mindgraffiti

Today’s guest post comes from Peter Lowe, a self-proclaimed Home Theater Personal Computer geek who looked deeper into Joost and how well it interacts with his HTPC setup. Thanks Peter!
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Joost: First Impressions

I just got invited to the Joost beta. I’d been looking forward to trying it, as I’m a bit of a HTPC geek, and I was curious to see how their take on IPTV would integrate into my setup.

So far, it doesn’t.

Like most people, I watch TV with a remote. I also use a computer for recording and PVR functions, but ultimately it’s still me with the remote in front of the TV screen. Joost’s interface simply doesn’t lend itself to control in this way. You absolutely need a mouse, or some kind of pointing device. I’m not sure if this is a shortcoming of the interface, or simply a consequence of the added functions, but the result is the same. So, right off, Joost disrupts my usual TV experience. Another problem is the text in the interface. Like most computer text, its difficult to read on a standard definition TV. It feels like Joost is herding me to watch its content on my monitor, using the standard computer controls, which seems odd for a TV service. It might be a different story on a high definition screen with a Wiimote, but I have neither.

Service was the other problem. As I surfed through the various channels available, the only thing I could find to watch that looked interesting was some National Geographic channel shows; the very-limited remaining selection was simply uninteresting. When I tried out a few of the National Geographic shows, the connection was so choppy that the shows were unwatchable. Now, I have just started using this, and it’s entirely possible that I’ve misconfigured it, but for now, it’s basically useless.

I will investigate further, both to see if I’ve misconfigured the program (and, if so, I will certainly take another look at the service quality for you), and to see if any more content is forthcoming. The interface and integration issues I’m seeing seem ingrained in the platform, which leaves Joost as an interesting toy I might run occasionally when I’m at my desk, but unlikely to change anything for my TV viewing habits, and certainly not a revolution in TV content delivery. Three yawns.

Related links:

• Short Critique/First Impressions on Joost
• Joost Critique (for version 0.9.1)
• Guest Post about Joost (pending)
• Joost Beta Testing!