PlayOn Blog -- keep with us!
 

Looking for a C# Rock Star

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.
 

Technical Support Specialist Needed

OK - if you are a PlayOn junkie, and you know all about supporting software. If you enjoy digging through logs to figure out what is going on. If you are resourceful, reliable and friendly and like to work online and over chat and email...and you write well. We need to hear from you. Email us at jobs@playon.tv and let's figure out if we have your dream job!

PlayOn Launches Wii Beta

We are excited to announce that PlayOn officially supports the Nintendo Wii -- in Beta. That means the almost 25 million Wii owners can watch Hulu, Netflix, CBS, CNN, ESPN, Amazon VOD, YouTube, AdultSwim, Crackle and much more on their TV, from their couch, using their Wii Remote. Here is what it looks like:

This is the first device where we have control over the User Interface, and we have tried to make it as intuitive, user friendly and pretty as possible. You be the judge.

PlayOn for the Wii is available for a free, full-featured 14-day trial, and after that licenses are available for a one-time fee of $39.99. That same license (and the same software download) will support your PS3, Xbox 360 and other DLNA devices.

How it works: PlayOn uses the "Internet Channel" on the Wii - so if you don't have this, you will need to get it. After downloading and installing PlayOn on your PC, you then open the "Internet Channel" web browser on your Wii, press the "WWW" button and enter playon.tv as the web address. You should add this page to your Wii Browser "Favorites" to make it easy to access in the future. 

That's it! You can click on Hulu and find your favorite shows, or Netflix and watch that movie you have talking about seeing - right from your couch and Wiimote.

Wii support has been one of the most requested features from our users, and we are thrilled to offer this Beta release to folks who would like to give it a whirl.

PlayOn supports the broadest selection of Internet-to-TV premium content, including Hulu, Nerflix, XBS, ESPN, CNN, Amazon VOD, and YouTube. And the selection of niche content is growing daily via the open PlayOn Plugin architecture, which currently includes:

  • Adultswim
  • Cartoon Network
  • Channel9
  • Crackle
  • Food Network
  • GameTrailers.com
  • HGTV
  • Local Files
  • NBA
  • NFL
  • Southpark Studios
  • Spike TV
  • Podcasts (OPML Player) -- with dozens of available feeds!
  • International channels: Danish DR and Spanish TVE

PlayOn works on a broad range of devices including PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Moxi HD DVR, VuNow, and many other DLNA-compliant devices.

We hope you enjoy the Wii Beta and encourage you to send us feedback at support@playon.tv.

Amazon VOD - back in Beta

It's back. Amazon Video On Demand is back up and running (though still in Beta) in PlayOn. Give it a whirl. And - give us feedback on what you think support@playon.tv.

It turns out 37.5% of us are REPLACERS

Based on our quick survey of PlayOn users, 37.5% are replacing cable/satellite with PlayOn while 62.5% of us are supplementing our current programming with Internet video through PlayOn. To me, that says OTT (Over-the-Top), or taking Internet Video to the TV, is growing the overall TV-consumption pie. That is good news for the cable companies. This 37.5% actually compares to a predicted 30% by TDG (since we were only surveying OTT-users, we had to elimiate the segment from TDG that said they would not consume OTT). Pretty close on! Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!

New TDG Study Says 20% of Us will REPLACE our cable with OTT broadband TV

A recent TGD study, as shared with us by Will Richmond in his VideoNuze newsletter, says that 20% of us will replace our cable/satellite subscription with Over The Top Broadband (OTT) services, while 17% of us will use OTT and keep Cable/Satellite. 29% of us could go either way (depending on the price point). You can check out the research here. What I want to know - is what are you using PlayOn for -- REPLACING your cable/satellite subscription or SUPPLEMENTING it? Take our quick 1-question survey to let us know - I'll publish the results here in a few days!

New Release Is Here

The latest release .3496 has been posted. It is a good one and we are excited about it. It offers a new free trial for anyone and everyone - so if you got short-changed with a service outage during your last trial - here's your chance to try it again. Oh - and speaking of service outages, we fixed most of those issues in this release as well - so PlayOn should be much more stable and easy to enjoy now. Also in the release is a new PlayOn Settings chanel where you can get info right on your console (no need to head back to the PC) and the ability to reboot your PlayOn server from the console. We upgraded the Local File Sharing (beta) - so it should be more stable. It still isn't where we want it to be, but we are getting it there. Of course - feedback is welcome support@playon.tv. Hope you enjoy the enhancements - and give PlayOn another shot.

Technical Support Guru Needed

Have you been implemented your fair share of online customer support solutions?  Do you know all about supporting software? Are you entrepreneurial, resourceful, reliable and friendly? Are you passionate about PlayOn? We may have THE job for you -- if you are a Technical Support Guru and know about self-serve support systems as well as the best ways to manage online support, let us know -- we need to know how we can make our technical support scale as we grow! If you are interested (or know someone who would be great for this), email us at jobs@playon.tv.

PlayOn Gear now Available

Get 'em while they're hot! Our CTO and apparently t-shirt designer extraordinare has created some pretty cool PlayOn gear. You can get it at our new store PlayOn Gear.

Check it out - and if you have any suggests for modifications that would improve the appearance of something - let us know. Thanks.

 

Where's the Wii?

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.

PlayOn enables you to watch Hulu, Netflix, CBS.com, ESPN, CNN, and YouTube on your TV via your PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, Wii, or HP MediaSmart TV. This blog will help you keep up to date with what is going on with PlayOn.