It's not a bad deal, just a seemingly redundant one on NBC's part—how many sites do we need to be able to watch Heroes on? From the Netflix side, it's pretty good, though—it gives them more content on the digital distribution front, which might entice eyeballs to it that might have otherwise not strayed in that direction. Moreover, it might draw other networks into a deal with them if it proves to be click-sticky.

That said, I wonder if Netflix realized when NBC promised them "exclusive subscription video-on-demand rights to [Heroes]" that it was already available at 76 other sites. Don't worry Netflix, it's not you, it's them. They just came out of a really rough divorce, and they're just not ready for a real commitment right now. [Variety via NewTeeVee]

The Contenders:
Hulu: NBC Universal/News Corp.'s mutant is a sandbox-y YouTube for their properties. Joost: Streaming P2P service from Kazaa/Skype founders that wants oh so badly to be real TV. It's got deals with Viacom and other name players—News Corp.'s rumored to be at the table as well. Miro: Open-source Cory Doctorow-anointed Joost-slayer. You download, rather than stream. It uses RSS-based channels and BitTorrent for its P2P workings.How They Look (and Feel):
Joost's translucent black interface wins hands down in the Slickness Dept., and its channel grid layout is the standout of the three. One issue is that player controls disappear when you're going through channels or shows, so you can't mute or pause a video playing in the background while surfing. But in terms of intuitiveness, on Joost, it's naturally apparent how to click around then start watching shows. (The "oh no, we can't play this now" error message assailed me more than a couple of times, showing there are still some P2P kinks to work out.)
Miro is more powerful for tweakers and creators, which contributes to it being less straightforward. It's not immediately obvious how you start watching stuff. Since its channels are RSS-based, you have to subscribe to them first, and then pick episodes to download. I should add, the best (though perhaps non-legal) content might require you to hunt outside Miro's interface for a torrent. Miro's the least flashy, using a modified browser scheme that takes longer to zoom through than Joost or Hulu, which is a problem when it overwhelmingly features the most content.
Hulu's good for a browser-based streaming player, as I've said, with a clean, mostly easy-to-navigate system.

In the end, no one's really nailed the content organization bit. None of them are bad, but they don't make surfing for new stuff particularly intuitive or fun. It can be a chore, and sometimes it feels like a long one.

Ads, I mean uh, "Revenue Model":
Miro is blissfully ad-free, but the other two are not. Joost's bumper ads are quick and not overly annoying. The ones that occasionally interrupt shows without rhyme or reason, however, are too long and randomly timed. They'll drive your head into your monitor. Hulu's gotten worse since its debut week, where I saw a single 30-second clip per 40-minute show. Watching Heroes the other night, I got slammed with an ad at each of the dots in the timeline.

The Meat:
Joost has 356 total "channels," though some aren't channels in the traditional sense. There's stuff from MTV, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, CBS, Warner Music, as well as channels of CSI, Happy Tree Friends, Transformers and GI Joe. There's offbeat stuff, too, like the Really Terrible Film channel. Used within legal boundaries, Miro lacks solid mainstream content. Comedy Central's "channels" are stand-up clips and web shows only, and Adult Swim just contains their video podcasts. But Miro boasts 2,756 channels, with everything from "Ask a Ninja" and National Geographic to NASA and Wired Science. But yes, you can start your own channel—all it takes is a torrent and a dream.

Hulu's the slimmest, but it has the most recent episodes of the best shows: House, Battlestar Galactica and any other popular shows from NBC Universal and News Corp., like SNL, The Office or Family Guy. There's no indie or offbeat content whatsoever—it's a totally corporate venture.

Across the board, scattershot content is still a major issue. Joost has a Comedy Central channel but no South Park or Chapelle's Show. Miro's kind of defined by being whatever from whoever. Hulu's trimmer offerings at least have an internal logic, with the newest five or six episodes of current shows available, and full seasons of past shows like Buffy.

What You Now Know:
No matter what service you pick, you won't find everything you want, thanks in part to corporate hang-ups and in part to the primitiveness of these early stages. They're maddeningly incomplete, like a crappy library in a rural town. Joost is probably your best bet in terms of quantity and quality, with Miro working better if you want a ton of new programming but don't care about corporate quality. And if you want Battlestar, well, the choice will be made for you. [Joost, Miro, Hulu, Flickr]

It's well known that the iTunes video store isn't the titanic market juggernaut the music store is—to wit, NBC can walk, but Universal Records stays, despite the fact it's the biggest label and has notoriously strained relations with Apple. It's clear from the new iPod line that Apple sees video as its next frontier. But they're simply not selling the volume of video they expect or want to.

On one level, the idea's fairly compelling: the video download market right now is primordial at best, and 99 cents a show is a hard bargain—even just considering production for a TV episode vs. a single track—that's bound to pull in eyeballs and pump iTunes sales, maybe enough to start to grab the first foothold in the market.

Which might be exactly why the networks would balk, clipping half their check aside. The contentious situation between record labels and iTunes is largely because of the iPod/iTunes grip on the digital music market. It's leverage Hollywood is clearly wary of granting anyone wiggle room toward. So we'll be more than surprised if this comes to pass, even over in Disney land. [Variety, thanks John]

Microsoft Shatters the PC-to-Television Barrier, Releases First Details on Extenders for Windows Media Center New devices from Cisco Systems' Linksys division, D-Link and Niveus Media to bring the ultimate audio/video experience to any room in the home.

DENVER — Sept. 5, 2007 — Watching a live TV broadcast in the living room, pausing it, and then effortlessly resuming it at the same moment from the bedroom or kitchen will soon become even easier, as Microsoft Corp. provides a first look at the new Extenders for Windows® Media Center platform, which will power a variety of devices to be released this holiday season. A wave of new cool, quiet, home-theater-quality devices from companies such as Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc.; D-Link Corporation; and Niveus Media Inc. may incorporate new features, including live high-definition (HD) video, wireless networking and expanded support for audio and video formats such as DivX and Xvid.

The new Extender devices, which will be unveiled later this month in a variety of innovative form factors and price points, unleash the pictures, music, video content and live TV from a PC running Windows Vista® Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate for viewing and listening on a big-screen TV display for the ultimate entertainment solution.

"With more than 60 million Windows Vista Media Center PCs in use worldwide, there are many customers eager to bring the simple and elegant Media Center experience to the televisions in their homes," said Dave Alles, general manager for eHome at Microsoft. "The new Extenders for Windows Media Center make it easy to get a wide range of personal and Internet content not only on someone's main TV but on all the TVs in the house. Whether it's a high-def show recorded from digital cable, new Internet video, or your personal library of pictures, music and videos, it's all on your television — just a remote-click away."

New extenders will be available in a wide range of form factors, including both stand-alone set-top boxes and integration with other devices such as DVD players and televisions, so now connecting to a PC running Windows Media Center is even more convenient and seamless than ever. New support for Wireless N high-speed technology means there is no need to run Ethernet cables throughout the home to watch HD video in up to six rooms at once.

Extenders for Windows Media Center are also, for the first time, enhanced to allow support for popular video codecs such as DivX and Xvid, along with continued support for Windows Media® Video HD files. These extenders will also lead the industry in supporting the ability to send protected HD content to additional rooms, including recorded TV from over-the-air Advanced Television Systems Committee or Cable Card tuners and movies and music available from providers such as CinemaNow, MovieLink LLC and Napster LLC. Extenders also support Media Center features such as Reuters news feeds, National Public Radio broadcasts, up-to-date sports reports from the FOX Sports Lounge, and subscription music from XM Radio. At the same time, these devices support Parental Controls built into Windows Media Center, allowing parents to choose the content their children are allowed to view.

Consumers have already logged millions of hours of use on Xbox 360s as Extenders for Windows Media Center. Microsoft is working first with Cisco/Linksys, D-Link and Niveus Media to deliver quiet, high-quality products, and the company will be expanding the Extenders' platform to other companies in the future. The new Extenders for Windows Media Center are being demonstrated at the Microsoft booth at the CEDIA EXPO 2007 in Denver Thursday, Sept. 6 through Sunday, Sept. 9.

WiMAX seems like an ideal delivery method, given the range it covers and its beefy bandwidth, so what Building B wants to do is definitely possible. But, the service launches in the fall, and WiMAX won't exactly have most of the country blanketed by then.

Either way, their vague assertions without hard specifics leave Om Malik (and us) "inherently skeptical of their claims." Topping off our saucer of skeptic's milk is the fact that their targeted ad partner is Claria, better known in its past life as Gator Corporation, proprietor of the eponymous adware client that plagued tens of millions of PCs in the late '90s.

The bottom line is that we'll believe in the One True Box when it's sitting atop our TVs—we've heard way too many empty promises from far too many prophets to be true believers before then. [Building B via NewTeeVee/GigaOM]