An all-access pass to the Oscars

This Sunday, millions of eyes will turn to the TV screen to watch to watch the 83rd Academy Awards, a ceremony celebrating Hollywood's best filmmakers. In order to make sure you're best prepared for the big event, we thought we'd list a few of our favorite Oscar-worthy sites, all of which are viewable from Google TV.

• Educate yourself on the nominees. YouTube Trends has developed a lineup of the most viewed trailers from the list of nominees for this year's show. Not surprisingly, Toy Story 3 and Black Swan top the list.
• Got an eye for fashion? Feast your eyes on last year's red carpet fashions from E! Online. It seems like ages ago that we saw Sandra Bullock in that glamorous gold dress. What will they wear this year?
• Watch the hosts prepare for the big show on the official Youtube Oscars channel. Here's our favorite video of Anne Hathaway and James Franco preparing to take the stage.
• No cable? No problem. With the Oscar All Access Pass, you can direct your own Oscars experience and get a behind the scenes look at everything from the red carpet to the Governor's Ball. Interested in the show only? Catch the livestream channels from both the Academy Awards and AP Live. 
• Make your bets! Oscar.com lets you review the full list of nominations and cast your votes for the winner. Send the link to your friends to see who gets the most right.

We'll certainly be tuning in for the entire event this Sunday, and hope you will follow along as well, whether its from TV or the web. Best of luck to the nominees!

Amazon Prime members now get free instant streaming

Best of Google TV Series

I’ve been an Amazon Prime member for a while now and love the free two day shipping, especially when I’m keen to get my hands on the latest Google TV device as soon as possible.

Now there’s even more reason for Google TV users to love this service. Amazon currently has over 90,000 movies and TV shows that you can stream instantly on your Google TV device for a few dollars. Well, they have just announced that Amazon Prime members will also get unlimited, commercial-free access to more than 5,000 of those movies and TV shows, for no additional cost. Titles include “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “Syriana,” “March of the Penguins,” and—my personal favorite—”Doctor Who.”

This will work immediately on all Google TV devices, so give it a whirl if you’re an Amazon Prime member. If you don’t already own a Google TV device, then here’s another reason to make the most of that Amazon Prime membership.

Posted by Peter Sherman, Google TV Marketing

Grammys recap

Best of Google TV

If you missed the Grammys last weekend, you can still catch the memorable moments on Google TV.

If what you’re after is the red carpet fashion and interviews, head over to The Grammys YouTube page. Watch the highlights on YouTube leanback including Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine in haute couture and Mumford and Sons in stylish cravats. There you’ll also find acceptance speeches by The Arcade Fire, Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga.

VEVO has curated a playlist of videos featuring the top 2011 Grammy Winners. Check out first time Grammy winners like Ryan Bingham and La Roux, as well multi-time winners like Buddy Guy & B.B. King. Check out these videos as well as recaps from past Grammys on VEVO’s spotlight site.

The full list of nominees and winners is available on the Grammys website where you can also watch the pre-telecast ceremony in its entirety.

Posted by Charlie Harding, Google TV Marketing

Al Jazeera on Google TV

Best of Google TV Series

Over the past two weeks, Al Jazeera has carried 24/7 breaking news coverage of the protests in Egypt. Live video of the protests from Tahrir Square, streaming from AlJazeera.net and English.AlJazeera.net, have driven a 2500% traffic increase to their website. The majority of this traffic has come from the United States, as U.S. viewers can’t access Al Jazeera’s broadcast on television.

This week, Al Jazeera released their Al Jazeera spotlight site where you can watch breaking news clips, scan headline news and dive into the breadth of their web content -- all on the big screen.

For the latest coverage on the protests in Egypt you can also visit Al Jazeera’s YouTube channels in both Arabic and English for premium coverage and CitizenTube for on-the-ground citizen reports.

- Posted by Daniels Lee, Developer Relations

Rate your favorite Super Bowl ads from yesterday's game

If you're an American, you probably know that there was a rather important sporting event that took place yesterday --  the Super Bowl. 

Everyone knows that half the fun of watching the game is watching the commercials. That's why this year we've partnered with our friends at YouTube to optimize the infamous Ad Blitz site so that you can re-watch and rank all of your favorite ads right from your TV. 

Just visit youtube.com/adblitz from the Google TV browser and follow the prompts to rate the best 30-second spots as you watch them in HD. May the best ad win!

- Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google TV Product Marketing

Optimizing your site for TV is now easier

As the Google TV platform continues to launch across more devices, developers are probably searching for an easy way to bring great content to Google TV users. We’re happy to announce that we have an answer.

Google TV enables developers to build powerful websites using the same technologies they already work with. These include HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and Flash. While existing websites can be displayed in Google TV, the user experience isn’t always ideal within the context of a living room. We previously provided a guide for optimizing websites for TV, and today we’re releasing several templates and a UI library to make it easier for developers to build optimized sites.

We’ve created two template designs that are focused on delivering video content, but equally suitable for photos or other multimedia. We recognize that some developers prefer using open web technologies, while others prefer Flash. So we’ve created two separate versions of each template.





All templates are open sourced under the Apache 2 license, so developers can make modifications to these templates and customize them to fit their brand and desired functionality.

One important optimization for browsing websites on TV is ensuring that D-pad navigation works well. The JavaScript-based templates utilizes a new library we’ve developed for this purpose-- the Google TV Web UI Library. This library has been open sourced as well.

To get started, you can download the template you want and visit our Google TV Web Developer Forum to get help. We look forward to seeing all the great sites developers will build using these templates.

By Steve Hines and Daniels Lee, Google TV Developer Relations Team

Getting your family on TV

Best Of Google TV Series

As the holidays get into full swing, I am spending more and more time with my extended family, getting in to all kinds of hi-jinks. Like any self-respecting embarrassing dad, I find love capturing these precious moments by making tons of great little videos and taking even more photos. I no longer need any fancy equipment to do this – most smart-phones now take great photos and videos (I love my Nexus S, if you're interested.)

The best part is that we can all slump on the sofa and re-live the best moments on my TV whenever we want, because it's powered by Google TV. In the not-so-distant past, your family would only get on TV if they were (un)lucky enough to get onto a TV show. More recently, you would have to find the right lead, plug your high-end camera into your TV and navigate though impossible menus and settings.

Now, you don't need any fancy equipment to do this, either – the media player app can play most media files that are plugged into the device (on a thumb-drive, for example) or streamed across the local network from a DLNA device like a PC or smart-phone.

My preference is to do a little editing, then save the best photos and videos to a Picasa Web Album, which I can do straight from my phone. Using the Gallery app on my TV, which syncs to Picasa, I immediately have a slide-show on a 46" photo-frame right in the living room. We've had a lot of fun using Picnik to add silly effects to our photos, which can be done from TV, phone, or anywhere.

I tend to upload the very best videos to YouTube, so that the world can share my family inanity. Watching these in Leanback mode on TV makes it feel like we've almost got our own TV channel – it's even in HD, which is pretty incredible for something recorded on a phone.

The most important point is that you don't need to use the same services I do. Because Google TV has a full web browser, it can access any website you want to use. For example Flickr looks great on the big screen and Vimeo Couch Mode is optimized for viewing on Google TV.

It's not just limited to the family member who happen to be on my sofa at that time. If you have the Logitech TV Cam, you can video chat with friends and family on the big screen (no more huddling around a tiny laptop screen). Next, I'm going to try using Qik to live stream from my phone to a TV - kind of like a live broadcast, right?

Posted by Larry Yang, Google TV Product Team