PlayOn Premium is coming! We will release PlayOn Premium on July 15th, 2010. It will include: Comedy Central (including South Park), NHL, TV.com, MTV.com, VH1.com, and more. It will be sold as an annual subscription -- $39.99 for the first year and $19.99/year thereafter. Your subscription will entitle you to all new content services over the course of the year (and we plan to release a lot), as well as functionality improvements (including a greatly enhanced and integrated Plugin experience, Gold version of the Wii, and much more). We will also be releasing iPhone support for PlayOn Premium which may carry a small additional fee.

Starting on May 20, 2010, we will no longer sell PlayOn as a lifetime license for a single fee. We will start selling PlayOn as a subscription ($39.99 for the first year and $19.99/year thereafter) on May 20, 2010. Customers who purchase PlayOn on or after May 20,2010 will automatically receive PlayOn Premium upon its launch on July 15th, 2010.

We will continue to honor the lifetime licenses for those that purchased PlayOn prior to May 20, 2010 (which we are now calling PlayOn Basic). Your PlayOn Basic will continue to work with the existing non-beta content (Hulu, Netflix, CBS.com, ESPN.com, CNN.com, YouTube, MyMedia and Plugins) as well as Amazon VOD, MLB.tv, and Pandora. After July 15th, 2010, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report will no longer be supported in PlayOn Basic as these are being launched out of beta as part of the full Comedy Central integration in PlayOn Premium. PlayOn Base will continue to receive new features and development support, but no new content will be added into the core (though you can always add more plugins).

To thank our loyal customers, if you purchased PlayOn prior to May 20, 2010, we will be offering a founding member discount for PlayOn Premium. You may upgrade to PlayOn Premium for only $4.99 for the first year ($19.99/year thereafter). Once you purchase the upgrade, you will receive a new license key which will unlock the new PlayOn Premium content. You may also cancel your subscription at any time, and go back to PlayOn Basic (be sure to save your original license key). We are sure you will enjoy the new content and features so much, you will never want to go back.

Between now and July 15th, 2010, you will see a number of content services in PlayOn listed as “Premium Preview” – this is to give you a sneak preview of some of the content that you will have access to as a Premium subscriber. Please note that this content will no longer be accessible after July 15th 2010. We hope you enjoy these previews and encourage you to upgrade on July 15th.

Why are we doing this? The annual subscription fee will fund continued development and support. We want to ensure that we can always give the latest and greatest content and service to our entire user base. The on-going subscription fee will allow that. Give it a shot – we think you’ll like what you see.

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at support@playon.tv

If you love PlayOn, and you are a C# programmer - we may have the perfect job for you! We are currently looking for a project designer/coder to help make PlayOn even better.
 
Skills: C#/ .NET, Interop/p-invoke/COM (Win32 APIs)
 
Experience: Building robust fully-featured commerical applications; experience with Media Applications
 
General: Rock Star!
 
If interested, please contact jobs@playon.tv.
 

We've gotten lots of questions lately about support for the Wii. Yes - it is delayed (sorry!), but it is coming - and soon. We anticipate releasing it at the end of July/ early August (so - in 5 weeks or so). Why the delay? Well...we had some other priorities creep in (bugs, new device support, and the like), and we want to make sure the interface really rocks. This takes time. As you may know - we have no (very, very little) control over the interface for the PS3 or Xbox360 - so while not as pretty, from a development-perspective, this makes things a little easier. On the Wii, we have free reign over interface, and so we want to make sure it is great ... and this always takes longer than anticipated. We will keep you posted if there is another delay, but we plan to get it in your hands as soon as possible.

From our surveys and in forum posts, Local Media Browsing has been the #1 requested feature, and now it's here...

PlayOn announces LOCAL MEDIA BROWSING (in beta)

You can now enjoy your digital media throughout your home with PlayOn. You can see all of your digital photos on your PLAYSTATION 3 or Xbox 360, listen to your stored music, and watch videos stored on your PC through the same PlayOn Digital Media Server you have been using to enjoy Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube. There is no need to maintain a separate Digital Media Server -- how is that for convenient?

Stream the MP3s stored on your computer to your living room, watch home movies stored on your office PC in your bedroom, or flip through that slide show of your summer vacation in your media room -- all with PlayOn.

To upgrade (free for licensed and trial users), simply download the latest at www.themediamall.com/playon/upgrade. Please note that this feature is still in beta - so it is only going to get better. And - if you have some feedback you want to share - please do so by posting on our forum.

If your trial has already expired... do not fret. We have also opened up a New FREE 14-day trial. We want everyone to be able to try PlayOn's Local Media Browsing beta (http://www.themediamall.com/playon/download).

So - check it out and let us know what you think.

Fascinating! - we keep receiving reports from Beta users that PlayOn works on their other DLNA compliant devices. So - thanks to the brave beta users who have been "playing around" with PlayOn - we can now report a much larger list of devices that you can PlayOn. In addition to the PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, and HP MediaSmart TV, we have reports that PlayOn works on:

D-Link DSM-520
D-Link DSM-750
Popcorn Hour A-100
Pioneer Elite PRO-1140HD TV
DirecTV HR21-100 HD DVR
DirecTV HR20 Receiver

If you have one of these devices, try it out - and let us know how PlayOn does. We haven't tested it on all of these devices, so we can't give you installation instructions, but if you get it figured out -- feel free to share your experience with the rest of us!

We just saw this great blog post at TechWandering. It offers a great overview of the space, as well as a good understanding of what PlayOn is, what we can provide, and what's to come.

Mike Smith at Yahoo! Games also offers an insightful commentary on the space in general (and PlayOn)

We'd also like to say thanks to the many bloggers who had kind words to say about PlayOn in its first 3 days of existence:

Andrew Yoon at PS3Fanboy

Richard Lawler at Engadget

Mark Wilson at Gizmodo

Jose Vilches at TechSpot

Jeff Bakalar at Crave/CNet

Joe Hutskoon at dvdisdead

We hope to exceed your expectations in the months and releases to come.

Mike Smith of Yahoo! Games just wrote a great article entitled "5 Reasons to Cancel Your Cable" and named PlayOn as the #1 reason, since it allows you to watch Hulu on your big screen TV. He also mentions some other great technologies, such as Zune and Netflix's new on-demand feature (which will be available on your TV via PlayOn soon as well). As Mike mentioned, we are getting ready to release the Beta version of PlayOn today! We are buttoning up some last things, and getting ready to post the link and email all the folks who have signed up to be a Beta user. We are really excited to hear what folks think.

If you are interested, you can sign up to be a beta user as well -- and spread the word - getplayon.com!

Well, gotta get back to work on getting the website ready for the launch.

We are on track to launch the PlayOn Beta for the PS3 and Xbox360 in 19 days! It is looking great. We have decided on the name PlayOn (what do ya think?) for the product that will allow you to PLAY Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com, and ESPN.com ON your TV via your PS3 or Xbox360. We are still rounding up Beta users, and in fact I just received an email yesterday from a gamer that works over at Yahoo! Videogames, and I quote:

"Sounds awesome! I was just complaining to a friend the other day that I can't watch Hulu on my bigscreen because it doesn't let you download the video and stream it. So count me in for the beta. ;)"

Thanks Richard - we are excited too! And - if you have a PS3, Xbox360 or HP MediaSmart TV, you can be a Beta user as well -- just shoot an email to tracy@themediamall.com and let me know what device you have, and we will put you on the list for the August 18th Beta release. Oh - and like all Betas, the release will be free for Beta users! So, come on and join in the countdown fun!

Cheers!