We take a first look look at Yahoo Go! and we review the Slingmedia SlingPlayer Mobile. We'll also talk news and probably sneak a little 24 talk in for good measure.
Also, starting this week we will provide links to products we talk about at Amazon.com. If you are going to buy something from Amazon use the search form at the left. It will help us defray some of the cost of putting this show together. We appreciate your support!
Yahoo Go! for TV
We seem to be heavy into the HTPC
theme right now, so continuing right along, this week we'll look at the
new HTPC release from Yahoo called Yahoo Go! for TV. As we all know,
Yahoo recently bought Meedio and quickly re-branded it into this new
Yahoo Go! product. It works pretty well, but it still has some Beta
warts on it.
Downloading and installing the software is a breeze. It is
currently only available to people in the US (meaning you need an IP
address that originates in the US to run the software). You can
download it and install it anywhere, but it just won't run outside the
United States. Since we're inside the territory, that really didn't
slow us down. Otherwise the download is fast and the setup is quick.
Even though the website claims that the software supports our tuner
card, the install didn't find it and it took some heavy lifting to get
the TV side of Yahoo Go! for TV to actually work.
When you launch the software, it comes up in a pretty slick
(that's "slick", with an 'L', not "sick"), purple interface. Really
nice if you like purple. The interface is snappy and responsive and
generally easy to navigate. You're presented with a bunch of standard
options, including: Movies, Music, Photos, TV, and Video. There's also
a settings page, but no settings to change. The order of options must
be Yahoo's idea of priority, because it certainly isn't mine. For
example, the Movies option lets you choose between five more choices.
They are: Top Box Office, Today's Features, My Theaters, Local
Theaters, and DVD Player. If you actually want to watch a movie on
your HTPC, you have to go down to option 5 and watch what's in the DVD
Drive. There are no options to view movie files stored on the hard
drive. In fact, the first four options are online content, not local.
They give you movie info like trailers, synopses, reviews, playing
times, etc. But no actual movies. Potentially, in the future, Yahoo
could add the ability to view or rent or buy a movie from this section,
but for now it's pretty useless.
The rest of the options are very similar, driving you to
online content instead of the content on your HTPC. With the Music
choice, it's not that bad, since there's a bunch of good stuff
available online. But most of us would rather use our large local
library, so again, scroll down to option 3 for that to happen.
We didn't have any luck with the TV setup, so we'll chalk that
up as a Beta issue. Many people use their My Yahoo pages as a TV
Guide, so hopefully that technology is pretty well integrated into the
TV portion of their software.
When it comes down to it, Yahoo Go for TV isn't currently a
threat to the likes of Windows Media Center or SageTV if you really
want a fully functioning HTPC. If you use Yahoo quite a bit, and want
to get access to your stuff from your TV, this product is great. But
it's in Beta, so who knows what will come when the full product is
released to the world. For now, it's free, so it certainly doesn't
hurt anything to check it out. The question is, why?
We reviewed the Slingmedia
SlingBox back in
October of 2005.
Both Braden and I were very impressed by the product. The SlingBox is a
device that allows you to watch and control your TV from anywhere in
the world, as long as you have a high speed connection.
On today's podcast we are reviewing the newest add on to the SlingBox, the
SlingPlayer Mobile.
Now if you have a mobile device that supports Windows Mobile you can
watch your video on the go. If you are using your mobile phones network
capability make sure you have an unlimited plan. This will use up
bandwidth quickly.
So what do you get with this software?
- Full-screen video For all Pocket PC's with
rectangular displays (320x240 or 640x480 resolution), the SlingPlayer
Mobile includes a full-screen "landscape" mode, with rotation
- Audio-only and Slideshow modes Two new
ways to watch (or should we say "listen to") your Slingbox, where you
can optimize for higher audio quality instead of video quality. These
features come in handy if you want to listen to the news or a sports
game in a very low-bandwidth environment.
- Graphical SlingRemote SlingPlayer Mobile
includes all the remote control capabilities as used in SlingPlayer PC,
giving you full control over your Slingbox and whatever device you
connected to it, including your cable box, satellite receiver, DVR, or
DVD player!
- Hardware button remapping If you have a
cable box (or TiVo or satellite receiver or DVD player or anything else
with on-screen guides or navigation), you can use hardware buttons
(such as up, down, left, right, etc) to control your device!
Installation
Installing
the software is no different than installing any other application on
your PDA. If your cell phone has Windows Mobile you will have to
connect it to your PC to copy the software over. Enter your
registration number then add a Slingbox Finder ID and your good to go.
So how does it work?
In
a nutshell just as advertised! We used the device over 802.11, EVDO,
and Edge networks. The higher the bit rate the better the picture. When
used over a 802.11 network we were getting 30 frames a second at about
450kbs. The picture looked good. We're not talking HD but considering
you are watching on a PDA the picture was pretty good. EVDO networks
like the one Verizon uses produced similar results. This is great for
the traveler. I was in an airport in Chicago last week and was happy to
be able to watch something other than CNN. What's nice about this is if
you have a DVR connected to the SlingBox you can watch whatever you
have recorded.
Using the software while connected to an edge network device
was not as satisfying. We could never get more than 5 or 6 frames per
second. You could put it into Slideshow mode which works great for news
or sports.
My wife takes my PDA and props it up in the bathroom as she
gets ready for work. I could never get her out of there before now I'll
never get her out of there.
The mobile interface supports
favorites. You can set 14 favorite channels that you can tune to with a
tap of the stylus. Like its PC cousin the channels are identified by
the networks logo.
You can download a 30 day trial of the SlingPlayer Mobile for
free. Its $30 if you want to buy it. You'll need a SlingBox which has a
MSRP of $250. Finally you'll need a high speed Internet connection if
you want to watch your TV remotely. You can use the SlingBox to stream
TV to other PCs in the house as long as you have a network.
