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Hulu ChangesThis was Posted by Jill on Fri, 05/28/2010 - 16:46.
Hulu has some new features including: adaptive bitrate streaming, seek hover preview, heat map, ad volume normalization and updated closed caption displays. I hate getting a screaming loud commercial in the middle of my show. So I love the idea of volume normalization. They also added an ad tailor in hopes to show users more relevant commercials. For all the info click here or watch the video below.
Did I Hear Mobile Viewing?This was Posted by Jill on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 18:48.
PlayOn's CEO Jeff Lawrence talks with Boot Camp's Fred Fishkin about PlayOn's upcoming plans including plans for mobile viewing.
Listen to the podcast at http://www.bootcamp.com/
Get PlayOn To Work PerfectlyThis was Posted by Jill on Tue, 05/25/2010 - 16:26.
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1) PC horsepower: You need a powerful processor (CPU) on your PC to handle realtime transcoding of online content. Check out the minimum requirements for PlayOn. If you're near the minimum, you may experience hiccups during playback whenever your PC is doing other tasks. Solution? Reward yourself with a new PC.
2) Home network speed and reliability: If you're using a wireless network for your PC or device, especially if it's on 802.11g, you are likely to experience problems. PlayOn requires a lot of bandwidth on the home network to pass over the MPEG video files to the device. Anything that may interrupt or slow down that video feed will result in an unhappy device, and you'll see excessive buffering. If you want to be sure that your home network isn't the issue, at least try using wired or powerline adapters, and see if this helps. It's always good to narrow down the variables.
3) Broadband speed: A super fast PC and a robust and quick home network aren't enough if your pipe to the Internet is too slow! Your mileage will vary considerably if your broadband connection is borderline (try the bandwidth test in PlayOn Settings to get an idea). Every single content provider encodes their online videos in different ways, and at different resolutions. Sometimes videos will work fine from one source, but work terribly from another. The bottom line is, the fatter your connection to the Net, the better off you'll be.
4) Security software: We have seen quite literally countless instances where security software (or firmware on a router) blocks PlayOn, either by slowing things down, randomly breaking playback streams, or even squashing PlayOn out of existence. And we can't really do a thing about it, in almost all cases. Firewalls and security software is a tricky thing. There's nothing especially odd about what PlayOn does or how it works, but the sad fact is that the majority of software security packages out there just tend to block communication at some level on a home network. Or block programs even from running at all, even when the user configures them to be allowed. Our advice is to try temporarily disabling your security software to see if it helps. You may even need to go so far as uninstalling it completely (again, temporarily, and only if you're confident you can reinstall it). If you find that your security software is holding PlayOn back, contact the company that makes that software, and see if they can help. And if you learn something, share it with rest of us on the forum!
5) Corrupted software: PlayOn depends on a lot of core Microsoft and other third-party software to run correctly. The most important packages that PlayOn requires are: .NET framework (2.0 or higher), Internet Explorer (version 7 or higher), Microsoft Silverlight (version 3 or higher), Adobe Flash (version 10 or higher), and a "healthy" Windows operating system. If you have lots of other software installed, it may get in the way of PlayOn, or cause certain functionality in PlayOn to fail. These issues, when they appear, are really difficult to diagnose and fix.
Hulu Movies: Love 'em or Hate 'emThis was Posted by Jill on Fri, 05/21/2010 - 07:40.
1) Strictly Sexual - comedy
2) Saints and Soldiers - action and adventure
3) Super Size Me - health and wellness
4) National Lampoon's Spring Break - comedy
5) Sex and Consequences - drama
6) American Virgin - comedy
7) The Future of Food - health and wellness
8) Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles - animation and cartoons
9) The Secret of NIMH - family
10) Totally Baked - comedy
What It Took For Me To Cut The CableThis was Posted by Jill on Mon, 05/17/2010 - 11:38.
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A month or two back I was sitting at my TV flipping through all 300 channels of my $120 cable bill and thought to myself, “This is 60% re-runs/junk, 20% infomercial, 10% news, 7% public service, 3% new content/stuff I actually want to watch.” Alright so maybe that’s not the exact dialog, but sadly pretty close. My DVR was packed full of movies I had watched 10 times and the 1 or 2 series I’d record each week. Somehow it just didn’t justify $1,500 a year. That’s a nice vacation…and I needed one. G4: Tech JunkieThis was Posted by Jill on Tue, 05/11/2010 - 13:42.
Why PlayOn Makes Me HappyThis was Posted by Jill on Mon, 05/10/2010 - 13:05.
Our first guest blogger, Jamie Harrington is an author, mom and PlayOn user. After reading this, go check out her blog where she is giving away a free PlayOn Lifetime License and a $50 Visa card. ...........................................................
Let me say first that I am not some tech wizard. I am a mom, an author, and I sometimes have trouble getting the laser printer to work. So, when I was looking for software to put my internet TV, that I've grown to love so much, on my living room television, I had to find something that even a squirrel could make work. Nerd AlertThis was Posted by Jill on Fri, 05/07/2010 - 15:35.
The first Iron Man rocked my socks! Now Iron Man 2 is out and my inner nerd cannot resist. I have IMAX tickets and the first Iron Man DVD in the mail…thanks to Netflix. The movie critics say Iron Man 2, while not the epitome of awesomeness the first offered, is still a solid movie. Oh well, I never really liked movie critics anyways.
Netflix sums up Iron Man 2 in two sentences, “Wealthy inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) -- aka Iron Man -- resists calls by the American government to hand over his technology. Meanwhile, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) has constructed his own miniaturized arc reactor, causing all kinds of problems for our superhero.”
This is going to be a good weekend.
NHL Premium PreviewThis was Posted by Jill on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 16:44.
If you are not already a huge hockey fan here are some reasons why you should love hockey.
Reason #1: Hockey Fights…duh. #2: Playoff Beards – I am not quite sure where this phenomena started, but it seems every season around playoffs hockey team are sporting full on lumberjack beards. #3: Crazy fans with posters. #4 Penalty Boxes. #5: A Hat Trick – all the fans throw their hats onto the ice when a player scores three goals within one game.
If these are not convincing enough you should at least love the Spokane Chiefs for providing this priceless hockey moment when they drop the Memorial Cup.
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 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. 
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here are five bottlenecks for getting PlayOn to work great, and if any one of these is not up to snuff, you're in trouble, and it's time to make some tweaks! 
Our newest guest bloggers, the 
