With the latest version of the SyncTV client, the Mac, Windows and Linux versions are now equally solid.

I use a Mac, and I know the frustration of not having the application you want on the platform you want. Supporting playback on all three major desktop platforms is not a trivial task, but we hope people will appreciate this approach.

Very early on in our development, we made a decision to use the GTK+ and GStreamer open source components for the SyncTV player. This allowed us to leverage a very stable and robust framework across operating systems. It's really not a stretch to use open source components to build a software player for an open standards-based content service.

We could have used the native OS-level APIs to develop each version of the player, but that would have likely tripled our effort required to develop and test for each platform. Or we could have used a virtual machine technology such as Java to do it, but we would have likely sacrificed performance at some level.

Our approach with the development of the SyncTV player echoes our commitment to open-standards, as it is the first SyncTV 'device' to be certified to adhere to the open web APIs of the SyncTV service. Building a scalable and user-friendly ecosystem for broadband entertainment is a marathon race, not a sprint. We are working hard to build the right service for the consumer, and we think our latest SyncTV player release for Mac, Windows and Linux is a step in that direction.

John Gildred