ceremorphosis

I got an invite to the Joost beta about a week ago, and I finally got around to installing it on my MacBook Pro. That brings me to my first note: Joost is an Intel-only binary.

The first launch took about 30 seconds to go from no window to small blank window, to full screen presentation. From there, you go into channel selection:

Scrolling through the channels was initially quite sluggish. I noticed “Fifth Gear”, and I had to choose that. Once you choose a channel, you get to choose a show:

If you want more information on the show, you can click the i. We’ll have to assume that the dearth of information is due to this being a beta.

After selecting the show, you get the loading screen, which is similar to the default home screen:

Quick ad from TMobile:

and the show begins. It’s a little choppy at first, and the UI can be laggy. I’ll have to see how CPU intensive the app is, as network should not have been a problem.

The picture quality was pretty good, considering speed of delivery. There is some artifacting, and again, some choppiness, but considering I am running this full screen at 1440×900, I can’t complain too much.

Wiggle the mouse, and you get the controls:

Right after I took these screengrabs, Joost crashed, a reminder of the app’s beta status. I’ll continue to play with Joost and post my thoughts. There is quite a bit of hype around the application, and I want to see if it’s really worth the noise. The exciting thing is that unlike Miro, née Democracy, Joost offers a nice range of “non-blog” content.