March 13, 2010 by James Oliver
Microsoft’s latest attempt at world domination has been announced this week – they have revealed their new on-demand video service.
Much like the already popular 4od and iPlayer from Channel 4 and the BBC respectively, the MSN video player will offer viewers more than 1000 hours of popular shows both old and new.
The player was actually given a test run in summer 2009 where it was rolled out with a much smaller library, its relative popularity inspired improvements and a significant increase to the library for its official release this month.
During this time, Microsoft have made agreements with a number of high profile clients including Endemol (the makers of Big Brother). The player will broadcast such current popular shows as 8 out of 10 cats and Skins whilst also showing some ‘golden oldies’ like Doctor Who and Young Ones.
Whilst it may seem a fairly pointless endeavour on the part of Microsoft considering the popularity of 4od and BBC iPlayer, the MSN video player does have a bit more to offer. It will come with ‘Silverlight Smooth Streaming’ which will allow users to watch shows in glorious HD. As well as this it will have entire series of certain shows rather then just offering a simple catch up service from the last week.
Users will be able to create their own personal play-list of shows if they are planning a session of sustained watching and the player will even recommend shows based on what you may have already watched.
It would seem that the MSN video player will be a welcome addition to the market as it offers something slightly different from what we already have, variety is indeed the spice of life.
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