RSSMicrosoft wows Windows 7 crowd with Internet TV
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published October 22, 2009, 6:17 PM
While most of the Windows 7 features demo'd at today's New York City launch were already known about far and wide, Microsoft surprised a lot of the crowd with Internet TV, a streaming media capability that just might some day spur consumers to ditch pricey cable TV services like Time Warner and Cablevision.
Internet TV lets you stream video and audio programming directly into Windows 7 Media Center, without the hassles of going to myriad Web sites and downloading multiple players, said Microsoft rep Brian Yee, in an interview with Betanews at the Microsoft bash.
Actually, Internet TV has been under development at Microsoft since way back in September of 2007. Netflix started showing up as a Media Center partner in January of this year, and was soon streaming some of movies into the Vista version. In May, Internet TV for Media Center officially entered beta 2. With today's release of Windows 7, though, the feature finally leaves beta testing behind.
In demos today after company CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote, Microsoft showed Internet TV working together with Play To, a new function in Windows 7 that uses the DLNA 1.5 protocol to send streaming content from a PC to other home-networked devices.
![Microsoft representative Brian Yee demonstrates Internet TV for Windows Media Center in Windows 7, during the big rollout event in New York City, October 22, 2009. [Photo credit: Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews]](http://images.betanews.com/media/3978.jpg "Microsoft representative Brian Yee demonstrates Internet TV for Windows Media Center in Windows 7, during the big rollout event in New York City, October 22, 2009. [Photo credit: Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews]")
Microsoft representative Brian Yee demonstrates Internet TV for Windows Media Center in Windows 7, during the big rollout event in New York City, October 22, 2009. [Photo credit: Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews]
Sitting on a couch set up in a mock "living room," Yee clicked on icons in a Windows 7-enabled Acer laptop to beam videos from services like Netflix, MSN, and sundry CBS Audience Network properties to an HDTV from LG and two D-Link digital photo frames. He also sent tunes streamed in from Microsoft's Full Zune Podcast Library to a remote audio system a few feet further away.
As for Netflix, Internet TV only works with those movies marked as streaming-enabled.
The CBS Audience Network videos -- consisting of current TV shows, CBS Classics, short clips, and "Web originals" -- are available in the US only, whereas Sky Network content is available in the UK only, said Yee.
"But we're also really interested in Internet TV partnerships with other entertainment content providers," noted the Microsoft rep.
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No- it's around for a while. But since it's used more by consumers than business users, I think opening it up will allow for some interesting consumer level products. In the enterprise, it's all about eliminating .pst files because of all of the technical and legal hurdles they present.
Score: -1
|I was tired of the cable co's rental boxs and locked down dvr.
I setup a SageTV machine with HD200 boxs on each tv.
Not sure the MS offering will make me want to switch at all.
Score: 0
|wow that's cool
Score: 2
|I watch hulu on my HD 55 inch all you need is a good graphics card. And my site has all you need to find allmost any show you would like to see. http://sites.google.com/site/tvinternetmovies/
Over 500 movies and 400 sitcoms. take a look at my site and reply to me if you like the site and its idea. And you don't need windows 7 to watch movies from my site. Even thow I run windows 7 You get a better prefomance from windows 7
Score: 1
|xbx360 netflix is pretty much all I use to watch movies, I dont care for TV...pretty cool stuff though. Win7 is starting to peak my interest.
Score: 0
|I'm using Ultimate 7 in the US. I have tried to install Internet TV in Media Center but the install quits and rolls-back.
netflix installed and worked fine.
Score: 0
|Internet TV? No.
This is a mash-up of streaming media sites. That is all.
I enjoy netflix...but prefer the site interface for now. Perhaps I just need to get used to using WMP again, but... Why? I use foobar, MPC, VLC, and the browser. Seems to work fine.
Score: 1
|That's what I was thinking when I first heard about this... just a portal to various streaming media sites, similar to http://www.zeevee.com/zinc that I've tried. It's not bad.
Score: 0
|The only good thing about it that I like is you can control it directly from a media extender like the 360. I can't control a browser from the 360. There are other apps that aggregate internet video into a single app that you can use from a media extender, I like playon but it's not free and not without it's problems. Media Center isn't perfect yet either, I'm not too crazy about the UI, but if they can fix the problems and make this a GOOD single aggregated source for media, and included with Windows? I won't complain :)
Score: 0
|There are a variety of sources for TV content on the internet. iTunes has tons of video content, not to mention other sites. best of all, most sites use formats which support many platforms rather than just Microsoft Windows.
Score: -7
|Fatty, you are missing the point. Nobody is claiming Windows media Center is THE source for TV content on the internet. It just adds a very convenient tool for those people who like to stream their media outside of a monitor and into a TV. It is nice to have both a repository of different media sources in one location and a Media expander that allows you to watch said content in a living room. All of this without the hassle of having to download X, Y or Z media extender which may or may not cost additional money to use.
Score: 2
|"Fatty, you are missing the point."
Nothing new there...
Score: 6
|It needs more channels. But the quality full screen on a 30inch monitor is much better then hulu. Hulu is a bit chopper full screen 2560x1600 res. I'm sure it cause they didnt think of people like me, but microsoft did. I'm not sure how much i will use it, but it's nice to have.
Score: 0
|See it's a little misleading because I think it's not really internet tv as much as it is an extension of their media center and live station platform - which again is no different from services like http://www.freetubetv.net or www.justin.tv. In fact it's identical to the former because it uses the exact same collective streams.
Their claims about it not requiring additional plugins is moot, it requires plugins that are already pre-installed on Windows 7 so in that sense it requires no additional plugins but it still very much requires features and components that a windows xp or vista users may not have. I think they need to be careful about making such claims - especially since they're not the
Score: 1
|This is where HomeGroup will continue to grow in the next few years... a box connecting to your TV that streams the data from your PC or somesuch. MS finally has the right tech for the right (developing) market.
Score: 2
|This is cool. Got anything like this on crap os x? no!!
Score: 6
|Heh. The UK has several wonderful OS independent services for streaming whatever's on TV at the time.
TVCatchup being the best and soon to be providing PVR functionality.
Score: 0
|@Paul Skinner: There's no such feature built into OS X SL but it's there in 7
Score: 2
|Netflix is one thing, but how are people going to "ditch" cable for Internet TV when the majority of them get their internet from cable?? MS honestly thinks that Cox and the rest will just sit back and become a dumb pipe for others to give away content that the cable companies charge for? That'll be the day.
Score: -2
|Uh...psycros? This isn't a MS idea...all MS is doing is providing a platform for what already exists, and so many devices try to give you (boxee, tivo, playon, hulu desktop, the list goes on and on and on). Media Center is just adding on that functionality....you've just been living in the dark.
Also I don't know about you...but I can cancel my cable tv and pay $60/month just for internet access instead of $150 for internet+tv. The only reason I don't is because I would have no real way of watching sports in real time without paying DTV $350/season for their online supercast.
Score: 2
|There is no Internet TV content for Canadians, unfortunately. This completely sucks :-(
Score: 2
|It can't while there are still GB limits on downloads per month. Which in turn is a problem because the infrastructure for Broadband (at least in Britain) on the whole is BT owned and operated and hasn't changed in the last 10-20 years and as a result is already at stretching point.
LLU can't happen fast enough.
Score: 3
|Yeah, now ask them about the price:
http://www.polladium.com...d=351&location_id=1
Score: 0
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