A couple of weeks ago, my application for beta-testing The Venice Project finally came through and I was able to get my hand on the client. They call it “the future of television” and I have to say that so far I am very impressed with what I’ve seen.
Don’t get me wrong – at the moment, most of it kind of stinks.. The UI is fairly difficult to navigate; my MCE remote control only works for half of the things you want to do so I still need a mouse/keyboard. Everything is in 4:3-format so my widescreen TV isn’t very happy. And seriously, who’s interested in watching old black-and-white episodes of Lassie or a whole channel devoted to “Paris Hilton behind the scenes”-shows?
But there is such a huge potential here! The quality is almost as good as can be expected (the resolution is OK and since the latest build the feed is pretty much free from stutter). I’m sure that the UI problems will be worked out and the lack of widescreen support seems to be more of an issue with content rather than the software.
Finally, if someone is interested in beta testing this thing too, I have two invitation tokens to hand out. Just send me an email using the contact form!
Update (2007-01-12): I’m now out of invitation tokens…
Coding Insomnia 
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