streaming

Corrected at 11:10 p.m.: Amazon customers do not need to purchase the Sony Bravia TV before accessing the new Video on Demand download store.

Fresh from a failed attempt at online video, Amazon is giving it another go.

Amazon is opening a streaming video store, called Amazon Video On Demand, that will offer 40,000 movies and TV shows for download and rental to people's computers, according to a story that appeared Wednesday evening in The New York Times. The service will be made available to a limited number of invited Amazon customers initially and will be … Read more

Microsoft on Monday morning announced upcoming support for movie rental service Netflix as part of its system software update for the Xbox 360 (see live blog here). Console owners who are also Netflix subscribers will be able to take advantage of Netflix's Watch Now streaming movie service on their consoles without any additional software or hardware.

It's actually not the first time 360 owners have been able to accomplish such a feat. Several third-party tools that use a workaround in Windows Media Center's plug-in architecture have let you do this with just a small hit in performance. … Read more

Pandora may be one of the better-known music-discovery apps to premier in the iTunes App Store yesterday (download | review), but it isn't the only free Internet music-streaming and discovery service-turned-iPhone-application out there. One of my iPhone-blessed colleagues here at CNET also heartily recommended AOL Radio.

AOL's channel of recommendations tops the category listings on this simple vertical app, followed by category genres from Alternative to Sports talk and World music. Clicking a category streams content by radio station or by predefined collection. All songs play on a darkened screen powered by CBS Radio. The artist's name and … Read more

Apple publicly unveiled the Pandora Internet radio iPhone and iPod Touch application during the unveiling of the iTunes App store on Thursday, July 10. Tim Westergren, CEO for Pandora, was kind enough to give me a personal tour of the new application. The following is a synopsis of just about every question I had for Tim. Editors' note: This is not an interview transcript, but a roundup of information on the Pandora iPhone application presented in a FAQ format.

How much will iTunes charge for the Pandora application?

It's free.

Will the iPhone version of the Pandora application stream … Read more

Don't feel like dishing out $100 for the Roku Netflix player? Well, if you have an Xbox 360 and a Windows Vista PC, you don't have to.

Last week we reported about this amazing hack and now we're showing you how to do it! It comes courtesy of Lifehacker.com and takes about 20 minutes to set up.

Streaming Netflix movies isn't the only thing you can do with this connection--once your Xbox 360 is added as a Media Center extender, you can stream pictures, music, or video from your PC to the console as well. … Read more

Turns out, the so-called Netflix box could be even cooler than initially thought.

The tiny black device from Roku was introduced to the world in May as the first box that could stream Netflix's "Watch it Now" option directly to a television.

But the company is saying there could be more where that came from.

Roku's vice president of consumer products, Tim Twerdahl, said Wednesday that, yes, more content partners are coming, but, no, he's not saying who just yet. That makes the $99 price tag look that much more attractive.

So who will it … Read more

Quickaccess is a new software product for mobile phones from the folks at Quickoffice.

It's a streaming technology that will let you access and edit office documents on your phone without having to depend on native mobile versions of the desktop software. It'll simply take your work from wherever it's stored (either on your hard drive or in the cloud), re-render it and then compress it to stream over the Web at a fifth of its original size. All of this work is done on an array of servers, meaning any number crunching is going to be … Read more

All right, we admit it, we're more obsessed with media streamers than is strictly healthy. But can you really blame us? We went for years without any decent way of watching our downloaded video on our lovely TVs and then all of a sudden, the market is awash with great products. The latest of which is the DVICO TViX HD M-6500A, which might not be a cool name, but it is a very cool product.

Don't be fooled by our photo--the TViX is very compact. Smaller than a cat, but larger than a kitten, if that helps. Like … Read more

news analysis Netflix, don't take half steps with your digital-delivery service. Give your users what they want, and what they want is the latest hit movies.

CEO Reed Hastings and his management team have hit a home run--or at least a solid run-scoring triple--by partnering with Roku, the company behind the Netflix Player. The $100 device enables customers to stream movies from the Web to their TVs. Most reviewers have applauded the device for its low cost, easy setup, and viewing quality (a good Internet connection means no stalling or long download delays).

But a month after the Netflix … Read more