The startup company ZillionTV has begun offering a media device and online service that it hopes will compete with much larger rivals Apple and Netflix in the online video market.
The networking device, dubbed the Z-bar, will have no HDD but will instead stream movies and TV shows on the Web. The device is very similar to that of Roku but ZillionTV will offer its own service instead of ... [ read the full article ]
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That's pretty cool and is a smart idea considering streaming seems to be the way to go now a days.
Another thing that may help this startup along is
Quote:Interestingly, users can rent or purchase films full price or ad-supported content and even get to "choose their preferences for ads to provide more relevant content."
If you can get free (or reduced price) movies only to have them contain an ad or two that is user-picked content that would be awesome.
Initially I thought they might have problems with people recording and editing out the commercials but this seems to not be too big of an issue as the media is streamed to a DVR-style device which is hooked directly to the TV.
Peace
EDITED by Pop_Smith: I read some details on their site.
The sad part is, ISPs have already dealt the death blow to this kind of company (streaming media via interwebs) with their draconian Bandwidth cap policies.
Originally posted by Lothros: The sad part is, ISPs have already dealt the death blow to this kind of company (streaming media via interwebs) with their draconian Bandwidth cap policies.
While I agree that services like this are damaged by bandwidth caps if enough people are hitting or nearly hitting their bandwidth caps legally such as this service they could and will complain.
Eventually the caps will be removed or heightened to a higher level if this occurs often enough, or the portion of cap-breakers is loud enough.
95% of the people will go back to TV since CAPS will make this retarded. Also, why should I be content with STREAMING crap to my pc when I can KEEP what I get from USenet and P2P? and all AD-FREE!
95% of the people will go back to TV since CAPS will make this retarded. Also, why should I be content with STREAMING crap to my pc when I can KEEP what I get from USenet and P2P? and all AD-FREE!
Caps may play a bit of a role but this isn't a "Stream to your PC" thing. It is a top-box set (ŕ la DVR) that you use to watch the content on your TV, although it is done (at least initally) via streaming.
You could potentially hook it up to your PC but it's made to connect directly to your TV, no PC required.
Another thing, it sounds like you cankeep content if you are willing to pay for it or have some ads in it. I imagine it is something similar to Hulu except in a top-box-style setup.
