aaron - Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
The perennial effort to marry the Internet to the TV has finally started to gain momentum in recent months, and no application exemplifies this better than PlayOn ($40, Windows Only). This Windows-based application is widely regarded as a front-runner in the race to use the PC to funnel Internet-based video content to the TV.
Historically, the major challenge from a user-experience perspective has been to overcome the “Last 10 Feet” problem: How do you get the video from the PC into the TV? Of course, directly connecting the video output of a computer into the TV, essentially using it as a big monitor, is a possibility. However, this option has not been widely adopted for a few reasons, most of which are centered on the issue of making the system accessible to the whole family. First, relatively few people outside of technology enthusiasts have a spare computer to put in the living room. Also, even for those that do, having a keyboard and mouse on the couch to control the system, even if they are wireless, is impractical. The extra cables and bulk tend to be an eyesore. Moreover, computer displays on TV’s (even HD) tend to be hard to use due to the need to read tiny computer-sized writing.
PlayOn addresses these issues by leveraging the Media Center capabilities of the increasingly ubiquitous console gaming systems – XBOX 360, PS3 and Wii. All of these systems can communicate with the PC with PlayOn installed wirelessly and provide a simple menu-based system for accessing content.
MediaMall’s offering certainly makes the overall process easier and more seamless than previous efforts – but it still falls short of seriously challenging its non-PC based alternatives. Consider a basic use case: a family that wants to watch a movie. First, the entire system needs to be installed and configured – this poses a daunting challenge for people who aren’t technically-oriented, and certainly more confusing than a competitive service, such as Pay Per View through DirecTV. Additionally, the overall user experience is not nearly as smooth. For instance, a typical process for watching a movie would require booting up the Playstation, a process that requires perhaps a minute of waiting – a long time in this age of instant gratification. Perhaps worst of all, seamless playback relies on a (typically) WIFI connection. Buffering problems or other technical glitches have plagued the system. For people comparing the experience with Pay Per View, the movie absolutely must play back without interruption in order to be in the same ballpark. The WIFI issue is pernicious, as the vast majority of people have 802.11b or g based WIFI, for which the problem is endemic.
However, the main draw of PlayOn is it’s ability to stream video content from Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com, and other content based sites. Say you missed the last few episodes of 24 and you really don’t want to sit in front of your 15-inch laptop screen to view them. That’s where PlayOn’s main niche fits in as it’s very easy to connect to Hulu through the software though as mentioned previously, you do need one of the major game consoles to run it.
Overall, for people who have a technical background and an appreciation for the hurdles a system like PlayOn must face, it is a fun and convenient way of watching content on the television. But in terms of seriously challenging the closed systems of DSS and Cable TV for the dominance they hold in at-home, on demand video delivery, Internet-based systems have a ways to go.
