The History of SecondRun.tv
The original SecondRun.tv was mainly designed to give users access to Hulu and other web based video content right inside Media Center… at the time that was something that hadn’t been done before and there was no other good way to access content from site like Hulu easily on a TV using a remote control. A few months after SecondRun.tv was released Hulu released their own desktop application built on Flash called Hulu Desktop that give users access to the entire Hulu library of content in an easy to use interface that had full support for a remote control. This release alone made SecondRun.tv a little obsolete… so SecondRun.tv sat on the shelf for a while looking for some renewed purpose.
A few months ago my family and I finally cut the cord and turned off our cable TV service. I was determined to find a good way to use all that content out on the web so I didn’t need cable service. Well after a few days we quickly realized that there is no good way to access all those sources in one place… many times we spent more time browsing through menus of applications like Hulu Desktop and Netflix looking for something we wanted to watch… sure we were able to pretty easily access the shows but we really had to know what we wanted to watch or we just spent too much time browsing and hardly any time watching. Another big issue we ran into after cutting the cord was providing our kids with a similar experience they were used to when watching TV… spending a few hours watching countless reruns of SpongeBob or Dora the Explorer, etc… sure we had plenty of stuff to watch just no easy way to just sit down and start watching.
So I decided to pull out SecondRun.tv again and go back to the drawing board and create something that could make our own cable free TV watching experience a little easier… enter SecondRun.tv 2.5!
Enter SecondRun.tv 2.x
SecondRun.tv 2.5 lets you build your own TV guide that contains content from many different types of sources… you can easily create your own channels that mimic channels on traditional TV and have quick access to all of your favorite shows whether they are on Hulu, Netflix, local video files, or some other web based source. The included Channel Builder application allows you to easliy create your own channels with just a few mouse clicks as well as download channels created by other users. Checkout the features page for more information!
Starting with version 2.5 you can also manage your entire movie collection in SecondRun.tv! Our new movie interface in SecondRun.tv allows you to build a movie library using local content, Netflix instant streaming content, and content from online video sources like Crackle.com, etc… We even include a Movie Manager application that allows you to easily manage your entire movie collection. Your movies will also be automatically categorized in the media center interface giving you a nice genre based browsing experience!
Why are we charging for SecondRun.tv?
The original version of SecondRun.tv was free and will remain free as long as it is avaible… as with any free product there wasn’t a whole lot of time to devote to it as it didn’t help pay the bills. With SecondRun.tv 2.0 we want the application to grow and be updated on a pretty frequent basis. We have decided to charge a small fee for version 2.5, just $3.99 (about the cost of buying an episode of a TV show in HD). This small fee will help keep SecondRun.tv updated and should hopefully help it grow over time.
