Those nice folks at Joost sent me a goodie bag for being a beta user of their service: It consists of a Fancy Bag, Tee Shirt, Stickers, Thank you letter and some herbs.

I literally have no idea what these are. But pizza in a bottle sounds like my demographic.

Thank you Joost dudes.

Link: http://www.joost.com

Colin

This allows me to test out version 0.9 of Joost.

It has some nice new features like being able to invite friends from inside the Joost client software.

I have an issue with the installer yet again. It says my super hi-spec Dell XPS M1210 laptop “may not have enough resources.”

But you can see from the screen shot below it vastly exceeds the requirements.

The problem area seems to be the DirectX version. Windows Vista is DirectX10 and not 9.0C as shown in the above picture.

Anyway version 0.9 is installed and working fine.

I have created a couple of Joost ScreenCasts but I am waiting to hear back from Joost if I am allowed to publish them. If so check back later this week.

As for invites when I get some Joost Juice I will put up a post so Bookmark this site or subscribe to my RSS feed (http://www.colindiponio.com/feed/)

Joost is the one of the first serious internet based TV delivery platforms.

The people behind it are the guys who sold Skype to Ebay.

Joost is: Think channel surfing but with streaming video.

It is still very early days for internet TV, but I have already reviewed Channel 4’s 4OD (Four on Demand) service.
http://www.colindiponio.com/2007/01/24/channel-4-on-demand-4od/

Joost is different by offering multiple channels. Its more like Sky TV in that respect.

The video quality was variable and looked pretty rough on a Hi-Definition 1366×760 32″ display when the content was running full screen. I would describe it as watchable, but not a quality proposition.

The lack of more widescreen content was a bit of a letdown. I dont have a Hi-Def widescreen TV to watch 4:3
vhs quality content. A few years from now this will be less of an issue as bandwith and quality increase.

This is Joost Running in a Window

This is Joost Running in full screen

Install

Once you get your Beta Invite and login to www.joost.com you can download the software for Windows or Mac.

I chose Windows as the most logical place to put Joost in my setup was on my Windows Media Center.

One problem with the install, it detected my ATI-All in Wonder 9800 had only 1mb of memory (it has 128mb) The install suggested I proceed any way (I did without problem).

My initial impressions are very positive (putting video quality and content quality aside for a moment), it’s a peek into the next generation of Internet TV and I like it.