The company just raised its first round of venture capital funding last November, but when we talked to Boxee's CEO Avner Ronen yesterday, he stressed that the company thinks this is the right time to expand. Ronen noted that Boxee will use the money to grow its development team to about 20 people, as it sees a chance to become a major player on connected TVs and set-top boxes. These devices are only now starting to gain a foothold in people's living rooms and will give Boxee a chance to go mainstream.

Currently, the software runs on Macs, Windows, Linux, and Apple TV, but while it is getting easier to connect a PC to a large TV set in the living room, this is definitely still a niche market. In order to reach a larger audience, Boxee will have to get its software onto TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes directly. The company is already talking to a number of manufacturers, though Ronen wasn't ready to announce any partnerships yet.

Ronen also told us that the company plans to offer a platform for content producers and doesn't want to get into the content business itself. Instead, Boxee will give media companies and independent producers options to sell subscriptions to their content or give users access to content on an a la carte basis. Major League Baseball started to offer access to its content to its Premium subscribers on Boxee last month.

Authentication

Now, Comcast and Time Warner are about to start a trial with about 5,000 cable customers that would give these households access to TV programs on the web. Of course, the real test here is not whether the cable companies can deliver online TV over their networks, but whether they can figure out a good way to 'authenticate' households that have a cable subscription.

Spin: More Choice for Customers

As Om Malik points out, this also opens up the door for possible anti-trust proceedings against the large media companies that are involved here. For now, it looks like Comcast and Time Warner will be working together on this project (Time Warner uses the name TV Everywhere, Comcast calls its system "OnDemand Online"). In this limited first test, Comcast will carry some programming from Time Warner's TNT and TBS networks.

As expected, the cable companies are spinning this as an innovative agreement that will bring "customers exponentially more free content, more choice and more HD programming online as well as on TV." In reality, of course, this project is simply a way for the cable companies and networks to protect their revenue streams.

There is, however, also some truth to the cable companies' claims. A lot of cable networks do not put any of their content on the Internet, as the networks don't want to jeopardize the lucrative income stream they currently receive from the cable companies.

Hulu, the Elephant in the Room also Wants to Play

As of now, free TV programming online isn't going to go away anytime soon, but as PaidContent reports, Hulu, the most visible online TV site, is also looking into subscription models and the executives there might not be averse to joining the cable companies' authentication schemes. At some point in the future then, your cable subscription might determine which shows you can watch on Hulu and similar online TV sites.

Hulu = Online TV?

Hulu was already on the brink of becoming the de facto standard for watching TV shows online, and adding Disney to its line-up only consolidates this position. Advertisers have been flocking to Hulu, and while it is getting some serious competition from TV.com, which is owned by CBS (which doesn't have a deal with Hulu), this new deal should give it a nice boost in the next few months.

It should be noted that ABC's own online player features 720p HD versions of all its major prime-time shows, something that Hulu currently doesn't offer, so to get the best quality, users will still have to go to ABC.com.

CC-licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user Raymond Brown.

With ffwd, the idea behind the app is to create an online version of a TV remote control. No, it doesn't look like a picture of your remote on the screen, but the way you can click a button to see new channels is reminiscent of the TV channel surfing experience.

At first glance, the site appears to be much more "Web 2.0-ish" than their competitor, Invision, but I've heard others who think Invision had the better app. But where Invision.tv's site can seem a bit busy, ffwd's is simple and easy to use. It doesn't look like you would need to read any "getting started" instructions to start using ffwd.

A Personalized Channel on ffwd

Channels

On ffwd, there are tons of channels to choose from. Some may be dedicated to your interests (music, celebs, sci-fi, travel, etc.). Others may be web shows you enjoy (Ask A Ninja, Onion News, Boing Boing TV). There are even channels dedicated to TV shows you like, and like Invision, support for Hulu means you have access to viewing full episodes here.

ffwd TV Show Channel

However, where ffwd differs from Invision is in its recommendation engine. Although both use their own proprietary algorithms to learn what sort of content you like, ffwd lets you kick start your recommendations thanks to FriendFeed integration. After syncing the service with FriendFeed, you can help customize channels by pulling in data from iLike, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your Netflix queue. Why they won't just parse all of the data in your FriendFeed is unknown, but perhaps they'll support a few more services later on. For example, it seems only natural that grabbing your Last.fm likes from FriendFeed would make sense. Then ffwd could help you find relevant music videos based on those artists.

FriendFeed Integration

Still, even partial FriendFeed integration kicks it up another notch above Invision.tv, and since it appears that they support most of the same channels that Invision does, it may come down to personal preference. I found that I prefer ffwd, but I'm curious what you think.

Short Attention Span

There are a number of other interesting bits of information in the data from NBC, including that face that the average time people spent watching video on the NBC site so far is under 15 minutes and was as low as 10 minutes on Friday. This is very much in line with how people use Internet video on other sites like YouTube. NBC did not specify how many viewers watched the live coverage and how many of them just viewed already recorded clips. Judging from this number, it would almost seem as if most viewers wither decided to mostly watch prerecorded clips, or that they did not stick around for the live coverage for very long.

But What About the Experience?

Over the weekend, we had quite some time to play with NBC's video player, and while the overall experience was good and the video quality was actually very good and the streams never stuttered once, the video player itself is a bit of a disappointment. Why, for example, is there no full-screen mode available?

Also, the much touted "Live Video Control Room," where you can watch up to 4 streams at a time, is pretty much useless because of the miniscule size of the videos. Also, as Chris Albrecht points out, the user interface and navigation of the site is often confusing.

Overall, though, it seems these Olympic Games will hopefully change the way TV executives think about online coverage. Clearly, the online coverage is not detracting from TV viewership and if anything, is enhancing the way people relate to the events, especially in a year where the large time difference and the time-delay of the TV coverage become such an important issue. While the overall numbers for online viewership are maybe not as high as some others expected, we will have to see what happens during the week now, where many viewers might start watching the online streams from work.

As it turns out, TidalTV is more like Hulu than Joost. The videos are available to watch online in the browser, with no software download necessary - not even a special browser plugin.

As far as content goes, TidalTV has quite a bit, offering up premium video from content owners such as the Associated Press, CBS, diy network, Fine Living Network, food network, National Geographic Channel, HGTV, MSNBC Features, NBC News Features, Ford Models, The Chef's Kitchen, Classic College Sports, Sports Illustrated, somagirls.tv, The Weather Channel, This Old House, TV Guide, Vogue TV, weddingtv, and the WSJ.

The viewing experience isn't bad, either. When the site initially displays, the video is in a small window on the left, with featured programs to the right and the full program guide below. One click on the video takes you to full screen. Move your mouse to the bottom of the video window, and the controls pop-up, letting you start, stop, pause, adjust the volume, and access other site features like the guide, your options, or site search. There are also three other buttons at the bottom right of the video window that let you share the video with a friend (via email only - no embed codes were available), mark the video or series as a favorite, and display the current program's description.

As with many online video services, TidalTV makes its money from interspersed, no-skip ads, but they were no more frequent or lengthy than you would expect - averaging about four per a half-hour of programming. The site also performed well in both quality and speed, though it's hard to tell how it will do under a load of traffic. Thanks to its quiet launch, there hasn't been a rush of users to it yet. However, at this time, transitions from page to page were smooth and videos began instantly, no stopping and starting and no buffering.

Try It Now!

Unlike with Hulu's beta, you won't need an invite or login to watch TidalTV - it's available to everyone. Check it out for yourself here: beta.tidaltv.com and let us know what you think in the comments.

• Laziness: "It's hard to beat the one-stop shop of cable. It's all right there at literally the touch of a button."
• HD: "TV shows on Hulu are great and convenient but are not in HD. I could stream HD content on ABC, but I'd have to watch it on my Mac ... iTunes doesn't offer HD versions of its TV shows."
• Discovery: "There is a Zen-like satisfaction to flipping through channels and finding a cable oddity that I didn't know existed."

Despite my own hate-hate relationship with my cable TV provider, I too can't seem to walk away. Here are some of my own additional reasons:

• Live sports: What can I say? I'm a sports junkie. Yes, you can get a lot of sports streamed live online these days, but not as much as over cable (especially in local markets), and if you add up all the costs you're talking about a significant investment just for sports.
• Convenience: No downloading, no buffering, no waiting in line, no waiting for someone to seed last night's big season finale. Cable is always there for me, working just as promised. And if you have a DVR, you even get to watch it on your own time.
• Impatience: Before BitTorrent, or iTunes, or Joost gets a television show, it is broadcast over cable or network TV. There are some shows I don't want to wait for: 60 Minutes, NOW with David Brancaccio, and Bill Moyers Journal come to mind. (You know, as long as there isn't a game on... ahem.)

But for everything there is to like about cable, there is an equal or greater number of reasons to cut the cord. The headaches I've gone through over the past few months dealing with my cable provider (Cox -- one of the few companies on the planet that can almost make Comcast start to sound good to me), from not showing up for scheduled service appoints to slipping things I didn't order onto my bill, should have been enough to make me cancel my contract, if not for television's addictive hold on me.

We've looked at the numerous Internet TV options on ReadWriteWeb in the past (see in depth reviews here and here), and on my computer right now I have Joost, Babelgum, Livestation, and Veoh installed. But none seem compelling or complete enough to grab my full attention away from cable.

Do you still watch cable television? If not, what made you give it up? Do you watch TV online? Let us know in the comments below, and vote in our poll. In the meantime, I'm going to check what's on.