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Google Giving Google TV Another Shot
MrSeb writes with a piece on Google's renewed push for Google TV adoption. From the article: "In spite of a mediocre launch caused by an overpriced device and low consumer adoption, Mountain View is attempting to breathe life into Google TV in the way of a major marketing push at CES 2012. By announcing partnerships with companies like Marvell and LG, and an effort to cut costs by switching to ARM architecture, Google is hoping to finally achieve the mass adoption it has been hoping for with the service. Is this a case of too little, too late?"
Just to make sure... TV is dead, stream me my entertainment on-demand or don't bother making it.
I think Google's real challenge is with the content owners. If it would 'just work', then I believe the product would sell.
Problem with some of the google services, including the first TV service attempt: They hook you and drop the service later on. Everyone deserves a second chance, but this time, consumers and partners will be much more carefully. But they have some experience now - they might not make the same mistake twice.
Root it, Root it, Root it, Root it...
Is this me stating my opinion as a question while strongly implying that it's a fact?
I don't even know what GoogleTV would do for me, and frankly, I'm not interested in spending the time to find out.
I have a two-year-old big screen TV, NetFlix, and regular Hulu via the dedicated computer attached to the TV; and I don't even watch that much, compared to other people I know. To be honest, I'm not even curious enough to explore the other services besides NetFlix that I can get through my TV. Google would have to communicate what they have that's so much better than what I've already got, and even then I'm probably not going to bite.
Anyone who thinks I'm going to 'discard' my TV just to buy a GoogleTV (or an Apple or Ubuntu TV for that matter) is fooling themselves. Okay, sure, if I was so inclined I could sell my 'old' TV on craigslist, but you know what, even that's more than I want to do.
(Oh yeah, now get off my lawn. :-))
I guess this is in response to the supposed Apple TV (as in, the physical device with a screen rather than the little streaming box they currently have) that Apple is allegedly working on, and Google sees the chance for some collateral sales when the inevitable marketing tsunami from Apple arrives.
Nothing wrong with that I think, but it's going to live or die on content. As someone has already pointed out, the TV (and TV peripheral - DVR/online box/streaming device) market is hard to get into so you need a compelling reason for people to want to get your particular device.
None of these devices, Google TV or Apple TV, are going to take off unless they offer a simple and effect way for a customer to record a show. This can either be Over The Air or Over The Cable. People WANT this feature because it is ingrained into their thinking.
The ability to On Demand order and watch a show over Broadband still needs widespread adoption and availability. See other posts here about "content."
Without easy PVR functionality, then these devices are just extra devices duplicating my already includes services in my big old stupid DVR/Cable box.
...FOR THIS?!
Damn it, get your priorities right Google. Seriously.
I was anticipating the new OS 3.0 for my Revue for many months, and after the update I was very disapointed. Sure, I have an app store now but most of the Apps for it are junk or don't work! It still depends on the Chrome Browser for stuff like Hulu and Crackle, Netflix seems cheap and cut down, DLNA doesn't work with my NAS. The list just goes on. I feel like I'm using a device that was built 5 years ago. Why can't they just make a simple, easy to use device that provides a large selection of channels/providers with the ability to access content on your home network. I like the Ruku's simplicity design but it lacks DLNA, and I like AppleTV because of versatility but lacks providers. I also like the XBOX 360 with it's speech recognition from the Kinect but the ads get a little too anoying.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Set top boxes (or pucks, as they're becoming) are still an open field. Nobody has managed to create one without screwing some portion of the consumer market, or getting screwed by content providers, or both.
I've had a Roku box and an AppleTV, along with a not-quite-the-same Popcorn Hour and a HTPC. What I've decided is that these things, when combined with a TV, are a lot like tablets. They're great for consumption, but the key is having applications which cater to various niche markets. To me, that means two things. You have to offer a framework for the content providers to make money, and you need to give application developers the chance to expand the usefulness and content options available.
I gave up on the old Popcorn Hour a long time ago. The HTPC is nice, but I don't have the time to "manage" they system regularly and keep up with patches and bugfixes in add-ons. It works as a media player with the real remote control. I've tried the online streaming and it works, but the content is woefully limited. The Roku had some major launch issues with their v2, and I gave up after a month of poor streaming and difficult-to-manage navigation. The AppleTV is the easiest to use, but is a tough sell with their pay-for-everything-all-over-again model. I've jailbroken the ATV2 and use PLEX to stream my library for now. It's stable enough that the family is using it, and knows to just let it reboot when the application crashes (which it does frequently, as it's not a supported client).
That's a very longwinded way of getting to applications. The iFoo and Android platforms are successful because they offer a huge array of content and content sources, all supported by their own separate dev teams. I don't have to wait for Google or Apple to create a Hulu+ client - the Hulu guys will do that. If it sucks, I won't buy their service. Same for Netflix, or Pandora, or any other service.
I expect that if, and I say if, Apple opens the doors to applications on the ATV, the market doors will close very, very quickly on everyone else. They're the only box that has the silky-smooth, easy to use interface that makes it easy for a non-techie to use. Even when things go wrong, it like a weeble - the screen blinks black, and two seconds later you're back at the home menu, like nothing every happened. That's comforting to the average Joe or Jane, and it's easy to get the family to understand (i.e. - a reset requires zero interaction and nearly zero time). If it weren't for the (nearly) iTunes-only content model, it would be an absolute winner.
So yes, there's an opportunity here - but it does require not fucking it up. And tech companies have proven that, on the whole, that's the one thing they're really good at. Your move, Google.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I've been seeing a lot of Android-based mediatanks and mediaplayers lately, complete with TV guides, dedicated apps and, ofcourse, access to the entire Android market.
What's the benefit of GoogleTV over these Android-based alternative?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Over the holidays, I got a chance to give Google TV a serious tryout at my parents' house. They bought the Sony Blu Ray player with Google TV built in.
I liked it so much that I ordered one for my living room. It arrives tomorrow.
The Netflix/Amazon/web integration works very well and there's even an app store. I'm planning to use it for all my TV viewing and getting rid of cable.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
Because in addition to knowing every other single thing about what everyone in the world does, I also want google to know what I'm watching on TV.
so that it works with the likes of Ubuntu TV, Boxee, and maybe even Miro so we don't have even MORE competing standards I'll be happy with it. Having LG on-board is the best thing I've read about this, hardware manufacturers are often one of the most important steps, and my LG Blu-ray player is the coolest thing in my living room. Even if the Blu-ray drive quit working that player would still be the central part of my entertainment setup considering all the online and UPNP support built in. LG is the right partner for this. Samsung is not unfortunately, I tried going Samsung first but I found their local media support to be a joke. Their online stuff wasn't bad, but the player was sluggish and buggy.
Once ISPs in the US start pushing for better access to more places cable will become irrelevant and I can't wait.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
If it's not $99.00 and they get rid of the crappy HDMI passthrough that was an epic fail. IT's dead before it hits the shelves.
They also need to make it so I can change the browser ID string so that I can bypass checks on sites like NBC.com and ABC.com and watch their streaming on the TV.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm sat in the UK and want to watch content from Japan (not porn!) - Apart from streaming or putting a dish on the roof (not an option) howelse can you get it apart from streaming / downloading it? Swap the ads to sell local crap and show me programs I want.
No. What else is there? Thats right! Nothing... I'd say it's a whole lot, whole early.
Just like with Google Health, it was pioneering the idea which wasn't ripe for mass adoption yet. Idea behind Google Health is viable, it just needs more bureaucracy, help of government and time, more time.
Windows Media Center had many great feature, even today it still provides feature that no other device has, like the ability to use as a DVR, and Digitial Tuner capabilities. I think with Windows 8 Media Center, it will be the killer Media Center that will have it all and everyone will want to adopt to. Think of all the features it will have - New easy to use interface with voice and touchscreen capability, maybe even be able to use the Kinect. Digital TV Tuner with PVR functionality and a nice friendly Guide. Netflix, Hulu, and many more online content providers intergrated. App Store, apps designed just for your TV. BlueRay support, if not you can easily install PowerDVD or Total Media Theatre which intergrates very nicely. There is nothing Windows 8 Media Center won't be able to do.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Here's the way I see it. If I can download my content apps: Hulu Plus, Netflix, Amazon On-Demand, Pandora, etc from the Marketplace and get TV screen sized content from the Android Marketplace I'm buying.
Now if Google TV acts as a content organizer ACROSS these apps and marketplaces, then Google TV provides something I can't get from any other set top box - Integration. I want the couch friendly schedule, but I don't want to jump between apps to view my content. If the price is right, you'll blow competitors like Roku (which I own) out of the water.
Here's how you do it: Get the content delivery companies to allow you to grab the customer's content listings and the providers' catalogs and sort them into Google TV's database. Customers can search the new, bigger catalog and choose the most competitive price (don't mention competition to content providers, it makes them cry). Give customers a day-by-day listing of new subscribed content, replicating the look-and-feel from current set top boxes.
Include your YouTube rentals and users' subscriptions and user's podcast subscriptions and now you have something I saw when I was a kid and they talked about "the future." Now if Hulu can't cut a deal with USA Network to stream TV shows to set top boxes, it won't matter. I can get them from my Cable or Satellite providers' On-Demand service. If I change providers, I don't have to completely re-program a new set top box or deal with ugliness that is the Comcast/Cox interface.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Perseverance really is key to success. Google tried Buzz, Waves and now, with Google+, it seems the social networking (and related) initiatives have brought some benefits.
Microsoft also didn't give up with the XBox, and is finally doing OK.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
and i think it works OK. there is more and more free content added all the time, and it works well with both netflix and amazon prime. i like the ability to open google chrome and surf the web, which is not an otion on other devices. i also have a roku hd, and would rate it about equal.
Unless they change a lot and add a lot of content I see no use for me in any of these set top boxes/built in TV interfaces. I have a media center PC and it does everything they do and then also a whole lot more. None of them can just go to NBC.com and pull up last night's show for free. If they did then either they'd need some sort of agreement with the broadcaster which would probably be too expensive or they'd need a fully function web browser which would eliminate their dumbed down interface. I see no reason I should pay someone to give me less than what I could easily get on my own.
....hasn't any manfacturer come up with anything sensible (practical/affordable etc) that integrates a tablet and TV unit which connects to various services on the net and which is so simple that (figuratively speaking) my grandma can operate. (God bless her soul, she died while I was in my teens)
Everything I have seen are all "too's" (Too fiddly, too fragile, too costly, too much in your face, too techy, too shitty!)
I remember seeing something from Samsung (or was it Panasonic...or was it Philips..??) which looked like a tablet controlling a TV, but nothing after that.
There was an example from Samsung: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/02/samsungs-55-inch-c9000-lcd-and-its-amazing-touch-remote-control/ - but my wife would skin me alive if I spent that kinda money on a TV (Last heard it was around £3500 in the UK!)
Price the 50 inch TV + 8 inch tablet remote/media player under a £1000 and you got a winner.
Sony seems to be doing something: http://www.slashgear.com/sony-outs-2nd-gen-google-tv-boxes-with-streamlined-remote-10208207/....but...meh.
Does that mean that Apple needs to come along and hang their dong (looks they are soon gonna) so that every other manufacturer can follow and say Apple does this, so should we. That's pathetic!
Ok-- I'm not the first one here to point out that google TV failed because of lack of content, but IIRC the idea was initially that it would be able to pull in any content off the web-- including hulu, abc.com, nbc.com, etc... but the content owners immediately blocked google tv from their web sites. What I don't get is... why didn't google just code around this and give you the chance to change the user agent? Make it look like firefox on windows xp to the servers and call it a job?
It's not as good as sex with a mare, but it's not whack. The instruction set is generally pretty clean (like a freshly washed mare) and the assembly language is fun (like the aforementioned mare). Basically, if there is a heaven, it probably involves writing ARM code while having sex with a mare. And no cowboy neal.
Yup.
What kind of a car is a mare?
If you define "tv" as screen time among all the gadgets we use in our life and work. Some people spend 80% of their conscious time staring at a screen of some kind from a cell to desktop to television. Younger people put their boomer elders to shame in this respect.
They went after the content providers/creators and got alliances with them for the Xbox. Google still hasn't learned that lesson and we're going to get YouTube on a box, which I can already do with Xbox anyway.
I think that the media center wars will favor MS, but time will tell. There are a lot of companies to get on the same page, and MS has been working at it since they introduced Media Center (which now has a better uptake due to the Ceton cards out there), and they've finally got some stuff going after ten years. Time will tell who wins out ultimately, but if Google wins that's fine by me. I don't want Apple to win because I think I'll probably pay a premium for shit I could watch on a DVR for free.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Apple TV fails (twice I think now) Google TV fails and now they are trying again. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
It's cheap, low power, and inferior performance.
Typically ARM based video players can't just play what you happen to have lying around. Things need to be translated into a format basic enough for the hardware to handle. This can be done permanently on a per file basis (Handbrake) or in real time as needed (AirVideo,Plex).
You don't want a USB port on the front of your AppleTV/Roku because it would choke on your home movies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Google bought out SageTV (one of the better HTPC programs out there) last year, so I'm surprised they are pushing that tech into a TV-system instead of a software-only offering.
I own a Google TV and I have to say it is one of the greatest purchases I ever made.
I can watch TV like a regular TV.
I can view web content just like a computer.
I can do both at the same time.
I can even stream videos and pictures from my phone to my TV using DNLA... which is super cool.
It's opened up a whole new realm of infotainment possibilities for me.
I only have one complaint... no support for printing to a network printer yet... but since it's android, I'm hopeful that this will change soon.
I looked at several other internet TV choices and Google TV had the most to offer and the most promise for the future.
The only thing that is slowing the uptake is people don't know what they are missing.
I do have several friends with Google TV and they all agree that it's a great investment.
Several friends and family members came to my house for the holidays, saw my TV and what it could do, and immediately went out and got Google TVs for themselves...
It's very undermarketed, for some reason.
As An Owner Of A Sony Google TV it worked out surprisingly well. Especially after the last major update which added the interface to Android Marketplace.
I had initially got the thing because I needed a "medium" sized HDTV and the current specials made it a reasonable buy. I've seen "Internet on TV" so my expectations where really low. I have several things that play Netflix. I have several things that do DLNA. I have plenty of devices that have web browsers in them (although very few entertainment/living room devices do that). This TV has all of them it. What ended up happening is that it combined some of the disaparate components into the TV itself. Its about as close to a HTPC as anything consumer electronic thing I have without actually being a HTPC. But it still has gaps. I would claim that my Sony Google TV would be a little weird as a family room HDTV but its a great bedroom or office TV mostly because you don't need a bunch of little boxes to go with it.
After being happy with my Google TV, I see the next step as a full blown "Smart TV" like "Smart Phones" that revolutionized cell phones. The software components are all there but it needs better and tighter integration. Especially with a home internet connection, your TV should be leveraging the search and information it has to some intelegent things out of the box.
Things to improve with Google TV:
- Boxee style "Show Me Later". There is a way with Boxee to put a link on your browser to "tag" things you find on the Internet to watch on your box later. What I do with Google TV is remember where it is and browse to it.
- Subtitle support. If a video stream has subtitle text encoded it should display it. Mutliple devices do it multiple ways where this seems to be something that could be better supported in the display instead of the player.
- Agressively scrape information but depricate non-display friendly information. I don't think reading email on TV is a good idea but a Smart TV should recognize emails from your mother and father from their European vacation with pictures and a Youtube video where those videos and pictures are great to view on a TV.
- Google has a nice calendar feature, lets start using it. I'm not suggesting that one should be mixing their professional meetings and appointment data with when "Survivor" is on but a Smart TV should to track both events. The goal here is to get the TV and PVR and other devices to recognize the same calendar and do some smart things with the information. Recognizing you have favorite programs or a video streams but have a conflicting appointment should make the devices save or promote features.
- No compelling content
- No compelling reason to buy the device
- No app store
- Should be free or very, very cheap (Roku)
- Poor user experience
- No partnerships with cable providers and box makers (build it into every cable box)
- Fundamental lack of understanding of usage scenarios
- Should not require a keyboard
- Google has failed to clarify their vision for Google TV from day one
Run away screaming. Like Logitech.
If Google wants this to actually be relevant and sustainable (though this part is questionable), they will have to hand over PalletFulls* to professional sports leagues to allow their precious content to be accesible through Google TV.
* - PalletFull is a hundred-dollar-based monetary unit invented by the Bush Administration (like the reasons for the war itself).
Intel got out of the Settop Box Market entirely. They made the announcement around 6-8 months ago. The Revue was based on the Intel chip (as well as the Boxee Box from Dlink).
So it was not just a price cut that forced Google to switch to ARM.
it integrates so well with my TV. It controls my cable box, Blue ray player, stereo, etc.... Until all content is streamed-- this is the perfect box to have. The Boxee, Apple TV, and Roku are all stand alone. This is Google's real advantage-- you can migrate over.
I disagree with comment "The Roku had some major launch issues with their v2, and I gave up after a month of poor streaming and difficult-to-manage navigation."
Roku is very simple interface. I don't have Apple TV but I have Boxee and Google TV.
You mean like youtube? That just might work.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=87703 ..plus all the other content sources (XBMC plugin or otherwise) that have no commercials and don't insult the viewer's valuable time and intelligence. Why anyone has cable or satellite today is obviously just an issue of education, as everyone I've shown my meager rig to so far has had to pick up their jaws from the floor so they can ask how they can cancel their expensive cable bill.
The only exception, so far, is live sports events -- but for those like myself who dont' watch sports, who the f*ck cares?
Are any of these new Google TV things coming out as STBs with CableCard support? I currently have my cable box with the DVR disabled; instead I use a DIY Windows Media box I built but it only records in SD. I have Boxee installed on the HTPC, too, which is awesome for local/network media and some streaming stuff, but the Netflix app on there doesn't work.
All I want is an all in one box to replace my crappy setup - replace the cable box, HTPC, media player, and DVR all at once. Actually what it sounds like I want is a Tivo that I can plug external storage into but with Google TV/Android. Sigh.....