Both Engadget and Gizmodo are live-blogging Microsoft’s opening E3 keynote… In addition to a massive Xbox 360 Dashboard UI overhaul (which I alluded to in May), Netflix-on-Xbox video streaming has been confirmed for fall. Sweet! Here’s to hoping Netflix can load up on current Hollywood hits prior to launch. Guess my Netflix Roku box is headed to ebay once we’ve completed the Battle Royale.

The 3G iPhone wasn’t the only new release last week… The D-Link DivX media extender (DSM-300) has started shipping in the US. Though it lists for $300, online retailers are offering it for $230 minus an additional $30 rebate. $200 for this handsome wireless-capable, 720p extender is a decent deal if your digital video collection is primarily Xvid- or Divx-encoded. Plus, the community developed plugins and theme offerings continue to expand. Both Brent and I have review samples, though I suspect he’ll get something written up sooner. In fact, I may just let him cover it for the both of us while I continue my gadget purge and realignment (1, 2, 3, 4).

Rafat’s (paidContent) disappointed with the upcoming Olympics web video, labeling NBC “totalitarian” and heavy handed – his major beefs seem to be that televised content will only be available online post TV broadcast and only viewable at NBCOlympics.com. As I commented Sunday, I’m pleased with any/all online viewing options – especially being able to catch the “long tail” sports and qualifying rounds:

Live doesn’t matter to me – I don’t even know what the time difference is and I don’t want to worry about remembering the schedules. However, I’m looking forward to being able to access lower profile sports (that interest me) like judo and freestyle wrestling that get very little or random, hard to find air-time.

In taking the screengrab above, I tried out the (Mac-compatible!) Silverlight player… and had better luck streaming via Safari than with Firefox 3 (which served up blank screens and stuttering video). Yet to be seen is if NBC can handle the traffic and how their site will organize and present video.

Random factoid: One of my first online purchases was an Olympics wrestling t-shirt during the ‘96 Atlanta games.

EngadgetHD’s Ben Drawbaugh recently abandoned TiVo in favor of a CableCARD Vista Media Center and has been evaluating the current crop of extenders. His ultimate advice: If you’re a gamer, stick with the Xbox 360 (despite the cost and noise). Otherwise, the quiet and relatively inexpensive Linksys DMA2100 ($240) is the way to go.

Wimbledon 2008 starts today and runs to July 6 and I discovered that Wimbledon provides a two week ‘Wimbledon Live‘ service. For a flat fee of $24.99 you can stream live matches to your PC or download up to 250 matches in .wmv format after the match is complete. Matches will be available until May 1, 2009. Day passes will also be available but so far I haven’t found pricing details.

As usual, my TiVos are queued to record as many matches as TSN and NBC air. But, all too often, matches that I want to watch are not broadcast. Or, too frequently, certain channels have exclusive rights to particular high profile matches with the result that they are not shown on the channels that my cable provider, Rogers, makes available to me!

All video is in 384 x 288 with a 4:3 aspect ratio. I took a quick look at the free streaming demo of the 2005 Federer vs. Roddick Wimbledon Final. The quality wasn’t great (see pic above), but it wasn’t bad either. Because the service only works with Windows Media Player, the it’s not available to Apple users and, presumably, not available through AppleTV.

Note: In addition to the free streaming demo, I tried the free downloadable version but it would not play without having to first sign up and give them my credit card. This kind-of defeats the “free” part of the ‘Download (FREE)’ offer.

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I received the same Hulu email as Mari earlier this week. And it didn’t move me. I don’t want to stream full length feature films on my laptop. Hulu’s real strength has been in shorter form television entertainment. (Given their NBC and FOX DNA, this comes as no surprise.)

During Hulu’s beta I was pretty tolerant of their “random episode” policy, figuring it’d take awhile to encode the content library. However, after many months I still see no rhyme nor reason to what shows are available and when.

For example there’s not much on TV these days, so when I heard about USA’s Pysch I dropped by Hulu to check it out. As you can see above (click to enlarge) – only a few episodes are offered, they’re not in any sensible (sequential) order, and at least one will expire (before I’d get to it). As someone who’s never seen Psych, at the very least Hulu needs to provide the first episode of each season so I can see what it’s all about without joining mid-stream. Ideally, they’d present the entire season – but even if they offered a few episodes, perhaps they’d hook me and I’d buy the DVD or (gasp) even watch live.

The bottom line here is that big media still doesn’t (seem to) get it. I’m willing to sit through the commercials, generating additional new revenue for these guys. Online, they need to focus less on (the false premise of) cannibalizing DVD sales or television viewing and focus more and monetizing what people are acquiring for free… or ultimately ignoring. Too hard to find Psych? Fine, I’ll skip it. They’re leaving money on the table.

While the XBMC desktop port continues, a new player (Boxee) is stepping in to create a (free) unified front-end that layers social networking features on top of traditional media extender functionality. For those unfamiliar with XBMC, I’ll go ahead and quote myself:

when you’ve completed the upgrade, the classic Xbox is more capable, useful, and affordable than most most media extenders out there – including the 360. All sorts of multimedia can be streamed across your home network, played back from the local hard drive, or via the optical drive. Hooks into YouTube and Apple’s movie trailers are included, plus all sorts of other widgets are available.

Of course, that description was specific to the original XBMC running on classic Xbox hardware (XBMC = Xbox Media Center) – but the experience is being translated into a (multiplatform) computer app. While XBMC development has been doing OK on it’s own, it’s still remains largely the province of geeks. To go mainstream, we’ve got to get past compiling code and installing Python scripts. By bringing leadership equivalent to the Mozilla Corporation to bear on this problem, Boxee should be able to speed and enhance development.

Boxee’s currently self funded and the team is comprised of about ten people, including a former Sling Media colleague. I was provided an advance look at a pre-alpha build and found the visual interface both pleasing and speedy, with some innovative new methods of media interaction (think: friends) for this category.

As far as challenges, Boxee’s will be no different – the space is getting crowded and the market for computer-based media centers is finite. According to NewTeeVee, they may ultimately look for hardware partners. My short term suggestion: Let me replace the AppleTV experience. Apple’s hardware is pretty solid and priced right at $229 but, while not quite a wall-garden, software functionality is limited. I assume the XBMC MPEG-2 codec is unlicensed and, as a commercial venture, Boxee will be on the hook for royalties (if they provide playback).

Hit Boxee.tv to request an invite for alpha testing (Mac & Linux), which begins Monday.