If you have been a TVersity user long enough, chances are that you were looking for a simple way to access your media on the go - after all this is one of the promises of TVersity. Until today, the only way to do it, was open a port in your home router/firewall, find out the IP address assigned to you by your ISP and point a remote web browser to this address. If you were lucky and your ISP was not blocking you, you could access your media wherever you were - a very liberating experience. For most of us however that was just too complicated.
Today, we are starting to change all that, we have come together with SureWest to offer a custom version of TVersity called SureWest Media Connect, that allows dead simple remote access (SureWest subscribers only at this point). This custom version of TVersity is fully integrated with the SureWest network and the MySureWest.net website, so all you need to do is enter your SureWest username and password during the installation of SureWest Media Connect, and then login to the SureWest portal from anywhere. No network configuration of any kind is required, just install the software and when you want to access your personal media remotely, simply login to SureWest.net. A widget on the home page will allow you to play your music and videos and see a slideshow of your photos from just about anywhere (see widget screenshot).
This new service is currently in Beta, so you will need to first join the Beta program by logging in at SureWest.net. If you are not a SureWest subscriber and yet you live in SureWests Northern California service area, there has never been a better time to switch… Other users who are interested in this service can help us bring it to them by contacting their ISP and suggesting TVersity remote access as a possible value-add service.
In case you are wondering how this remote access service relates to our core offering - access of personal and Internet media on TV, the basic idea behind TVersity is to empower users to access their favorite media on their favortie devices - be they TV connected or mobile. This is the first time however that we have been able to make remote access as easy as it needs to be. Needless to say SureWest Media Connect includes all the other features of TVersity and can therefore satisfy all your media serving needs.
“I am thrilled to be launching the SureWest Media Connect Beta! We have worked for some time with TVeristy to bring this service to our customers in a way that would make it easy to access and use. With SureWest Media Connect and the My Surewest website we are able to give our customers a truly unique service, the ability to remotely access and play all of the music, photos and videos stored on their home PC from anywhere on the world!” -Rick Vohs, Product Engineering Manager, SureWest
We are glad to announce the availability of the TVersity media server Pro 1.6!
This release is all about relaxing the system requirements for premium content (this includes Hulu, BBC iPlayer, and all the other supported premium content sites). Most importantly, a sound card with stereo-mix is NO LONGER REQUIRED, and the sound will not be heard on the PC running TVersity. Also, the installation wizard will detect whether Flash for firefox is installed, and will prompt the user to do the installation when necessary.
With these fixes we believe we are addressing all the major issues users were having with the Pro version.
In terms of bug fixes we eliminated the MP4 indexing problem that was introduced in 1.0.0.11. We fixed device discovery issues on machines with long hostnames and we upgraded to the latest SQLITE which should fix some rare library corruption issues.
Full release notes are available here.
You can download the software here.
It is recommended for all users to upgrade as soon as possible, and if you have not yet paid for the Pro version despite the fact that you are using it, now is the time to purchase a license.
Seventh release candidate is out with more bug fixes. We think we are getting really close to our first non beta release, which is our biggest milestone ever and so we wanted to take the opportunity and share some of our future plans for TVersity.
In 2009 we have three main goals:
- Embed TVersity in a hardware home server appliance(s). Initially it will probably be Windows Home Server based and later on Linux based (maybe even Open Solaris with ZFS). These devices will be more powerful than a typical NAS (to allow real time transcoding up to DVD quality), probably as powerful as a low end PC, but with a much lower power consumption. Intel dual core Atom seems like a good fit, thoughts and suggestions by the community are welcome.
- Add many more Internet content sources, Hulu is first on our list. Already works in the lab and will be released soon in our 1.5 beta.
- Keep supporting new and interesting devices that have a massive consumer following. Maybe the new TechCrunch tablet will be a good fit???
This is it, please share with us your feedback as well as your 2009 TVersity wish list. Our product roadmap is very dynamic, and since the connected home space is evolving very quickly we are going to adapt as often as necessary.
We are pleased to announce availability of our sixth 1.0 release candidate. This is a bug fix release with minor enhancements and performance improvements.
All Sony PS3 users should upgrade immediately since this release fixes a serious bug related to photos. Other device users are encouraged to upgrade as well at their earliest convenience.
Full release notes at:
http://tversity.com/support/releasenotes/
Download at:
1.0.0.10 RC6
Our fifth release candidate is out - this is a bug fix release, designed to address many known issues so that we can finally emerge out of beta.
Your feedback in the next couple of days will determine whether we can make an official 1.0 release or need an additional set of fixes.
A few weeks ago we got an email from James Leenheer, who wrote a review about TVersity in tripletags.com, trying to find out how come we do not have a page on Facebook. After learning what a page on Facebook is, and with a lot of help from James, we now have one.
If you use Facebook, you should check it out and you should definitely become a fan. You will get a chance to meet other TVersity users and exchange ideas in a social environment.
Here is a link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/TVersity/14170584966
There are many online sources out there offering live video coverage of the election day, many of which can be watched via TVersity on your networked devices (game consoles, mobiles, etc.).
For your convenience we are listing below a few live streams from the CNN, if you have other streams please comment to this post and if they are indeed compatible with TVersity we will add them to this post for the benefit of all.
CNN Live Election Day Coverage (click to subscribe via TVersity):
|
CNN Election Day 1 |
|
|
CNN Election Day 2 |
|
|
CNN Election Day 3 |
|
|
CNN Election Day 4 |
In case you prefer the media URLs (drag and drop to the TVersity UI):
Election Day 1
Election Day 2
Election Day 3
Election Day 4
The forth release candidate is here with support for PS3 firmware 2.5, higher quality YouTube content and automatic update of expired URLs.
As many of you probably know YouTube has been improving the quality of its videos and at the same time made its content available in H.264 and not just Flash video. Up to this release TVersity would take by default low quality videos even when higher quality was available. This release will always try high quality videos first and only if not available, fall back to the lower quality.
Furthermore, TVersity can serve YouTube content in FLV and H.264 by taking it from the source and without any need to transcode. This insures higher quality, faster response times and immediate playback on MP4 only devices (like the iPhone).
Another long overdue improvement is related to expiring URLs. It is common practice among content publishers to embed in playlists (or redirect to) URLs that expire after a while. TVersity used to take the expired URL and stick with it even after it stopped working. This release will automatically re-acquire expired URLs eliminating the need to keep refreshing content of this nature (some examples are YouTube and ASX playlists).
Last but not least, YouTube has been experimenting with full episodes of certain TV shows (such as the original Star Trek, The Young and the Restless, and FRONTLINE | The Choice 2008 to name a few), the current TVersity version is the best way to watch this content. You can now get the highest quality YouTube offers, you need not worry about expiring URLs and you can watch it on the big screen, so enjoy!
For a complete list of changes please check the release notes.
Download the latest release here.
UPDATE: Today something changed at YouTube, this lead to… (you guessed it or worse experienced it) TVersity failing to play YouTube content. We just released a newer version that fixes these issues so please upgrade!
In this version we bring you support for raw digital camera images, a slightly easier menu navigation on devices, new formats, new devices and of-course some bug fixes and other minor improvements.
Full release notes are available at:
http://tversity.com/support/releasenotes/
Download it here:
http://download.tversity.com/TVersitySetup_1_0_0_4_RC3.exe
We have been hard at work fixing some issues with RC1 and adding album art support and today we bring you TVersity 1.0 RC2.
Album art support is the main new feature of this release, it is compatible with the Sony PS3 as well as with the HTML interface (PSP, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) and flash interface (Wii). Album art support relies on JPEG files conforming to certain naming conventions that are present in the same folder as music tracks. These files can be created by either Windows Media Player or WinAmp and TVersity will pick them up, or users can add them manually.
To give you full control over the album art image, TVersity allows you to override the art assigned to a certain album by adding to the folder that contains track belonging to the album an image file named:
albumart.<album name>.jpg
If such file does not exist, TVersity looks for files added automatically by Windows Media Player or by WinAmp. We do not currently take album art files created by iTunes.
In addition to music album art, this release also display art icons on the Sony PS3 next to RSS feed items that have such icons in the RSS (e.g. YouTube feeds).
Finally, many issues were fixed based on the great feedback we received from the community. More info at:
http://tversity.com/support/releasenotes/
Download the new release at:
http://tversity.com/download/
