Once in the News & Finance section you can see there are two channels to choose from. I chose CNBC.
That's it. After a short wait Windows Media Player opens up and starts buffering the stream.
Once sufficient data is buffered, your show comes on. It is what is being broadcast, but several seconds behind to account for the encoding and buffering. Nevertheless, very close to live television.
And finally you can rotate the image since it is running on Windows Media Player.
This is a service, not just a software application. So there is a monthly charge to use it. Currently $12.95 a month for the basic service and an additional $4.95 a month for the premium service. I believe the provider will continue to grow the list of channels available as interest in the technology increases. But the initial offering of services seems adequate. Another cool feature is that you can use your account on multiple devices. Since you are paying for the service, you can use it on your PocketPC or SmartPhone device, depending on which you happen to be carrying when you want to check out the news.
So it is worth $12.95? I'll let your television addiction answer that question. Although the audio quality is very high, the video quality is lacking. As you can expect, the compression required to deliver video over such low bandwidth is significant, and the video quality suffers. But if you are like me and mostly listen to the television news instead of watching it, the video quality is not nearly as big of a concern as it could be. So if this interests you, check it our for yourself. The cool factor for this service is way up there, and hopefully only a glimpse of what is to come.