BabelGum Beta Reviewed - Watch On Demand TV and Video

Babelgum is another online TV content provider that will let online viewers watch TV on demand right on their computers. Does it rival other content providers like Joost? I tried out the closed beta to get a taste of things to come.

Joost just went full throttle by opening up a 1000 invitations for each member, I’ve sent quite a few out myself. Get your joost invitation.

I would like to thank Wilson Cleveland who sent me the invite to try the product out. The client download is a 6MB file and upon installation takes 15MB on your system. System requirements are Win XP/1.0Ghz Pentium or better/512MB RAM/32MB VRAM/Broadband.

Installation took all of a few minutes and I was up and ready to watch whatever content they have in their closed beta. The open beta is coming on May 31st, screenshots below.

The interface is simple with the menu taking up less place than on Joost, though Joost has a touch of color that pops from their logo. Anyway, you can watch in window mode or go full screen and the jump is pretty smooth. Since I have a broadband connection the streaming was pretty quick, here is a screenshot of CPU usage. edit: I have to point out though that after running it for over 30 mins, it did climb to 90 MB.

Now the menu itself is pretty intuitive, though I didn’t even think those small squares {see pic} at the bottom of the menu were meant to change the picture size in the viewing frame. Maybe a tooltip would help there.

Clicking on “TV” brings up the various channels available, right now there are 9 in the closed beta. You simply click and press the play icon to begin viewing. Clicking the “more” button brings up obviously more information about the channel and all the content within, with a textual summary. You can choose any and begin viewing. Volume control is right next to the channel surfer.

The “Add to video” button enables you to create your own list of shows and play them back over in order. Sound seemed pretty fair, of course I don’t have any top of the line speakers but yeah it’s good enough.

Their isn’t much you can do with any settings now and their is no way to move forward or backward while playback is going on. I assume that will be rolled out with the open beta on the 31st.

So will Babelgum stand up to viewers expectations and be able to get the kind of content that Joost has gotten? Babelgum is founded by billionaire Silvia Scaglia, co-founder of Italian telecoms company Fastweb, and funded by Scaglia’s own money. The company is trying to strike deals with Hollywood studios.

Looking forward to the open beta on May 31st.

Screenshots

{img courtesy mashable}

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