Knowledge base
General Questions
What's Joost?
It's a way to watch videos – music, TV, movies and more – over the Internet. We could just call it a website ... with videos ... but that's not the whole story.
We're giving you new ways to find what you'd like to watch. You can search in "traditional" ways – by title or category – or you can find suggestions from other people on Joost. They may be your Friends, or they may just be people who have something in common with you – but either way, they can direct you to great things to watch.
I can't watch videos on the Joost software application anymore. What happened?
In October 2008, we introduced a web-based version of Joost which allows in-browser viewing of our videos. At this time, we are no longer supporting the Joost software application, but you can enjoy all of the same TV shows, music videos and films – and more – on Joost.com.
How does Joost work?
It's pretty complex – there are a bunch of components that make Joost work. We have servers for the website, servers for the data that tell you information about the shows we have, and servers that manage your relationships. For the video, though, we do things a little bit differently, which is why we have a the proprietary video plugin, which we fondly call the Joost Plugin. Joost uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which means that you don't pull the video from one specific source, but you pull bits of the video from the other peers (a.k.a. people like you) who are on Joost.
How do I watch video?
With thousands and thousands of videos on Joost, the biggest hurdle is picking which video you want to watch. Basically, clicking a video anywhere – from the JoostFeed, the Zapper or through the Videos page. Once you click the video, it will start playing. Sound easy? It is.
How do I find what I want to watch?
It depends if you're impulse shopping or if you're searching for something specific. For the impulse shoppers, there are a bunch of options on the Home page – you can look through the Zapper or JoostFeed for easy access to your entertainment. If you've got something special in mind, though, check out the Shows, Music and Film tabs at the top of every page – there you can get into specifics about the kind of show you want to watch – like animation, comedy, sports or sci-fi.
How can I start Joost in one click? Straight from my desktop or browser?
First you'll want to bookmark www.joost.com in your preferred browser. If you can't find the Bookmark tab in your browser, try pressing CTRL+D (if you're on a PC) or OpenApple CMD+D (if you're on a Mac). You can then copy and paste that link directly to your desktop - and whenever you click the Joost icon, you'll go directly to www.joost.com.
How is Joost pronounced?
"Joost" is pronounced like "juiced" in English (i.e. it rhymes with boost). Using the International Phonetic Alphabet, the word is spelled /?u:st/.
(Interesting factoid: Joost is a common first name in the Netherlands, with a pronunciation close to "yawst" in British English.
How do I apply for a job at Joost?
Please see our jobs page for the list of open positions, and to find out who to contact for unsolicited applications.
I want to put my shows and videos on Joost. How do I do that?
Joost is a website with legal, professionally-produced content. If you think you have content that's appropriate for Joost, please send an email to us at contentowners@joost.com with the following information:
a description of the content
the amount of hours or number of videos you want to put on Joost
the countries where you have the rights to distribute the content
your contact information
Our content team will review this information, and will follow up with you shortly if your content fits our current programming strategy.
How much bandwidth does the application use? Will it eat all my bandwidth?
IMPORTANT NOTICE for users with limits on their internet usage
You need to read this carefully if:
you have an upper limit on your monthly internet usage, or
you pay for internet usage as you go (i.e. you pay per megabyte you download, instead of a flat fee).
Joost is a streaming video application. It actively manages available bandwidth, and when it senses bandwidth might be saturated, it automatically limits usage. In any case, Joost uses a relatively high amount of bandwidth per hour, which means that it could exceed a 1 GB cap in a few hours.
Windows users should note that the application continues to run in the background after you close the main window. For this reason, if you pay for your bandwidth usage per megabyte or have your usage capped by your ISP, you should be careful always to exit Joost completely when you are finished watching.
To stop using bandwidth, you need to exit the application entirely, as follows:
Windows users: right-click on Joost icon in the system tray (at the bottom right hand corner of your screen) and choose Exit.
Mac users: exit the application normally.
