News Bytes: September 23

Engadget HD reviews ZeeVee's ZvBox
via Engadget
If you've been looking for a way to stream any HD web content -- we do mean any: Hulu, mkv, Amazon -- to any HDTV in the house, without running any new wires, dealing with the woes of WiFi, or even needing yet another box hanging off your shiny new HDTV; you should head on over to Engadget HD and read all about ZeeVee's ZvBox. We take the $500 box and put it through the paces to see if broadcasting your own QAM HD channel is worth the price.
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T-Mobile Unveils First Google Phone, Amazon MP3 Link
via Digital Media Wire - connecting people & knowledge
New York - Mobile network operator T-Mobile USA on Tuesday introduced the G1, the first mobile phone to feature Google's Android operating system, which will sell for $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement when it goes on sale first in the U.S. on Oct. 22. Viewed as a smartphone that will challenge Apple's iPhone, the G1 -- manufactured by Taiwan's HTC -- features both a touch-screen display and a full QWERTY hardware keyboard that slides out from underneath. read more

Hulu Adds Genres, Discussion, Search Features
via NewTeeVee
Popular video aggregator Hulu, which says it now has roughly 900 titles from more than 100 providers, has added genre-based channel browsing to its list of features, as well show recommendations, discussion forums and actor-based search.

The site debuted 17 new genre-based channels, among them action, comedy and horror. Meanwhile, Hulu launched an anime channel with shows like Naruto and Death Note, as well as a “Web Originals” channel featuring such high-profile shows as LG15: The Resistance, The Line and Gemini Division.

Hulu has also added show recommendations, though they are inconveniently buried way down at the bottom of the page beneath the new show and episode-specific discussion forums. The actor-based search works as you would expect it to; a search for “Tina Fey” brought up 30 Rock along with red carpet interviews, and results were broken down by TV network.

Rival online TV service Joost recently ditched its download client to become more web-based like Hulu, and added more socially oriented content discovery. Hulu will be making its own leap into deeper social functionality when it rolls out its Facebook Connect integration, which was supposed to launch in August.

Netflix Makes Deals With CBS, Disney on TV Shows
via paidContent.org
Netflix is on a content and services dealmaking frenzy. After embedding its service in LG, XBox, Roku and others, it has now done deals with CBS and Disney for making their TV shows available on the online version of its service. This will add about 500 older TV episodes from the Disney Channel and 350 episodes from CBS....others like NBC are already on Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX). The streaming service on Netflix is available for free for its DVD rental subscribers, and will be commercial free. Netflix has about 12K video available for streaming, compared to bout 100K DVDs in its service, but Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, told WSJ that the company expects to have dozens of major new TV shows available over the next couple of months.