Each time Last100 covers the BBC’s iPlayer I get fired up. Why wait a year for BBC America or DVD for compelling content out of the UK? Of course, the easiest way to catch international television online is by finding (or providing) a friend with a Slingbox.

Warning: Über-geeky networking content follows.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume we don’t have any overseas pals. Most streaming websites (Hulu, BBC, etc) selectively permit access to a range of IP addresses based on geographic location. i.e. US addresses can view Hulu, European addresses cannot. Back in my old information assurance days, we occasionally applied geo blocking - but like these video destinations, it’s not a true security measure, it’s meant to be a deterrent.

Two ways to bypass this barrier involve bouncing web traffic through a proxy or tunneling directly through a VPN. Again, it helps to have friends in your target country. However, there are often open, freely available proxy servers floating around out there on the interwebs. Finding them requires some Googling and you can expect proxies to vanish as quickly as new ones turn up - though strained server performance is often subpar. Regarding VPNs, it appears a niche business has popped up facilitating these sorts of activities. Prices and bandwidth vary and, in my brief research, all appeared sketchy. So I overpaid (£10.00 GBP) for a service that uses PayPal, in lieu of giving up my credit card and billing information. Interestingly, the VPN details are buried in a connection executable - meaning, without more work, my iPlayer experimentation has been limited to Windows. If I were more motivated, I could probably sniff the details I need or use a hex editor to retrieve them - allowing me to utilize this connection information within OS X and/or on the iPhone, which had been my original target.

As it turns out, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to Steve’s articles. Unlike the US-based Hulu, BBC iPlayer is a “catch up” service - only offering the last 7 days of broadcast content, versus many episodes covering many years. And, thus, my motivation has waned and I’m allowing my UK VPN subscription to lapse.

There’s a new music store in town named Lala.com. TechCrunch and many others are calling it a possible game changer or revolution in music sharing/buying. I was pretty skeptical of the concept at first, but after trying it out I’m pretty impressed. It has potential to be a very nice service as a HTPC plugin, too.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

• You sign up and get 50 free songs for streaming
• There are “streaming songs” that you can listen to (most in their entirety) once before buying. You can then pay 10 cents to purchase (or as they say ‘keep’) the right to stream any of these songs for as long as they exist and you maintain your account with them.
• You can purchase for download any of the songs for an additional 79 cents ($0.89 total) - these are DRM-free, MP3s compatible with all MP3 music players. The vast majority of the MP3 files are encoded using variable bit rates (VBR), aiming at an average of 256kbp
• You can also “match the songs” on your computer (all songs regardless of where you got them) to their catalog and always have free access to those songs via streaming. 

The streaming and “syncing” feature sounds very familiar to me. You know why? Because it is almost exactly the type of “music locker” service we once knew as MyMp3.com (don’t go there, it’s an adult site now) and mp3tunes.com which still exists but is being sued by the the record labels. So here I guess the labels think it’s okay because they’ve put their restrictions on the streaming rules and they are getting paid royalties. The business model is similar to Rhapsody except it’s pay per tune, instead of pay per month, for music streaming. It’ll appeal to people if they understand it: No subscription fees, only pay for the songs you want to stream. Plus take it with you for 89 cents total. A closer competitor in concept might be GrooveShark - another service I really like.

Read the rest of this entry at Geek Tonic »

While some appear content to sit on the sidelines, Netflix and Pandora continue their digital living room encroachment. Both streaming services are now available to the Samsung BD-P2550 Blu-ray player (~$400) via a firmware update. Netflix’s standard def library (over 12,000 movie and television titles, according to NewTeeVee) is free to existing DVD rental subscribers on unlimited plans, and Pandora’s humungous audio library is free to all.

While some appear content to sit on the sidelines, TiVo’s moving forward with announced plans to offer foreign, independent, and Disney video on demand services - in addition the existing Amazon library. Jaman’s indie and foreign film content launches today, with Disney film rentals via CinemaNow arriving next week. Both services will be provided in standard definition (for now?) and MPEG2-encoded. I was hoping to get a sneak peek at Jaman last night, but their engineers were performing some last minute work. However, I can confirm Series2 and Series3/HD platforms are supported, with rentals starting at a low $1.99.

While some appear content to sit on the sidelines, Boxee beats the big-time HTPC software companies to the punch by integrating Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, and MySpaceTV streaming players into their software. This alone should give Vista Media Center, SageTV and BeyondTV pause as web-based video/television/movie content has clearly become important to the end user. The new, alpha version of Boxee includes:

• Streaming TV shows, movies and clips from Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central and MySpaceTV
• Major changes to the UI
• Web interface to adding RSS feeds
• Improved performance

Current Alpha versions support Linux, Mac OS X, and AppleTV with a Windows version scheduled for release later this fall. Those who already have an alpha account, click here to download the updated software. Those in need of an invite, simply leave a comment requesting one - we’ve got you covered.

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.

From Apple’s quarterly earnings call, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:

Bill Fearnley - FTN Midwest: [...] Steve, how are you thinking about Apple TV now? [...] If you look at the digital living room category and you look at the upcoming year of 2009, how do you look at the digital living room opportunity and how it relates to Apple TV?

Steven P. Jobs: Well again, I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it and actually the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away, so I’d have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.

Where do I even start? While Apple continues to believe providing digital media in the living room is a “hobby” the door remains wide open for those who are serious about this space. The big Steve-o is correct that current economic conditions are and will be a drag but, as Apple has shown, innovation doesn’t cease in the face of adversity. Within the last few weeks, we’ve seen Hulu land on D-Link’s DivX extender, ZvBox, SlingCatcher, and the PS3. But if I’m wrong about the increased momentum of converged “lean back” technologies, we’ll just have a quiet 2009 here on ZNF.

Davis just tipped me off to this cute and well done, as in solid production values, Halloween TiVo YouTube video. Background details can be found on MySpace, but what I’d really like to ask Adam is if I win something for identifying that Greatest American Hero t-shirt?