the top of your show.
Right now there are only a handful of marginally entertaining channels, but some major names have signed up to offer content for the service. I was surprised to find almost all of the first season of Stella on the Comedy Central channel, Warner communications has some content, there are some National Geographic shows, an all-anime channel, and even MTV and MUCH have some music channels. I don’t know how often channels are added to the service, but there’s already a decent selection, especially if you’re into fighting or racing.
Joost’s image quality seems erratic, and I’m guessing that’s because of the technology behind it. I’m guessing that the more people watching one show, the higher quality the stream can be (like downloading a Torrent with more seeds), but I really have no idea if that’s true. I’ve seen some shows that look about as good as say, ABC’s live video feed on their site, and I’ve seen shows at VCD quality; none have been so bad that they’re unwatchable, though. Overall, I’m very impressed with the picture quality.
Commercials (at least for now, in the beta stage) are generally unobtrusive, normally never amounting to more than displaying a logo for a couple seconds. The instances I’ve seen in which a full commercial is played, however, the commercials seem to pop in at specified times, say 7 and 15 minutes in, regardless of where the show is at the time. For example, I was watching a documentary on sharks and a Philips commercial popped in right in the middle of a sentence. As soon as the commercial ended, it returned to my documentary and the sentence completed. I have no idea if their approach to advertisement will change as the software nears public release.
That just about covers it, I’ve only watched about an hour of Joost a day since I first got it working 3 days ago. It’s not perfect, but I’m pleased with it, and am looking forward to the bugs getting ironed out. This sort of programming is probably the future of television, and I’m curious to see where the technology will go in the next couple years.
4 Responses to “My Joost Experience So Far”
Hi,
If anyone wants a Joost invite, I have some that I am giving away in a lottery.
The first draw is on Monday.
You can enter here: http://0300209.studentweb.abertay.ac.uk/joostlotto
Its free!
Good luck,
Alan
Thank you for you description of your experience. I am looking for an invitation, do you have an extra one? I will pay it forward to anyone you request me to give it to. Basically, you are not losing an invitation, because I will give one of mines on your request. let me know. carlos
Nah, I haven’t received any invites yet.
These people suck
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