Pioneer has launched an online video service called Sync TV in the US that claims to offer “home theatre quality” television programming. So far available as a beta only, the new service gives TV shows on an unlimited download basis. Viewers can download whole seasons of TV shows and watch them when they want. Completely based on open-standards, the SyncTV service works on Windows PCs, Macs and Linux PCs, and in the future it will also do so on TVs and portable players.
“With SyncTV, we believe we have created an ecosystem which will give you the kind of TV viewing experience that many of you have been looking for since the Internet became part of all of our lives,” said SyncTV president John Gildred, on the company’s blog. “We think this is a strong starting point and it’s only going to get bigger and better from here, with more big-name channels and networks joining the service before too long, plus more supported devices as time goes by.”
SyncTV is the latest entrant in the world of online video services and joins the likes of Apple TV, Hulu, Joost, Amazon Unboxed and many others.
The new player also promises direct connectivity to regular TV sets, as well as to portable video players. “As a company, we passionately believe in the consumer benefits of open-standards,” the website promises. “Right now, the SyncTV service works on Windows PCs, Macs and Linux PCs. And because SyncTV was designed to work directly on other consumer audio-visual products, SyncTV will work on more and more devices in the future, including TVs and portable players. We use an open-standards DRM called Marlin and we publish all our open-standard protocols and data formats.”
