The PlayOn Blog

Hey PlayOn users! Most of you should be on the latest version (2.59.3330), and if you're not, head over to <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">www.getplayon.com</a> and download the most recent installer. We've ironed out some troubling issues that showed up in the previous versions, and got our website up and running again. And on Sunday evening, we increased the price of PlayOn to its regular fee of $39.99.

If you missed out on the $10 promotional rebate, well, sorry! On the bright side, we still think our software is well worth the price. And we've got lots of FREE new features lined up for the spring. Wii support is still clipping along nicely, and new content providers and local file sharing (albeit in a limited form to begin with) are just around the corner as well. Everyone will get this stuff as free upgrades to their existing PlayOn installations.

We also highly recommend that you <a href="http://www.themediamall.com/playon/subscribe" target="_blank">sign up for our PlayOn newsletter</a>, as we will let you know about special promotions and news about PlayOn. It's a great way to stay informed. And we won't spam you with pestering notices.

Two steps forward, one step back. This weekend, we got slammed with two major problems:
<ul>
<li>Videos from Hulu are unable to play unless you (temporarily) change your video performance setting to "Low". We'll have a workaround for this soon (days, not weeks, don't worry).</li>
<li>Our website went into complete meltdown mode.</li>
</ul>
Always fun to try to fix these things over the weekend, but we're doing our best. We set up a temporary homepage with limited info about PlayOn, and links to the download and purchase. The PlayOn software itself should still be working just fine, since it runs independently of our web servers.

We hope to restore website service as quickly as possible. We know that without the forum and FAQ it's a bit frustrating to get help. Remember that you can always send a support request through PlayOn Settings (this should be working still), or otherwise mail us directly.

Most likely, we will extend the price change until next weekend, since the site has been out of operation for more than 24 hours now, and it crashed just before we scheduled to increase the license fee. Stay tuned for more info.

We at MediaMall are happy and proud to announce that the first production version of PlayOn has been released! The beta program is officially over. We have said it many times before, but we want to thank all our beta testers for their relentless testing, constructive feedback, and considerate patience.

As before, PlayOn can be downloaded at <a href="http://www.getplayon.com">www.getplayon.com</a>. We've reset the trial period again to a fresh 14 days, as promised. And the price is still only $29.99 -- <em>for one more week only</em>. If you've already bought a license, you're all set. If you upgrade PlayOn to the latest version (2.59.3318), your license key will still be valid.

We expect to be releasing new updates and patches over the coming weeks and months. Our developers have been hard at work on adding Wii support, and making lots of great improvements across the board with PlayOn's base functionality. The best of all is that all these updates will be absolutely <strong>free </strong>for all our users.

Enjoy!

All of us at MediaMall just want to say Happy Holidays to everyone, and once again send our big thanks to everyone who has stuck with us for so long. We're very excited about 2009. There are a ton of great features and plans on our horizon.

Our developers are working hard on adding support for Wii consoles now, as well as plans to better integrate with additional devices. And the core product will continue to improve, both in stability, usability, and cool features. Be on the lookout for the addition of new content providers, local file sharing -- and much more -- over the coming months.

We just released and posted Release Candidate 4 at the download site. Make sure you give it a spin if you haven't already! <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">www.getplayon.com</a>. We expect to push our first real production release in just a couple of weeks, if not sooner.

We wish everyone a great holiday season, and look forward to what's in store for 2009!

It's that time of year, and we at MediaMall want to give thanks to YOU: our fantastic user community! You guys have all been rock stars during the beta testing months in August, September, October, and up til now. Without your help, PlayOn wouldn't be nearly where we are today. So, <strong>thank you</strong>!

We also want to thank Joel Durham Jr. for posting "<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2335624,00.asp" target="_blank">A Tech Geek's Thank You List</a>" at ExtremeTech, for having added PlayOn to <em>his</em> thank you list. We're glad you are thankful, Joel. So are we.

We recently published a new version of PlayOn (2.58.3248) that is our first official release candidate. The trial period was reset to a fresh 14 days, and there are a few improvements here and there. You can read the release notes <a href="http://www.themediamall.com/releasenotes" target="_blank">here</a>, and as always, you can sign up to download at <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">www.getplayon.com</a>. We expect to have the production release ready in a few weeks.

But PlayOn doesn't end there -- not by a long shot. We have tons of features lined up for the end of the year and well into 2009 -- all free for licensed installations. Some of the big items are: support for Netflix Silverlight accounts, support for Nintendo Wii, more content providers, performance improvements, and lots more.

Pass the gravy. Gobble, gobble.

Just a quick shout-out that things are still moving along with PlayOn! We have been working hard on getting Netflix Silverlight accounts working, and will keep everyone posted with our progress. It's a major change in the Netflix service, but we're pushing forward. If you want to continue using your existing Netflix account through PlayOn, make sure you don't upgrade your account to the new Netflix Silverlight beta program until we have a patch ready.

We plan on posting a new release in around a week from now. It will have some tweaks and minor bug fixes, but all in all, our last release was stable for most of our user base. A few users have expressed concerns and frustrations about the trial period expiring recently for the latest beta. Not to worry! We <em>will</em> reset the trial period to 14 days with the next release. And we'll do the same when we push the "gold" version, which should follow on the heels of the next release. So you should have plenty of time to drive PlayOn around the block before you need to make a purchase decision.

Thanks again for all your feedback and comments. Keep it coming!

Hey testers! We just released PlayOn 2.58.3228, and it's got <strong>tons</strong> of cool new stuff. Some of the highlights are:
<ul>
<li>Hulu videos with higher resolution (480p)</li>
<li>Hulu user Queue support</li>
<li>Netflix improvements</li>
<li>A new PlayOn logo</li>
<li>... and lots more goodies!</li>
</ul>
This release is for all practical purposes our first release candidate, even if not officially named as such. So, what does that mean? Well, we think it's good enough and stable enough to release to the general public, as a complete product. There are certainly plenty of interesting features that we consider make it a "real" product now.

But, this is not the end of the road for PlayOn, by any means. We are committed to adding new features, like Wii support, over the coming months. And those upcoming features will be available to all our testers and to those who have decided to purchase a license.

Stay tuned over the coming weeks and months as we continue to improve and expand PlayOn. We've got lots of product plans on our slate, and will try to keep everyone posted as we continue to develop and support our software.

You can sign up to download PlayOn at <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">www.getplayon.com</a>.

We just pushed a new release -- version 2.58.3211. It offers a lot of good fixes and feature enhancements. For those who aren't getting the auto-update system tray notification, you can download the latest from our site or sign up at <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">getplayon.com</a>.

We're really excited about this release, as it puts us a lot closer to our first release candidate. There are still a few odd issues here and there, but this release should be pretty stable for the vast majority of folks. We've made good improvements to our Netflix support. And the latest PLAYSTATION 3 firmware upgrade (2.50) works just fine with the latest PlayOn.

Since we're getting closer to a final release (or at least getting closer to an official release candidate -- no specific date is set yet), we've also reset the trial period to 21 days. Depending on when you first installed an earlier version of PlayOn, this will either increase or decrease the number of free days you have left to try out the software. Keep in mind that if there are additional bugs or problems in this (or future) releases of PlayOn, and people need more time to evaluate our software, we can easily reset the trial period again on a subsequent release.

Our servers crashed <strong>really </strong>hard yesterday, shortly after our latest version of PlayOn with Netflix hit the streets. We are in the process of converting to a much beefier server that can handle the bandwidth. Frankly, we're amazed at how many people are interested in PlayOn, and we are incredibly grateful to all of our beta testers.

We'll try to keep people posted here as our website is ressurected from the dead, and hopefully the total down time won't last much longer. Thanks for your patience!

All right, the moment is upon us! We have just released the latest version of <a href="http://www.getplayon.com" target="_blank">PlayOn</a> with Netflix to our subscribed beta testers. We've been kicking its tires for the past week or so, and it's looking pretty slick. There are still a few glitches here and there, but overall, it should deliver for the vast majority. Give it a spin!

Also, Netflix has made some really cool announcements recently, adding content from <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSBNG140... target="_blank">Disney and CBS</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSTRE4900ZR20081001" target="_blank">Starz</a>. We'll be taking a look as this content becomes available, and expect the vast majority of these videos to be available through PlayOn.

Marshall Guthrie recently posted a <a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1803746/play_netflix_hulu_on_popcorn_hour_... target="_blank">great video showing PlayOn running Netflix on his Popcorn Hour A100</a>. Thanks Marshall! You can see his blog post <a href="http://eugovector.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=385286" target="_blank">here</a>.

We've also seen a few other examples of people posting videos to YouTube, showing PlayOn in action. Check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPR4KrA7A_0" target="_blank">PlayOn running on the Xbox 360</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZtQ2wtPwPM" target="_blank">on a Sony PSP</a>. Pretty cool.

We'll be pushing an update notification to everyone who already has PlayOn installed, so you should see a system tray balloon popup, letting you know that the recent release is available. We should also be sending out a mail to everyone who is signed up to be a tester.