I got a Joost account a few weeks ago but didn’t really use it much until I connected it to my TV. I’ve been long time MythTV user and the idea of getting video content over the internet sounded great. Currently Joost only supports Windows and Mac platforms so I needed to install Joost on a Windows machine. The requirements for Joost are also pretty extreme so I need to use a newer PC that I had recently upgraded to run Vista. Initially Joost crashed horribly under Vista but a quick search of their forums found a fix ( Joost must run as administrator ). Then I connected that PC to my TV, I couldn’t do HDTV because I don’t have any open ports on the TV.

Using Joost with a Windows Media Center remote was pretty straight forward and the ease of the interface really became apparent on the TV. Joost has done a good job of using transparent interfaces to maximize the limited space of a NTSC signal ( about 480×400 screen resolution ). There is a lack of tweaking options, which can be good or bad. I’m sure the MacOS crowd will be very happy with this approach. The performance was jerky at times and I was thinking it might be good to tweak so of the settings…

One area I thought was strange was the use of Channels. I’m not sure I really understand this in the context of a IP based service which is fairly personalized. For example theres a channel for Indie Movies, some of which are good, some bad, none of them related in content or theme. Why are these part of a channel? The interface does support a keyword search but this doesn’t work with the remote yet.

I also noticed what seems to be a debug screen embedded in the video stream. If you turn the contrast on your TV to maximum you can see if running down the side of the screen. It might what Joost uses to calibrate the performance.

Overall I like the service but it does need alot more content. Most of what they have today is pretty poor. Looking forward to more going forward…

Btw, I do not have any invite tokens left…