streaming

Subscription music's future, Part 1

Rhapsody launched the first high-profile subscription music service in December 2001, in the middle of a revolution. The first iPod had just hit the shelves, streaming Web radio sites like Live365.com were in full bloom, and the masses were just warming to the idea that they could preview and discover music online. A service like Rhapsody, which promised subscribers unlimited access to its growing music catalog, made music junkies salivate. It also pointed the way to a brave new world where people no longer needed physical or virtual media.

The future didn't go quite as planned, however. Because … Read more

Logitech Squeezebox Duet: First hands-on impressions

UPDATE: The full review is now up at CNET.com.

The Logitech Squeezebox Duet, our pick for the best home audio product of CES 2008, has just shown up at the office. We spent a few minutes with the system before at CES, but this has been our first chance to sit down and live with the product in our own environment. A full review will follow, but in the meantime, here are some off-the-bat first impressions: … Read more

Chen: YouTube live video will launch this year

Although streaming video on the Web is nothing new, it has yet to make its way onto YouTube. But that could change over the next 10 months, co-founder Steve Chen tells Sarah Meyers in a Pop17.com video report posted Thursday.

Meyers' report, cited on Friday by one of Pop17's sponsors, TechCrunch, highlights her personal interest in the prospects for live video on the Web and includes a brief interview with Chen at the "Videocracy" party Google threw on February 13 at the Terminal 5 club in New York.

Live video has long been on YouTube's … Read more

MediaGate MG-450HD: Media streamer with expandable storage

The problem: You've got a ton of digital music, photos, and video on your computer's hard drive, but you want to enjoy all that media on the big TV and stereo system in your living room--not hunched over the laptop screen. If you've got a network connection and one of the latest game consoles (an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 3, or--when paired with the free Orb software--even a Nintendo Wii), you may not need any new hardware--each of them can stream a wide variety of audio, video, and photo formats from your PC to your TV over your home network. However, if you're not a gamer, or you need a more robust solution--more file support, for instance--there are alternatives, such as the MediaGate MG-450HD. … Read more

LaCie's LaCinema Premier: The DVD ripper's friend?

As good as the Apple TV 2.0 is, it's still pretty limited on what sort of videos it can stream from a networked computer--if it hasn't been imported into iTunes, you're pretty much out of luck. If you're looking for something with more file format flexibility--and the simplicity of drag-and-drop operation--the LaCie LaCinema Premier may be just the ticket. … Read more

Windows Media Center plug-in puts Netflix in living room

Do you find Windows Media Center's blue, remote controlled fa?ade easier to navigate than the cold red, white, and yellow world of Netflix? Then check out Andrew Park's new plug-in for the Vista version of Windows Media Center called MyNetflix. The plug-in lets users link to their Netflix account, search for movies, and make changes to their queue without leaving the couch.

Users navigating from their computers can also partake in Netflix's streaming service, letting them watch movies without having to wait discs to come in the mail. Because of the reliance on software, users enjoying … Read more

CBS reports early success with Last.fm music streaming

Fresh off launching an ad-supported streaming music service for its Last.fm property, CBS Interactive is already touting success.

According to a release from CBS on Friday, there were 85 percent more unique listeners on Last.fm on Wednesday, January 23--the day that CBS Corporation and Last.fm announced the service--than there had been on the previous Wednesday. The next day, Thursday, saw an 80 percent increase from the previous Thursday, which CBS took as evidence that it wasn't just a single-day phenomenon.

Last.fm had previously offered streaming music primarily in 30-second clips. But thanks to licensing agreements … Read more

In the free music space, can CBS succeed where others have failed?

It's no secret: ad-supported streaming music, held up as an alternative to both paid downloads and free-for-all piracy, has hit some twists and snags. A number of well-funded start-ups, like SpiralFrog, dove into the space and few have emerged intact. Only one, Imeem, can really claim to be a success--it has licensing deals with all four major music labels--but it's still been criticized for a tepid user experience.

So it was a bit of a surprise when CBS' big announcement about Last.fm, the music-based social network it purchased last year, was the launch of a free, ad-supported … Read more

Three for Thursday: Opera, Orb, LogMeIn updates

Three programs with big names have recently released some minor updates. Take a look at what's changed in the Opera Web browser, the remote access app LogMeIn, and Orb, which gives you the power to stream your music just about anywhere.

CES 2008: Home audio wrap-up

You won't find a more institutionally conservative category in the consumer electronics space than home audio. More than any other industry segment, audio is one where technological advances tend to be lamented rather than celebrated, viewed with suspicion rather than embraced. And that's understandable: Subpar speakers are now passed off as good enough and used to listen to digital music, which is often highly compressed compared with CD or (even better) LP equivalents. And the music itself is coming from a dying recording industry, struggling to stay alive in the digital age, and often relegated to background music--fewer … Read more