Joost reloaded

A couple of months ago I blogged about Joost the first time, after reading about it on TechCrunch. Since then I've not checked it anymore, cause back then it was fairly alpha. Today I installed the latest beta, which is version 0.9.1.

Installation and setup are pretty straightforward. I didn't encounter any problems. The only thing I don't like is the instant start of Joost after the setup completed. I just want to be asked if I really want to do that right after installing it.

It works quite smooth even on my old 1.8 GHz / 1GB machine. When I switch beetween full screen and window mode there are some pauses, but hey it's still beta, right? Another problem is bandwidth. I only got 2MBits here and that's not enough for Joost, I guess. The videos stopped from time to time to buffer and the pauses were really annoying! With a standard 6 MBits connection there shouldn't be any problems.

So the cool thing about Joost is that there are somewhat social networking features. You can chat on channels with other viewer or you can create your own room to chat with your friends, while watching the same show. Another nice gimmick is the rss feed reader, which you can hook up with your feeds and read the headlines while watching a channel. I really like that.

I guess if there was better content and the quality was a little better it could be a real cool iptv application. And if there was an easy way to stream Joost to my lcd tv, I could imagine sitting in on my couch with a wireless keyboard chatting, while watching a show like Prison Break. I like this idea!