Sona's video player for BlackBerry powers "bbTV"

Last time we checked in with SonaMobile, their video player was in beta and it was looking a bit, well, beta-like -- download times were hurting, video quality left a lot to be desired, and content selection was limited at best. Well, times are a-changin', and it looks like these guys are just about ready to flip the switch for Canadian BlackBerry users on Rogers, Bell, and Telus. So what's changed? For starters, Sona's claiming faster download times and reduced storage requirements thanks to an improved compression scheme, though you're still looking at a 3-5 minute download for a 1-2 minute clip. The commercial launch has also been renamed "bbTV," offering news, sports, and financial content from Canada's Global National, and they've added an archive feature for reminiscing about last week's... uh, news, sports, and finances. No word on launch plans outside Canada, though users are claiming it's easy enough to fool Sona's site into letting anyone download the goods; the only question is whether you want to put up with some pretty painful download times to watch exclusively Canadian content.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 8th 2006 1:52PM]

On what models will it be runned?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 8th 2006 3:30PM]

There is no 'tricking it' into downloading it for free - it IS supposed to be free:)

The 'pay' version is for Rogers users (in Canada) who would otherwise be paying a lot as the Rogers 'unlimited' data plan is limited to 25MB. So for Rogers users, they get unlimited access to our BBTV data for $5 a month (a deal considering what they would pay in overage).

To repeat: ITS FREE!!!!!!!!!

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 8th 2006 4:07PM]

ugh. as if people didn't use their crackberries enough. bring on the bbproxy!

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 8th 2006 7:01PM]

The work around trick on the website is not to make it "free". I just want to clarify that was not the purpose for the work around. The "fooling of the site" has to do with just putting in information to make the site believe that you are a Canadian user on Telus or Bell. Yes, this is a free program, however there are many people south of the border who want to play around too and this was simply the way to tell them it was possible.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 19th 2006 1:04AM]

Free..how?

[(Unverified) Posted May 9th 2007 9:14PM]

hey how you play video