My beautiful streaming NFL weekend

By Ryan Lawler

From http://gigaom.com/

Like most folks without cable, the biggest drawback I’ve found is the inability to keep track of my favorite sports teams. While MLB.tv takes care of that need during the baseball season (Disclosure: I’m a big Phillies fan), keeping tabs on the NFL season is a whole different beast. But what if you could stream every NFL game over the Internet? That’s what I did over the weekend, as I got my weekly dose of football not on TV at a friend’s house or at the local pub, but in the comfort of my own home, on my laptop and iPad.

Don’t (expect to) try this at home

It’s important to note that this isn’t a guide to streaming games without paying for cable or satellite TV. The iPad apps I used — DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket to Go and ESPN’s WatchESPN app — aren’t available for free. DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package costs $350 for the season, for instance. I was lucky enough to score a login to Sunday Ticket from a PR contact with an invitation to test out the service, but those without DirecTV satellite service can sign up for the streaming option if they’re willing to shell out the cash.

Meanwhile, live video on the WatchESPN iPad app is only available to Time Warner Cable, Brighthouse Networks and Verizon FiOS customers who subscribe to ESPN. Again, I was able to log in through a test accountI had received from ESPN when the application was launched. The good news is that NBC’s Sunday Night Football stream is still free, although that means those without cable or satellite will only be able to stream one game a week.

In other words, unless you’re a Time Warner Cable subscriber who also wants to pay for Sunday Ticket streaming, don’t expect to be able to simulate this exercise. That said, here’s a rundown of what I thought of each service:

NFL Sunday Ticket

DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket iPad app has pretty much everything a football fan could want on game day. It has live scores from around the league and the ability to switch between virtually any game shown on CBS or Fox during the 1:00 p.m ET or 4:00 p.m. ET time slots. It also provides stats and game highlights from each game shown during that time period.

Most importantly, the Sunday Ticket app has the Red Zone Channel, which jumps between games whenever a team gets into scoring position. Red Zone is perfect for the football fan who has ADD, or who might not be rooting for any particular team on Sunday, but just wants to be updated on all the scoring action happening from around the league.

The one thing Sunday Ticket doesn’t have on the iPad is a video archive, meaning it’s pretty much useless except for a period of about six hours every Sunday. But for those six hours, it might be a football fan’s best friend.

Sunday Night Football All Access

NBC has continued its tradition of live streaming its Sunday Night Football broadcast online, making it available to viewers through NBCSports.com. For viewers who don’t pay for cable, that means there’s at least one free game a week. I was particularly interested in this week’s matchup, which was between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Atlanta Falcons. (Disclosure: I am also an Eagles fan.)

While the other two apps are available on the iPad, NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast leverages Microsoft Silverlight for playback, so it can’t be streamed on mobile devices. As a result, I watched it on my laptop. On the plus side, the service gives viewers a choice between multiple camera angles throughout the broadcast.

That said, video playback was just ok, and suffered from occasional buffering — something I wasn’t used to or expecting in the age of adaptive bit-rate streaming. It was an experience that reminded me how much I prefer HTML5-based HLS streaming on the iPad. One final downside to the SNF experience was a lack of diversity in the video ads that ran during breaks. If I never see the Toyota Venza Facebook commercial again, I’ll die a happy man.

Monday Night Football on WatchESPN

After a disappointing streaming experience on my laptop, it was nice to get back to watching football on the iPad. With WatchESPN, the iPad once again transformed into a personal football machine. While I was mostly interested in watching Monday Night Football, the ESPN app isn’t built for that. In fact, viewers can watch live streams from ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNU on the application.

The MNF broadcast on the iPad was more or less the same as what was on TV, which is a plus for viewers who might not be at home for whatever reason. Interestingly enough, while WatchESPN allows viewers to tune in on the Apple tablet device, those checking from their mobile phones are blacked out due to an exclusive mobile distribution agreement with Verizon.

When business trumps technology

If there’s one thing that I learned this weekend, it’s that the technology for distributing live streams of popular content like NFL games is fully baked, but access to those streams is being held back by contractual obligations.

DirecTV is paying about $1 billion a year for exclusive access to all Sunday Ticket games over the next four years, so you can’t really blame it for not being more open and selling the online portion at a discount to the satellite package it offers subscribers. After all, the whole point of NFL Sunday Ticket isn’t to collect the annual $350 charge from users — although that’s a nice bonus — but to get more subscribers signed up, who will hopefully stick with the satellite TV provider year-round.

As for the WatchESPN app, the biggest issue is that it’s not available to more cable or satellite subscribers, simply because the operators in their area haven’t struck a deal with ESPN. Hopefully that will change with time. In the meantime, streaming Monday Night Football on the iPad serves as a great example of good value-added service to consumers that is being held back by rights agreements.

Football photo courtesy of (CC BY 2.0) Flickr user Tom Newby.

American Airlines And Gogo Roll Out In-Flight Personal Device Video Streaming To 767 Fleet

From: http://techcrunch.com/

As we heard earlier this Spring, American Airlines became one of the first North American airlines to begin testing Gogo’s in-flight streaming video to personal devices for passengers. Today, the company is announcing a broader roll out of the new entertainment product to its entire fleet of 767 aircrafts, mainly on routes between New York’s JFK, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

We’ve also learned more details about the entertainment product. The system will wirelessly stream content such as movies and TV shows from an inflight library to select types of Wi-Fi-enabled laptops during flights. ‘Entertainment On Demand’ will be available for $0.99 per TV show and $3.99 per movie. Customers do not have to purchase inflight Wi-Fi to use Entertainment On Demand can just click on the Entertainment On Demand banner on the inflight Wi-Fi homepage, select a movie or TV show, enter the form of payment and click “rent.”

American Airlines says that the platform currently offers 100 movies and TV shows, which will remain accessible for viewing after the customer has landed (movies for 24 hours and TV shows for 72 hours). The goal, says the company, is to roll the in-flight entertainment system out to all wi-fi enabled aircrafts. American Airlines actually only received received FAA certification for the system this month.

In the coming months, in-flight wifi provider Gogo plans to make tablets and other devices available for use with the product. I can imagine many users may want to be able to stream movies to their iPads in flight as opposed to using laptops.

Here’s a video explaining how the service works.

Build Your Own iCloud

Why wait until the fall? With a little bit of ingenuity, you can build your own iCloud today.

By William Fenton

 

Did you hear? iCloud’s available—well, sort of. Currently a public beta for those enrolled in the Apple developer program, iCloud is slowingly drifting our way, with official availability this fall, along with iOS 5—and perhaps that mythical iPhone 5.
But what if you can’t wait? Or what if you haven’t subscribed to the Jobsian reality distortion field? Certainly, there must be ways to replicate the iCloud experience with existing services. It turns out there are—in spades. The challenge is in paring them down. Once you do that, you can get everything you get from iCloud—and more—for free if you’re willing to mix together a cocktail of services. Here’s your shopping list.

One-Part Backup
iCloud features unlimited storage for iTunes-purchased music, apps, and iBooks, as well as unlimited storage of new photos for one month (after that they conceivably disappear, leaving you with your 1,000 most recent pics). There is, however, a 5-gigabyte cap when it comes to your iOS backup data, documents, calendars, and mail. And, as any email enthusiast can attest, 5 gigabytes can evaporate quickly, leaving little room in the cloud for other backup.

There are a dizzying number of alternatives. SugarSync or MiMedia offer comparable storage caps (5 gigabytes and 7 gigabytes, respectively) to iCloud as well as the ability to stream content you’ve uploaded: SugarSync streams music and photos, and MiMedia streams music, photos, and video. The trade-off comes in support. For now, MiMedia is only for iOS, whereas SugarSync supports iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

Meanwhile, storage junkies may prefer either Windows Live SkyDrive, which features 25 gigabytes of free online storage, or MediaFire, an unlimited online file repository. While you shouldn’t count on streaming your content to devices, you get a free bottomless locker into which you may drop 200-megabyte files—more than suitable for music, photos, and documents.

Our Editors’ Choice pick is DropBox. While it lacks the all-you-can-eat storage of MediaFire and the streaming prowess of MiMedia and SugarSync, its drag and drop simplicity and impressive device support—iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry—make it a great backup option.

A Splash of Documents, Contacts, Calendars, and Mail
In addition to 5 gigabytes of shared backup, iCloud also vaporizes your documents (Documents in the Cloud), contacts (Contacts), calendars (Calendar), and mail (Mail). This is great if you rely on Apple products—iWork, Address Book, iCal, and Mail—but less useful if you rely upon third party solutions (though Windows users do catch a break with Outlook support).

Certainly, you can backup all this data manually using the aforementioned backup services; however, if you want to use your documents, mail, contacts, and calendars, Google has you covered: Google Docs, Google Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar. As with just about everything from Google, these services are popular, free, and easily accessible. Google Docs is an easy choice: It secured our Editors’ Choice designation for its simple editing, collaboration, and tight integration with other Google function. When it comes to email, Google Gmail may not match the uber-customizable Editors’ Choice winner Windows Live Hotmail, but thanks to its interoperability with Google’s other services—Docs, Contacts, and Calendars—it makes the most sense as a centralized iCloud replacement.

On the other hand, for customers willing to pay for a deeper feature set and guaranteed reliability (namely 99.9% uptime), Microsoft has also entered the cloud, with its Office 365: $6 per user per month buys you access to the Office web apps (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote), Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.

A Dash of Photo Stream
iCloud features Photo Stream, a rolling collection of your last 1,000 photos (and new photos for 30 days) automatically distributed across your devices—iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It’s a great idea because it addresses a reality: Consumers are using smartphones as cameras and they need a way to unfetter those photos because manually syncing or sharing photos just isn’t cutting it anymore.

For both Android and iPhone customers, SugarSync is the obvious alternative because of AutoSync Photos. The new photo-centric feature automatically backs up your mobile photos so that you can access them across all of your devices. It already existed for files (AutoSync Files), and SugarSync simply extended the coverage to photos. In fact, if you’re using SugarSync for photo streaming alone, this may be a better solution than Photo Stream, because unlike Photo Stream, which puts an expiration date on your pics, SugarSync lets you draw from a fixed 5 gigabytes of online storage (which you can of course upgrade).

Two Parts iTunes
One component that’s already available is iTunes. Anything you’ve purchased on iTunes is available in your iTunes purchased tab to be downloaded on your devices. There will also be the option to extend the cloud with iTunes Match, a $25 per year service that will pair all of your songs—no matter how they got into iTunes—with their DRM-free, 256kbps twins in Apple's 18 million-song vault in the sky. An unmatchable deal, right? Think again.

Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player compete almost directly with Apple’s service. Amazon gives you free online storage of any music you purchase through the Amazon Music Store and up to 5 gigabytes of storage for anything else you dream up. Amazon Cloud Drive is the repository; Amazon Cloud Player is the vehicle for uploading or streaming music (though you can manually upload). When you purchase a song or album from Amazon, you have the option to vaporize it to your cloud drive, sparing you the upload you do for personal music or files. Currently, Amazon is running a deal that rivals iTunes Match: For $20 per year you get unlimited personal music uploads plus 20 gigabytes of undefined storage—movies, photos, documents, whatever you please. The only tradeoff is that instead of matching your tunes with a vault in the sky, Amazon requires you upload tracks.

Amazon Cloud Player device support is limited to Android for the time being, so for now, iOS enthusiasts will have to wait for iCloud or weigh media-savvy alternatives such as SugarSync or MiMedia.

Another option is Google Music, currently in beta. If you can get access to the service, Google Music lets you upload up to 20,000 of your songs (with a max of 250 megabytes per song) for free. Its accompanying Music Manager app automatically finds and uploads all tunes on your computer, though you don't get to pick and choose which evaporate. The bigger problem is that, unlike iTunes or Amazon Cloud Player, there's no integrated music store for online purchases. Google Music also offers an Android app that lets you play and download, but not upload, music.

Your Cloud, Your Terms
While Apple’s iCloud looks to be a huge improvement upon MobileMe, there are plenty of existing services for all users—Apple and Windows, iPhone and Android—that can be mixed together to create the same kind of cloud-based coverage. For backup, there are a host of free online repositories from which to choose, many of which include file streaming and robust mobile support. Google (as well as Microsoft, for a cost) offers powerful document hosting, while SugarSync delivers a platform-agnostic answer to photo streaming. And even iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match can be replicated—and more—with Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. It takes a thirst, and a bit of imagination, but the ingredients are within reach. Of course, they won’t be integrated behind one no-doubt beautiful interface, but they’re here now, and, for the most part, they’re free for the taking.

How To Keep Your iTunes Library When It Won’t Fit on Your Hard Drive

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By Adrian Covert

From http://lifehacker.com/

Ultraportable notebooks are finally fast enough that we can use them as our main machines. But damn, the SSDs they pack are small—how are you supposed to fit your entire music library on one of these? You're not.

Get that music off your hard drive, bawse. First off, you can get a lot of mileage out of streaming music services; there's no need to tote all 25 Air Supply albums around with you. But for the rest of your musical needs—those Phish bootlegs and Marky Mark freestyle sessions—consider getting your songs a second home.

First Things First: Get the Music off Your Old Computer

Say you just picked up one of those shiny new MacBook Airs that everyone loves—instead of just migrating everything over from your old machine, be selective. Before you do anything with your new computer, though, you need to get your iTunes music library off your old computer. Luckily, doing that is very simple. And these instructions work for Mac or PC.

 

Tell iTunes Where You Want to Dump Your Music

1) Make sure your old computer is running the latest version of iTunes. There shouldn't be an issue with loading a library from an older version of iTunes to a newer one, but do it just to be safe.
2) You'll want to create a new location for your default iTunes Music folder on whichever external drive you plan to use. To do this, go to the menu bar and click iTunes > Preferences....
3) From there, you want to click the Advanced tab. The first item in the list will be the iTunes Media Folder location.
4) Click the button to the right that says Change, and either select a folder in your external harddrive that you'll want to use, or create a new folder. Once you've selected a folder, click OK to exit the preferences menu.

 

Then Dump Your Music

1) Once you've selected a new location for your music files, return to your music library.
2) From there, go back up to the menubar and click File > Library > Organize Library.
3) Check the box that says Consolidate Library and hit OK.
This will begin the process of copying all your music files into one folder (the one you previously designated) on your external hard drive. Depending on how many songs you have, this could take a while.

Copy Your iTunes Database to an External Drive

You've spent years rating songs and building playlists—don't give them up! To make sure those musical memories aren't lost, you're gonna want to copy over your iTunes library database from your old computer to your external harddrive.
1) Go into your Music folder (where the iTunes folder is stored by default), or wherever you've decided store your iTunes library files.
2) There should be a folder simply named iTunes. If there are any music files in the folder (which would be found in iTunes > iTunes Media > Music), delete those files, but nothing else.
3) Then, drag/copy that folder to your external HDD in its entirety. Now you're ready to move to the new computer.

Now, What Are You going to Do With All That Music?

Now you know how to offload your entire iTunes Library to an external drive, but should it be a NAS or a standard drive? Or should you upload to a cloud storage locker? There are pros and cons to each, depending on how you live your life.

 

Option 1: Keep Your Music on a Standard External Drive

If you're in lurve with iTunes, have a lot of Apple-DRM'd content, actively manage an army of iOS devices, or just spend a lot of time listening to music on your computer, importing your old iTunes database onto your new computer and pulling your library from an external drive is a great bet. It'll look like it's all right there on your machine, just like the old days. That said, you have to plug into said hard drive to get at your stuff.
But if you're the kind of cat who plugs into a USB hub or a notebook doc when you're at home anyway, this solution is perfect. Especially if you want the ability to sync your iOS device without formatting it again, and be able to access all your old ratings, playlists and playcounts. Here's how to do it:
1) If you've already installed iTunes, make sure it isn't running.
2) Locate the Music folder on your new computer. If you've already installed iTunes, there should be a folder named iTunes there. Delete it.
3) In a new window, locate the folder named iTunes you copied to your external HDD.
4) Copy that iTunes folder into your computer's Music folder.
5) Now it's time to open iTunes. Hold down the option key while launching iTunes.
6) iTunes will ask whether you want to create a library or choose a library. Select Choose library, then navigate to your Music folder, then your iTunes folder on your computer and double click iTunes Library.itl.
7) If everything went according to plan, your music library should have made smoothly made the transition to a new computer and external harddrive.
But let's say there's music you know you'll want to listen to when you're not connected to your drive—your work or studying playlist, for example. You can actually set up a separate, smaller library, and it won't get mixed up with your main megalibrary, either. It's a little advanced, but you can handle it:
1) Hold down option when opening iTunes.
2) When asked if you want to Create a Library or Choose a Library, select Create Library.
3) Name the library whatever you want, but something logical like "Music on Laptop" probably makes sense.
4) Drag any music files you want from your external harddrive into the Music folder of your computer.
5) Once they've been copied over, drag those files into the iTunes app, where they will appear.
6) Now you have a separate library of music stored locally. To switch back to the library with the songs stored on your external drive, quit iTunes, relaunch iTunes (while holding down the option key), elect to choose which library you want to open, and find the iTunes library in your Music folder you initially copied over to your laptop.

Option 2: Stream it From a NAS Drive

The second thing you can do is to keep all your music on a NAS drive, which means you can access files over your local network without having to directly connect your computer to the drive.

This is great if you have a lot of DLNA streaming devices like a Sonos system or Boxee Box. And once you've offloaded your music from your old computer (follow the same steps as above, just select the network-attached drive instead of a USB-linked one), all you have to do is tell the device where to look on the drive.
As far as working with iTunes, a NAS drive isn't perfect for managing and syncing files to devices (it's sloooow), but once you've imported your tracks into the library, it streams pretty well, depending on the speed of your network. You can also get a NAS that supports the iTunes server feature, where all your music will show up in your local iTunes library as a streaming playlist.

Option 3: Stick it in the Cloud

If priority #1 for you is having your music accessible ANYWHERE you go, there's always the cloud. There are currently only two services that are worth looking into: Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive.
Neither is perfect, but they both more or less do what they say they'll do, which is make your music available to you anywhere you go. You can stream in a browser or an Android device, and if you want it locally, you can pull files from the cloud. Each service uploads in its own way, but what the two have in common is a particular disdain for your musical metadata. Playcounts and ratings go out the window of the magical airship that ferries your music to the firmament.

Also, if you suffer from data caps or sucky bandwidth, the cloud will likely rain on your parade. Furthermore, if you have a massive music library, storing large chunks of music in the cloud can get costly. Amazon offers up 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 gigabyte chunks of storage at a cost that breaks down to a dollar per gig per year (ie, 50GB=$50/year). Google Music is still in beta and working out its pricing.

So now you can rest easier knowing you have three solid housing options for your music library now that's it has moved out of your laptop. Which one you pick ultimately comes down to your listening habits, but one thing is clear: a big laptop hard drive is no longer a must.

Blockbuster To Close More Stores, But Saves Majority

by Joel Hruska

from: http://hothardware.com/

Dish Network's eleventh hour Blockbuster purchase saved a number of stores from imminent closure, but the company still intends to close additional properties. Blockbuster has spun this into a victory; the company's blog claims to have "saved" stores as opposed to liquidating them.

"We’re pleased that we will continue to operate more than 90 percent of the stores that were offered at auction in April,” said Michael Kelly, president of Blockbuster. “By lowering pricing and offering competitive summer promotions, we’ve brought millions of customers back into Blockbuster stores in the last three months to experience the best in convenience, choice and value. Today, more than 100 million people live near a Blockbuster store.”

“Unfortunately, despite our efforts to reach reasonable terms, some property owners have closed stores,” Kelly added. “However, we’ll continue to look for opportunities for physical distribution in these neighborhoods as we expand our in-store experience, unmatched for movies and family entertainment."

The company originally had some 1700 properties, of which 1500 are currently still up and running. The company's online offerings may have gotten a welcome jolt in recent weeks; Blockbuster has launched a fresh offensive recently in an attempt to lure away customers angry over Netflix's sudden price hike. Last week, the company announced it would offer a combined DVD+streaming access plan with new releases arriving more quickly than on Netflix, game rentals for multiple consoles, in-store exchanges, and no additional charge for Blu-ray rentals. In and of themselves, the perks might not be sufficient to prompt a mass exodus, but it's a well-timed move on Blockbuster's part.

The averted store closings are good news, but we've yet to hear much from Dish on how it intends to integrate the Blockbuster brand into its own offerings. There aren't many linkages between satellite broadcasting and physical film distribution, and no simple way for Dish to convert Blockbuster into a hybrid company while keeping prices competitive with the online-only offerings.

Dell Sets Stage to Take On Apple's iCloud

By Mark Hachman
From http://www.pcmag.com/

With a new release of its Stage software, Dell has quietly created a cloud-based service offering that could offer consumers a compelling reason to keep investing in Dell devices.

The new release, which began shipping last week, allows users who snap a picture with a Dell Streak or other Dell mobile device to automatically upload it to a pool of free, shared cloud storage. The new software also allows devices to remotely control and play back shared audio and video, plus other services.

For consumers, Dell's Stage release is probably more important than the new "More You" ads that began playing this week. One of the results that emerged as Dell began the market research behind the "More You" campaign is that customers, unsurprisingly, have begun to use PCs and mobile devices to store their digital memories.

"We asked them, what is so important about that computer... and whether [the respondent] was Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, ultimately it was because 'my life is on that thing,'" said Paul-Henri Ferrand, the chief marketing officer of Dell's global consumer business and SMB, and also president of Dell's Asia-Pacific/Japan business.

Stage is an attempt to take that digital content and allow users to control and manage it effortlessly, said Tim Peters, a vice president responsible for platform strategy within Dell. Within the PC, it cuts across Dell's XPS, Inspiron, and Alienware brands, and can be controlled from Dell's mobile devices. "It's a critical part of the Dell experience," Peters said.

What's new: remote cloud storage, photo uploads, and more

The Stage software, which Dell began shipping last year, appears as a set of square tiles on a user's PC, with various categories like "Books," "Photos," and "Apps". The new release makes each tile 3D, versus the two-dimensional images that appeared in the older version of Stage.

Any time a user snaps a digital photo with a Stage-enabled device, the new Stage software automatically uploads it to a free 2-Gbyte pool of storage. (Any content can be stored there, according to a Dell spokesman, including movies, pictures, and music.) Users can purchase additional capacity, including 5 Gbytes for $19.99/year, 25 Gbytes for $49.99/yr, and 100 Gbytes for $149.99/yr.

Automatic photo uploads is a feature reserved for just a few services at this point, among them Google's Google's latest Google+. Storing music in the cloud has also been the domain of other services, most notably Apple's iCloud.

Audio and video can be remotely controlled via Stage devices, Dell executives said. Dell has also added support for podcasts; an integrated Noisey application, which showcases music from all over the world; and an enhanced Napster home page.

Dell began life as a hyper-efficient box builder, known for its "just in time" strategy of managing inventory efficiently than anything else. If buyers wanted the latest Intel microprocessor, they bought it from Dell. Years later, however, leadership in the PC space has evolved into a competition whose products are differentiated using design, services, and price as metrics. Ferrand described his business as a "brand war," where Dell is aspiring to become something like an Audi of the PC world, where the quality of its fit and finish is complemented by a faith in its superior engineering.

"With Stage, we're building to the experiences of people, rather than building to specs," Ferrand said.

For more from Mark, follow him on Twitter @MarkHachman.

Spotify Coming to the US, Get Invited

Ernesto
from http://torrentfreak.com/

Today the music streaming application Spotify announced that it will be available to U.S. users soon.

When Spotify launched their first beta in the fall of 2008, we branded it “an alternative to music piracy.”

Having the option to stream millions of tracks supported by an occasional ad, or free of ads for a small monthly fee, Spotify appeared to be serious competitor to music piracy.

In the two years that followed Spotify rapidly won the hearts and minds of many music fans, but the more than 10 million users come from a few European countries only.

This is about to change according to Spotify.

If you’re from the U.S. and interested in giving Spotify a try, get in line now.

Spotify Coming to the US

Google Music Beta versus the titans of the streaming music space: a chart

By Sean Hollister
From http://www.engadget.com/

It feels like just yesterday we charted the streaming music landscape, but it's already changed in a big way -- Google is muscling in on the likes of Rhapsody, Pandora and particularly Amazon with its Google Music Beta. Being able to take 20,000 of your personal tunes, stream them over the web and cache them locally on your device isn't functionality to sneeze at, so it's time we updated our charts. After the break, see how the big streaming services stack up.

Service:	Google Music Beta	Amazon Cloud Player
Price:	Free... for now, by invitation only, in the US. Stores 20,000 songs.	Between $20/year (20 GB) and $1,000/year for 1 TB
Trial	None	5 GB free storage
Type of streaming:	Cloud	Cloud
What you pay for:	Nothing, yet	Additional storage capacity
Mobile reach:	Only Android 2.2+	Android and iOS
Unique Features:	Locally cached songs, custom playlists with cloud sync, iTunes import	Access to Amazon's MP3 store

Service:	Pandora	Slacker	MOG	Rhapsody
Price:	$36/year	$4.99/month ($3.99 annual pass)	$9.99/month	$9.99/month (1 device); $14.99 for 3
Trial:	40 free hours/month	Freemium model	14 days free	14 days free
Type of Streaming:	Radio stations	Radio stations	On-demand, radio stations	On-demand
What you pay for:	Ad-free, higher bit rate, desktop app	Ad-free, unlimited song skips, lyrics, offline caching	Unlimited song streaming, downloads for offline listening	Unlimited song streaming, downloads
Mobile reach:	iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS	iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, WP7	iOS, Android	iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WP7
Unique features:	Thumbs up/down	See which artist is up next in the queue	Personalized radio based off existing queue	Option to stream on 3 mobile devices

Service:	Rdio	Napster	Zune Pass
Price:	$4.99/month on desktop web; $9.99 on mobile	$5/month web-only; $10 mobile and web	$15/month
Trial	7 days	7 days	14 days
Type of streaming:	On-demand	On-demand	On-demand
What you pay for:	Unlimited song access, sync mobile to desktop	Unlimited song access	Unlimited access, 10 free downloads per month
Mobile reach:	iOS, Android, BlackBerry	iOS, Android, BlackBerry	WP7, Zune Marketplace
Unique Features:	Can be used on Sonos and Roku	Military discount of 30% off subscription services	Option to keep 10 downloads per month

Google Music Beta

Beastie Boys' 'Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2'

by Andrew Martin
from http://www.prefixmag.com/

I know what some of you are thinking: "Wait, didn't you guys make a post just like this on Saturday?" Well, yes, kind of. The Beastie Boys have decided to give bootleggers the middle-finger and just uploaded the entirety of Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 to their Soundcloud account (and website). Clean versions of the album hit blogs and torrent sites over the weekend -- you know, after they live-streamed the thing from Madison Square Garden via boombox. But this is the official, non-live stream of the album. It's also dirty, CD-quality, and ready for you to play the shit out of until the album is released next Tuesday.

Listen to Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2, which drops May 3, below.

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two by Beastie Boys

BEASTIE BOYS

Which Media Center Is Right for You: Boxee, XBMC, and Windows Media Center Compared

By: Jason Fitzpatrick & Kevin Purdy —
From: http://lifehacker.com/

Want all your downloads, streaming video, and other techie media stuff on your TV? Wondering which media center works best for you? Here's a look at the biggies in chart and Venn diagram form, followed by some lengthy breakdowns of each.

New to the idea of TV-connected computers? Head down below the charts for some explainers and deeper comparisons of each system. If you're already familiar with the HTPC scene, we'll give you the good stuff first.

We focused on three widely available, and generally popular, media centers for our comparison and review. We're certainly aware there are many alternatives out there, as free software or stand-alone hardware boxes, but these are the three of the most popular media centers, they receive ongoing development, and they can easily be installed on a wide number of TV-connected computers.

The graphical explanations

Here's how we see the three major media centers, in chart list and Venn diagram forms. Note: The chart is based on out-of-the-box features that don't require the user to install any plug-ins.

What's a media center, exactly?

What does a media center do? It varies, but it generally takes all the stuff you'd normally enjoy on a computer or portable device—MP3s, video files, Netflix, Hulu, digital photos, and web/social apps—and plays it on a television, through your speakers, and back onto your wireless network, if you'd like. Media centers can be run off of pretty much any capable computer, but are generally intended for small and specialized computers, called Home Theater PCs, or HTPCs. HTPCs have the video and audio ports necessary to hook up to a modern high-definition television, and generally have enough processing power and memory to handle the heavy burden of converting, playing, and sometimes recording high-resolution files. If you've got a home network set up with shared files and network-attached storage (NAS), media centers can generally pull their content off other systems and devices, as well as receive files for storage and download them directly off the net.

Put simply, a media center allows you to sit on a couch and do the most fun things you'd do on a computer with a remote. You can fire up a movie from Netflix's streaming service or from a file you've already downloaded, catch the show you missed last night on Hulu, put on background music while you're doing something else, share your Flickr or Picasa photos with visiting relatives—whatever you'd like, really.
Not every media center can do everything, however, and some are much better at certain entertainment jobs than others. The editors at Lifehacker conferred on what each box does best, tried to pin down what each system can and can't do, and put it together in ways that we hope can help you decide.

Windows Media Center, XBMC, and Boxee

Here's a more in-depth look at the media centers—installing and setting them up, and their pros and cons.
Windows Media Center is "free" with Home Premium or Ultimate copies of Windows Vista, all versions of Windows 7 except Starter or Home Basic, and available as a stand-alone, XP-based operating system dubbed "Media Center Edition." XBMC is a free and open-source media center software that was born as a game-changing XBOX modification, but now runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and XBOX systems, as well as booting and running off a USB stick. Boxee is based on the same core internal code as XBMC, but focuses on bringing web content—video sites, blog streams, and social apps—into your living room, while XBMC remains oriented toward a download-and-play setup.
Plex, a popular and very eye-pleasing media center for Mac OS X, is certainly a contender in this category. For all intents and purposes, though, it's a variant of XBMC. Most anything we write or display in this post about XBMC applies to Plex, too, except for matters of looks and interface.
Those would be our definitions in the Lifehacker Dictionary, anyways. Let's get a bit more encyclopedic on the strengths and weaknesses of each system:

Windows Media Center

 
Installation and Setup: Fairly easy. It comes pre-loaded in the higher-end editions of Windows Vista and 7, and assuming your computer or HTPC has the right outputs and plugs, Windows can fairly easily adjust its display to your television. If you're running other Windows systems on your wireless network, you won't have to do much configuration to start "sharing" files back and forth from the TV-connected system to your other platforms. If you're running Mac or Linux computers, you'll have a good deal more work to do. If your media computer came with a TV tuner card already installed, Windows will recognize it and work with it to record TV shows.

Here's how Adam turned a Windows PC into a Media Center powerhouse, with a good detail on the installation and setup process.
Strengths

• Nice and easy DVR: And you don't have to pay a monthly fee.
• Calm, easy interface: Divided into obvious sections and fairly intuitive directional layouts.
• Large range of compatible remotes: Look online or in an electronics store for a "Windows Media Center remote," and you'll find something with lots of buttons that instantly hooks up to your Media Center, usually through a USB-connected receiver.
• Generally easy networking: Across Windows systems, that is, and if you're down with the shared folders setup.

Weaknesses

• File handling: Generally, Media Center can handle the same files that Windows Media Player can handle, and, with the right codec installations, that can be quite extensive. But out of the box, don't expect support for the diverse range of video and audio you'll find around the web.
• Windows-only: But you knew that.
• Complex remotes: Media Center works with a lot of remotes, but they often look like parodies of button-stuffed clickers. If a simple, Apple-like navigator exists for Media Center, do tell us in the comments.
• Locked-down DVR files: Work-arounds and decoders exist, of course, but if you want to play your recorded TV shows on anything other than your personal set of authorized Windows machines, Zunes, and XBOX devices, good luck.

Note: Windows Media Center doesn't support Hulu by default, but with the right plug-in it can do the trick.

XBMC

 
Installation and Setup: It depends, of course, on the platform and hardware you're installing on. Getting it running and connected on a modern Windows or Mac system is fairly painless, at least from a software standpoint. Running it as a "live" system from a USB stick isn't too hard, either, and you can install it from there onto an HTPC hard drive. Plugging it into a Madriva Linux box and hooking it up to your very specialized 1080p plasma setup with optical audio out will likely require hair plugs and years of therapy.
Read up on Adam's guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap for a look at the live-USB-to-installation path on a $200 HTPC system.
Strengths

• Open source, open nature: Need XBMC to do something it doesn't do already? Chances are, there's a clever hacker working on it. XBMC doesn't have the same kind of "platform" that its offspring Boxee does, but coders can get into it and make it better, and make it do more.
• Meta-data and file recognition: From personal trials and commenter anecdotes, XBMC is really good at knowing when you've put new files somewhere in your system, figuring out what types of files they are (movie, TV, music, or picture), and reaching out to the internet to pull down relevant pictures, data, reviews, and even trailer links for the videos and music you plug into it.
• Light and agile: Relatively speaking, XBMC may have some really nice graphics and menus, but because it comes from a project to put a full media center on a game system, XBMC is focused on playing back media files as smoothly as possible.
• Slick, customizable looks: Even putting Plex aside, XBMC wins, hands-down, for looking like you're living in the future when displayed on a really big, nice TV. Don't like the way it looks by default? Put a new skin on it, and it's a whole different beast.
• Format support: Personally, I've never found a file on the web, or converted from a friend's computer, that XBMC couldn't play, unless something was wrong with it.

Weaknesses:

• Lack of Netflix, Hulu: There have been work-arounds, hacks, and other tweaks to make XBMC work with the two big names in streaming video. If you were depending on either one, though, XBMC would not be a safe bet.
• Over-stuffed, sometimes complicated menus: XBMC's menus and layout are the geekiest around—how you react to that depends on your temperament. You can do all kinds of things from any screen in XBMC, and its interface often has a smile-inducing futuristic feel to it. But for someone new to media centers and looking to just sit down and play something, it can be quite imposing.

Boxee

 
Installation and Setup: On Windows and Mac systems, the latest Boxee beta is relatively simple to install, as it uses the built-in video and audio systems to push out content. On Linux, it's a good deal more complex, but, then again, what on Linux isn't? Apple TVs require a bit of hacking. In general, Boxee is compatible with the same kind of hardware as XBMC—OpenGL or DirectX-compatible video cards are highly recommended.
Here's how Kevin set up a cheap but powerful Boxee media center using a brawny $350 HTPC and free copies of Linux and Boxee.
Strengths

• Built-in Hulu and Netflix: Boxee and Hulu have had their differences, but they seem to have reached a draw in the stand-off—most Hulu shows and movies work, most of the time. Netflix works fine on Windows and Mac, assuming you don't mind installing Microsoft's Silverlight system.
• Growing directory of web content apps: Love FailBlog? Dig Vimeo's really hi-res stuff? Fan of TwiT's videocasts? Watch them all from Boxee's app, and grab more in the app "store," which has a very healthy selection of customized streaming content.
• Play anything (technically): Boxee uses a reworked Firefox browser to view Hulu, but it's available for nearly any kind of web video page you find on the web. The Boxee Browser is a kind of last resort for any web content that doesn't have its own app.

Weaknesses

• Love-it-or-leave-it interface: Even with its content-forward redesign, many media center aficionados have said they can't get used to Boxee's hidden left-hand sidebars and forward/back functionality. Some just don't like the default looks. It's not a make-or-break issue, considering it's basically the same core tools as XBMC, but if you're going to spend serious time with a media center, you want to like how it looks.
• Local file handling: Boxee doesn't seem as smart about recognizing and updating local file stores. In the words of one Lifehacker editor, "Local files are almost an afterthought." That's to be expected, somewhat, on a system that's so web-facing and stream-savvy, but Boxee could do a lot more to make downloaded music, movies, and pictures easier to gather, organize, and access.

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We know—we absolutely know—that we may have missed a feature, put in "No" where "Yes" should have been, or otherwise missed a detail or two in our breakdown of these media centers. We tried our best to research and check them, but if you see something wrong, or missing, in our explanations or charts, by all means: tell us, politely, in the comments, and we'll update this post, and the charts to match the reality. Feel free to also tell us which system has worked best for you, and why, in the comments.

Five Best Personal Media Streaming Tools

From: http://lifehacker.com/

Streaming video or music from services like YouTube or Pandora is great for sampling a wide variety of stuff, but sometimes all you want is media from your own collection? Here's a look at five great solutions for streaming your personal media.
Photo by Sean Rogers.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite personal media streaming tool, and now we're back to highlight the top five contenders. The focus this week is on personal; all these tools are designed to stream from your personal collection of media to elsewhere on your home network, over the internet, or both.

Subsonic (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

Subsonic is best know for rock-solid music streaming over the internet to web browsers and other supported devices, but unbeknownst to many, it can also stream any video format that supports HTTP streaming, such as AAC. Subsonic supports plugins for transcoding tasks which makes it easy to adapt to new formats. Although many people use it for local streaming around their home network, you can access Subsonic remotely using the web-based interface or grab one of the Subsonic apps for Android and iOS devices. Subsonic is free, but in order to use it in conjunction with any of the mobile apps beyond the 30 day trial, you'll need to "donate" to the Subsonic project to get a license key; donations start at around $15 USD.

Air Video (Windows/Mac/iOS, $2.99)

Air Video is a dead-simple streaming solution for iOS devices. Rather than go through the hassle of re-encoding all your media for playback on your iOS device, Air Video transcodes it on the fly to turn your iPhone or iPad into a mobile media center. You install the server software on your Mac or PC, install the $2.99 application your iOS device, and enjoy easy file browsing and streaming media. If you want to try it out before dropping the $3, take it for a test drive with the free demo, which limits you to streaming the first 3-5 media files in each folder.

Audiogalaxy (Windows/Mac/Android/iOS, Free)

Unlike some of the other entries in this week's Hive Five that do double duty, streaming audio and video, Audiogalaxy remains completely focused on streaming music. You sign up for a free account at Audiogalaxy, install the server software on your Windows or Mac Machine, and get instant and organized music streaming to a remote web browser or your mobile device. Audiogalaxy includes drag and drop playlist creation, easy music search, and meta-data repair to help you clean up your sloppy music collection. As an especially nice perk, both the Android and iOS streaming apps are free.

Orb Live (Windows/Mac/Android/iOS, $9.99)

Orb Live is a hybrid solution for streaming to mobile devices. You install the Orb Live server software on your Windows or Mac computer, then you install the Orb Live streaming app on your Android or iOS device. All media accessible to your computer is then accessible to your mobile device: photos, music, movies—even live television if your computer has a tuner card. The server software is a free download and the mobile app for both Android and iOS is $9.99. Orb provides a demo version if you'd like to try it out before buying (Android/iOS), but the demo just picks three random media samples from your server to show off the technology, so it really is only good for testing purposes.

PS3 Media Server (Windows/Linux, Free)

PS3 Media Server was built to do exactly what it sounds like: transcode and stream media from your computer to a PS3 hooked up to your TV. Although that sounds fairly limited in scope, a lot of people like it for two principal reasons: It transcodes and streams video to the PS3 extremely well, but more importantly, the project very recently has branched out to other devices. People who have struggled with finding a good streaming solution for their PS3 units rave about how it's the best thing out there. Although the originally intended for just the PS3, as of earlier this year the PS3 Media Server beta releases have included support for other devices such as network-connected televisions.

Netflix streaming-only subscription revealed

• by James Fudge
• from http://www.gamepro.com/
  

Netflix announced this morning changes to its subscription plans for customers that use steaming and disc-based content delivery.

Beginning in January the price of the disc-by-mail delivery and steaming content subscription plan will see an increase of $1 a month to $9.99. In addition to the price increase, Netflix introduces a $7.99 streaming-only subscription option to consumers. Coincidentally, the pricing for the streaming-only subscription is $7.99 - the same price for a monthly subscription to Hulu.

The company said in an announcement this morning that this new option is a direct result of the viewing habits of subscribers. Current subscribers are watching more content via the streaming option than via the disc-by-mail option. In addition, the company expects that streaming content viewing will surpass disc-based consumption by year's end.

Netflix recently announced that it plans to invest more money to license streaming content than to acquire DVDs. The challenge the company faces is that most of the newest entertainment offerings are on disc.

For more information on pricing changes that take effect in January, visit blog.netflix.com". Netflix is available in the United States and Canada via PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and other internet-connected devices.

Netflix Adds “Saturday Night Live” and Other NBC Shows

By: Samuel Axon
From: http://mashable.com/



Netflix and NBC Universal have struck a deal to load the streaming video site with tons of content from both NBC and its family of cable networks, including all 35 seasons of Saturday Night Live, and new episodes of the sketch comedy show the day after air.

Saturday Night Live just aired its season premiere last night, but we’re not seeing the episode on Netflix. Apparently the deal hasn’t been executed just yet.

The day-after premiere episodes will continue through 2012, but neither Netflix nor NBC specified how long the other content deals will last. The Office, Law & Order: SVU and 30 Rock will continue to appear on Netflix with the addition of new seasons, along with all episodes of Friday Night Lights. As far as cable content goes, Syfy properties Sanctuary, Battlestar Galactica and Destination Truth will be presented in their entirety, plus USA’s Psych, In Plain Sight and Monk.

The press release from Netflix and NBC says some movies from Universal will be added as well, but it didn’t name any specific films.

Netflix lives and dies by the content in its library, and its leaders have made some smart choices in their quest to secure strong shows and films. For example, they struck a deal with Starz to carry that network’s content.

If they had approached studios directly in that case, they would have had to wait years for the films to pass through existing exclusive contracts.

Logitech To Create First Google TV Set-Top Box In Fall 2010

by Ray Willington
from: http://hothardware.com/

Google managed to score quite a few big partners with their Google TV launch, with Intel and Sony being two key partners in moving the technology forward into the mainstream. But for those who don't want to purchase any entirely new television this fall with a CE4100 processor and the Google TV app onboard, they'll need a set-top box to connect to their existing setup. For that, there's Logitech.

This whole situation feels a little bit like when Microsoft first launched "Extenders for Windows Media Center" at CEDIA a few years ago, but those boxes eventually failed and are pretty much relics today. Google's hoping to have a lot more success with their own STB, with Logitech selected to be the first out of the gate. The details on the box have yet to be fully revealed, but it's pretty clear what it will do. You'll connect the box to your existing HDTV, and then the Google TV platform will come to life via the internal hardware within the sleek, small black shell.

Coupled with a Logitech Harmony remote, the total hardware solution could be compelling...

No price points were discussed either, but consumers were told that it will be compatible with existing Logitech Harmony remotes and it will ship with a few accessories, too. A compact keyboard, remote control and touch pad, to be specific. Logitech will also be responsible for a few more Google TV-related accessories, including an "an HDTV camera for video conferencing, and specialized apps that allow you to turn your smartphone into a Google TV controller." Expect the box to launch alongside the service this Fall.