Streaming on the T1

I got to play around a little bit with streaming video to the TV over the new T1 line. For now, I'm using TVersity on my home server to stream to the big TV through the PS3, because I already have been using it to stream music, photos, and video to the PS3, the D-Link, and my Archos. TVersity promises the ability to stream things like YouTube and Flickr but I never explored that due to the bandwidth limitations.

There's also support in the Pro version for streaming Hulu, BBC, and a host of other services. The Pro version costs $20, which is less than the competitors, plus it's available in an unlimited-term trialware version. Download it, use it, and then pay when you feel like it. Don't know if it has nags or anything, but it keeps working.

I haven't installed it yet because I haven't had time when neither I nor the TV were busy, of sufficient time to do an install knowing I could safely fix it or get back to the free version in case it goes wrong, since the ability to stream what we already have is something we're used to and wouldn't want to lose.

YouTube tests have been promising but hardly spectacular. First, some videos don't work; it seems anything with embedding disabled simply won't add. Video quality is far more hit-and-miss than it is on YouTube itself (and that's saying a lot) but I don't know how much of that is because I haven't configured things in an optimal fashion. Playlists work but not all the videos in them; they also don't look like a list of videos, but a list of folders which contain files and other folders, so it makes a bit of a mess. TVersity has a bunch of features to see videos by user or tag, or lists like "Most Reviewed Today", but these seem not to work. But all this is probably stuff I can fix by tweaking settings. TVersity doesn't have great help though, so it's a lot of guesswork.

I was able to get my Flickr photostream to show up, but I can't get groups, like the Nature Conservancy, to show, which is a shame as that would be nice to browse. But maybe it's way too big.

When I get the Pro version installed I will have to try out Hulu, but so far I have still never even gone to Hulu on my computer, so it might be an uphill battle to figure out how it fits into TVersity.