Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Amazon has just turned on its Prime Instant Video service, letting paid Prime subscribers (sorry, students) in the US (sorry, foreigners) stream any of 5,000 movies and TV shows directly to their machines free of charge -- well, free beyond the $79 Primers already pay. Jeff Bezos has confirmed that there will be no extra charge going forward for this service and that Prime itself will not be getting more expensive to pay for all these bits and bytes. Right now the selection is limited, particularly if you already have a Netflix subscription, but we just had to try it out. Click on through for our impressions on a variety of devices."

I'm used to applauding most moves that Amazon makes, but this one is a bit of a head scratcher. If Amazon were to survey 100 users of Amazon Prime and ask them "What would make this service even better?", I'd guess exactly zero of them would have said "Please add streaming video!". Sure, it's free if you're an Amazon Prime customer - which I'd totally be if they offered it in Canada - but can Amazon really compete with Netflix?

"The agreement, brokered by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, will add significantly to the growing selection of movies and TV episodes that can be streamed from Netflix. Once made available to Netflix from Disney-ABC - which, for relevant programming, will be no earlier than 15 days after initial telecast - episodes can be streamed instantly with Netflix memberships starting at $7.99 a month."

Since Netflix came to Canada in September, I've heard the same complaint over and over again: poor selection. I don't know if we have less choice in Canada than you US Americans do - I'd guess probably - but I still like Netflix because I've kept my expectations in check. I mean, it's $7.99 per month, which is only slightly more than the cost to rent a Blu-ray disc from Blockerbuster where I live. Unlimited content for that price tag is going to come with some limitations, but the sooner Netflix can beef up their catalogue, the naysayers will have even less to complain about for their $8.

What I want to know is why the heck can't I tag shows to watch later? When I'm browsing the listings looking for stuff, the only way around this is to start watching a show, then stop it, as a "hack" for having a list of stuff I want to watch. That's uber-weak. Still, for $8/month I remain a very happy Netflix customer!

"Hulu Plus edges forward with a little bit more news everyday it seems. Recent announcements include the service's availability on the PS3 gaming system and Sony BRAVIA HD television sets. Today's news is that Hulu's subscription television service has lowered its price from $9.99 to $7.99 a month, that it will be available on Roku set-top boxes, and offering a 1-week free trial."

It's interesting to see the Hulu Plus versus Netflix battle shaping up - at the new price of $7.99/month, Hulu Plus is the same price as the Netflix streaming-only package that I have in Canada. I strongly suspect that Netflix is going to offer the exact same plan in the US in early 2011. So the question becomes, for $8/month which service would suit you best? Hulu Plus, along with Netflix, are coming to the Boxee Box, so Roku will have some competition. Are Hulu and Netflix, Roku and Boxee, each going to be the two respective leaders in each space?

"Roku announced Wednesday that the company is revamping its line of three set-top boxes for streaming video. All three models come in a much smaller case, similar to the new Apple TV and about the size of two CD jewel cases. Some models also gain support for 1080p video output, while the top model can stream MPEG 4 files directly from a USB drive."

Streaming technology is gaining more acceptance every day. With the updated Apple TV, it has also been thrust into the forefront of the media's attention. iTunes does have its competitors though. Netflix, Hulu, Pandora all provide streaming services and Roku seems to be the device to combine them all into a single interface. The price cuts and 1080p support for the higher end Roku boxes are welcome changes and helps make sure that there will be plenty of competition among all the Apple TVs, Boxees and other streaming boxes out there. The rising interest in streaming video is also probably why Internet providers are all looking at data caps. It both protects their existing video offerings and should other companies beat them in the battle for streaming video, they will still stand to make a profit.

"Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX), the leading Internet movie subscription service, today announced it will expand into Canada this fall offering unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed instantly to TVs and computers for one low monthly fee. The Canadian launch will mark the first availability of Netflix outside the United States. Canadian Netflix members will be able to instantly watch a broad array of movies and TV episodes right on their TVs via a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as watching on PCs and Macs. In addition to representing its inaugural international market, Canada will also mark the first streaming-only service promoted by Netflix."

Interesting! As one of two resident Canucks on the Digital Home Thoughts team, I'm quite excited by this - unlike all of our American readers to the south, in Canada we have virtually no streaming media services of any sort. Hulu? Nope. Zune, except via Xbox 360? Nope. Amazon video on demand? Nope. iTunes is one of the only options we have in Canada for purchasing video content. We desperately need some competition here to shake things up, and Netflix coming to Canada is just about the best thing I could have hoped for in this area. Bring it on! Interested Canadians can sign up at the Netflix.ca site for further info.

I'm not entirely sure how I ended up finding this page on YouTube's site, but I'm always interested in seeing real-world bandwidth tests, and YouTube probably burns up more bandwidth than any other domain on the planet, so they have some rich data from which to draw upon. Make sure you're logged into YouTube, then check out their historical speed page. The above screenshot shows that I consume YouTube videos at 11.98Mbps average speed; I was surprised to see that the average Canadian rating, and the global rating, were so low. Read more...

"Say hello to Qriocity, Sony's first step toward building an Online Service to rival iTunes, Netflix and anything else that makes money by selling you downloadable content. Headed to your nearest XMB in February"

Sony announced their own streaming media service coming in February, to be integrated in with XMB. With a good Internet connection is should be capable of streaming 720p video to your PS3, BluRay player, and presumably just about anywhere XMB resides. With Netflix streaming already available on many BluRay players, the PS3, and the Xbox360 I am not sure how popular this will be, but a little competition could be good. With their vast library of movies available, hopefully the service will have more recent selections than are currently available through Netflix streaming. I am a big fan of Netflix streaming, but only for catching up on older stuff. If they have recent releases, available at a decent price, streamed right to my (hopefully supported) BluRay player it might be a useful new feature.

About two months ago, I purchased a Canon HF100 high-definition video camera to replace my ageing but still totally sweet Canon GL2 (that thing has such great optics!). It took me a while to re-create my template in 16:9 format, but I did and published my first two HD videos to YouTube...and I was quite disappointed with the results. YouTube only offers a 4:3 aspect ratio player, so 16:9 videos look pretty tiny with those big black bars on the top and bottom. I set out to find a better solution for embedding videos on Thoughts Media sites, and I think I've found one: MotionBox.

I say "I think" because while the video quality is utterly fantastic, and for $20 per year they offer a lot of value, I've been seeing some problematic playback issues today - sometimes the video will start right away, other times it will take 30+ seconds before it starts, and sometimes it won't start at all, instead showing a black box. And sometimes it will just "break" and stop playing. These are obviously serious problems, but I don't know if MotionBox is just having a bad day, or if my bandwidth Kung-fu is weak today. So check out the video below and report back what you find - does it play back OK? Any problems or glitches?