I got my Google TV for free at Google Zeitgeist. I'm really, really, glad I didn't pay for it.
I was pretty excited when I got it, since I've never subscribed to cable, and watch most of my shows online.
Unfortunately, there's a huge issue with Google TV: almost every streaming content provider has summarily blocked Google TV's access.
So, if you buy a Google TV, what you're essentially getting is a fancy YouTube/Netflix player. Google has this pipe dream of YouTube replacing traditional and nontraditional premium content channels (cable, Hulu, Netflix)... but honestly, YouTube is a terrible user experience on the TV, since most videos only last minutes.
The thought of having to use that tiny controller-keyboard (the Google TV boasts an absurdly complicated controlled that kind of feels like using a PlayStation3 Controller, a smartphone from the early 2000's, and a TV remote, all at the same time) to navigate through the complex menus of GoogleTV every time my 3 minute YouTube clip ends is pretty unappealing.
Today, my GoogleTV sits collecting dust. I hooked up a cheap laptop to my TV through HDMI, and control it through VNC. It's a cheaper, easier to use, and simpler solution for watching Netflix and YouTube, and I even get to watch other things that I want to watch or download movies too.
The UI and platform improvements to GoogleTV are nice, but until they get some content providers on board, I don't see much point.
Right now, it seems like they're catching up with the AppleTV in terms of UI/UX... which is good, except when you realize that AppleTV is and was a failure as well.
"Unfortunately, there's a huge issue with Google TV: almost every streaming content provider has summarily blocked Google TV's access."
I would state that as-->
Unfortunately, there's a huge issue with almost every streaming content provider, they have summarily blocked Google TV's access.
This is FREE content we are talking about, but they want to extract some extra rents from cash rich Google putting their name on the device.
There should be no "deals".
Theoretically, I am wondering if opening up the platform to Android apps will mean that providers will have to block the Android flash player as well? (One wonders why they didn't block that, only the much smaller market of Google TV...)
> Right now, it seems like they're catching up with the AppleTV in terms of UI/UX... which is good, except when you realize that AppleTV is and was a failure as well.
AppleTV has one killer feature: AirPlay. For me, this does exactly what you are doing with your VNC-controlled PC, but it has a nicer UI and is wirelessly connected to a device I always carry with me.
What he is doing with his VNC controlled PC is picking content that the PC will play. What you are doing with your AirPlay device is playing it there and streaming it to your appletv. The device is doing the playing though; you are sucking its battery down. This is not what I would call the ideal experience. The ideal experience would be to use your device to tell the appletv where the content is and the appletv then does the playing/streaming. This would be easy for web content with a URI but unfortunately that's the extreme minority of all internet video content.
The non-Apple equivalent of AirPlay (which planb mentioned) can, for now, be Wi-Di for PC-to-TV streaming. This can and should be integrated to Google TV - plus an AirPlay interface for beaming content from Apple's devices if Wi-Di for Apple devices is an issue.
With Apps being added to it, we might start seeing streaming content providers make apps that offer pay-per-view or subscriptions within the app and become the TV-equivalent of a cable channel.
Google TV might even make it easier to recommend (socialize) and manage subscriptions/pay per view on these apps by centralizing it in the way Game Center socializes / centralizes score-keeping on iOS devices for game apps.
I developed one of the featured TV apps. I think licensing is indeed one of the sticky points. One key point is that a lot of licensors may require DRM in their licensing terms. Google has a lot of room to grow in this area, and certainly will over the next year. Support for HLS is also another biggie, as it's not a POS like RTMP nor is it trivially copied like progressive download.
I got my Logitech Revue as part of a promotion by Google, and I agree with you -- I'm glad I didn't pay for it.
It just didn't do anything spectacular or exciting. The browser is cool, but I always have my iPad 2 with me at the sofa so it was rendered pretty much useless. Also, no apps (until now, if Logitech updates).
I was pretty excited when I got it, since I've never subscribed to cable, and watch most of my shows online.
Unfortunately, there's a huge issue with Google TV: almost every streaming content provider has summarily blocked Google TV's access.
So, if you buy a Google TV, what you're essentially getting is a fancy YouTube/Netflix player. Google has this pipe dream of YouTube replacing traditional and nontraditional premium content channels (cable, Hulu, Netflix)... but honestly, YouTube is a terrible user experience on the TV, since most videos only last minutes.
The thought of having to use that tiny controller-keyboard (the Google TV boasts an absurdly complicated controlled that kind of feels like using a PlayStation3 Controller, a smartphone from the early 2000's, and a TV remote, all at the same time) to navigate through the complex menus of GoogleTV every time my 3 minute YouTube clip ends is pretty unappealing.
Today, my GoogleTV sits collecting dust. I hooked up a cheap laptop to my TV through HDMI, and control it through VNC. It's a cheaper, easier to use, and simpler solution for watching Netflix and YouTube, and I even get to watch other things that I want to watch or download movies too.
The UI and platform improvements to GoogleTV are nice, but until they get some content providers on board, I don't see much point.
Right now, it seems like they're catching up with the AppleTV in terms of UI/UX... which is good, except when you realize that AppleTV is and was a failure as well.