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Today's Show:
It's been almost a year since we first checked out the beta of PlayOn from MediaMall Technologies. Now there's some new beta functionality in PlayOn, so we've decided to do a little update. The new feature allows you to stream local media content to your connected players.

PlayOn Update

PlayOn began life at the application that allowed you to stream Netflix Watch It Now video to a network connected DLNA media player such as an Xbox 360, PS3 or HP MediaSmart TV. Since the introduction of Netflix, PlayOn has added other online sources including YouTube, Hulu, ESPN, CBS, CNN and even Amazon OnDemand video. At a price of $39.99, it's always packed quite a punch for a small price tag.

With the addition of local media playback, PlayOn has become quite possibly the most powerful DLNA server available right now. Until it was added, you'd use PlayOn for Internet video, but would also need another DLNA server for sharing local videos. Now you get it all in one convenient package. Keeping in mind that it's still in Beta, there were a few things we really liked and a couple wrinkles that still need to be ironed out.

The good:

• Quite fast: When we compared it with other DLNA servers, it's local list of video files seemed to be avialable for playback on the PS3 at least as fast, or in some cases faster, than the others.
• Nice transcoding: Not all DLNA server will do transcoding. Some do it, but not very well. PlayOn allowed us to watch some files that Windows Media Player was unable to stream to the PS3.

The wrinkles:

• No graphics: Each video file in the local library shows a generic icon. It would be nice to see cover art or at least a frame grab from the video instead.
• Some playback bugs: Fast forward and rewind made the stream go haywire. At one point we lost audio halfway through a movie and couldn't get it back. Then we couldn't fast forward back the the same spot. Big bummer.
• Limited library functionality: PlayOn simply shares folders. Although it has the ability to show videos by Genre, there's no way to set genres in the UI, so in our case they were all listed as unknown.

Bottom line, if you have a DLNA player already, for $39.99 you can play a bunch of Internet video sources, including renting movies at Amazon, an now stream all your local media files as well. And they add features all the time - Nintendo Wii support should be coming soon. It's a solid investment for any home video network.

Posted by The HT Guys, July 2, 2009 9:33 PM