A Set-Top Box That Pops

Syabas, makers of the Popcorn Hour network video player, recently unveiled the Popbox. This new home media player features 20 media partners, including Blip.TV (for video content), Twitter (for social viewing), and Clicker (for locating premium video from all over the Internet). Lots of these network video players are showing up now, but Popbox seems to have perfected the interface: It's nice to look at, intuitive, and easily searchable, which is more than I can say for some other entrants in this market. Popbox is expected to be available in March for $129

Rise of VOD

The UK video-on-demand market has exploded this year – with every British broadcaster, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five all upping their own web TV game as well beginning to sign aggregation deals. Channel 4 became the first broadcaster around the world to sign full-length content deal with YouTube, and a similar deal then ensued with Five. A UK version of Hulu is still rumoured to launch, with an ITV deal in the offing, and will face increased competition from MSN Video, Arqiva’s SeeSaw and Blinkbox.