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Android TV Now Claiming Over 100 Pay TV Operator Partners Worldwide (multichannel.com)

Posted by msmash on from the for-the-record dept.

Google's Android TV platform has now been deployed by more than 100 pay TV operators around the world, the technology's top product manager told news outlet MCN. From a report: According to Shalini Govil-Pai, senior director of product management for Android TV, the platform designed to provide access to over-the-top apps on digital video players, is now being used by "tens of millions" of consumers, primarily in Europe and Asia. Govil-Pai said that around half of Android TV users are derived from the platform's operator partners. The open Android TV platform allows operator subscribers to access the Google Play store for popular apps, including Netflix and YouTube, as well as more niche OTT services, such as virtual MVPD Philo, which just launched an app for the platform.

34 comments

  1. I'd rather pay the creative people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... than even more leeches who don't do any value-adding work but expect us to work to give them money anyway.

    (Of course server and network operation still requires work and hence deserves pay. But many orders of magnitude less than what media distributors want.)

    But everything that things like AndroidTV add above the already available solutions, is useless money leeching.

    Wr also don't need Amazon or Netflix to invest for us. 1. we can do that ourselves (crowdfunding, or producers taking some of the money from their last project), and 2. don't forget that that investement money is stolen moey in the first place. Stolen via the above leeching off of creative people.

    Sorry, I pay for my projector, for my PC, for my handheld computer ("smartphone" with AOSP and some Linux glue), and for either live performances or to fund creative promising creative people.
    No the organized crime (Content Mafia thieves).

    1. Re: I'd rather pay the creative people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh Crap I set my YouTube to not play the only video I want. Avast!

  2. Sorry for the typos. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Submit Anonymousy" is right above this stupid virtual keyboard, so I often hit it, before I have fixed everything. Or even in the middle of writing.

    Why isn't there a preview function on mobile anyway? Some buttons for HTML tags would be nice too.

    1. Re:Sorry for the typos. by Desler · · Score: 1

      Just use the desktop site. It's shit on a mobile device, but it mostly works.

  3. Tens of millions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tens of millions? Is that supposed to be good? That is terrible.

    1. Re:Tens of millions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They had zero just a couple years ago... so yes, it's good.

  4. Love or hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love Android but Android TV I think is a really bad and klunky way to watch TV. Navigation was horrible with a remote and not much better with any sort of bluetooth keyboard. Any reasonably priced box was found to be way underpowered. I bought a Roku and haven't looked back.

    1. Re:Love or hate by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The thing seems to be TV set integration. You're not buying a set top box, but a TV that has android TV built it.

      I just had to configure one such TV, and it's quite a mess right now. It's literally an android TV on ARM system with "TV apps" as default, as well as a lot of pre-installed pay TV garbage. Want to watch TV? It's actually an app. Want to configure channels? It's actually an app.

      You don't really realise this at first, because they try to make menus look like normal TV menus, but once you get into the OS and start looking around, you realise that essentially every normal TV function is just an android app. Even remote support is just an autostarted android app.

      The advantage is that you do get a lot of customization capability with android, as well as access to a very crippled version of google play. Which is still a whole lot better than your typical "smart" TV, but absolute garbage compared to a typical android phone, much less a full fledged PC.

      Disadvantage is that this is pretty raw android. You get occasional crashes, really crappy compatibility issues, and most of the stuff on google play for android TV is just wrapper apps for "pay to stream" paid TV channels of various kinds. You sorta, kinda can sideload actual full on apps after fucking around a bit. Use "downloader" app on the play store to download and run what you actually want to use after you give permission to install things from non-play store sources for example. But since you only have remote for the UI control, apps that aren't intended for android TV use tend to be very clunky to use, if they're even usable in the first place.

      Overall, I think the best way to go is still to just buy a cheap non "smart" TV, and if you want internet etc capability to go with it, just buy a cheap laptop and hook it up to another HDMI port on said cheap TV. Best of both worlds. Android TV set just seems like too much of an intentionally crippled system to get you to pay for paid TV apps.

    2. Re:Love or hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's all true. However, you can sideload from Google Play using a PC, assuming you believe them as to what apps are compatible.

    3. Re: Love or hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a lot of luck with using Nvidia shield TV (which is an Android TV OS). Getting 4K HDR from Netflix using a laptop? Not so much luck.

    4. Re:Love or hate by ArhcAngel · · Score: 2

      I had the same experience as Lukyo at first. And before the UI update last year the interface was a mess. The problem is the same problem early Android had. Too many variables. Most of the OEMs making Android TV devices go for low end and thus under-power their devices to keep them cheap. This leads to frustration when it takes forever to do the simplest of tasks. I got a deal on the Asus Nexus Player. You'd think with the Google Nexus branding this would be their premier device. It was anything but. I eventually gave up and switched to Roku as you did. However the Roku has its own glaring issues which I discovered when I added the HDHomerun Connect quatro ATSC tuner to my network. Roku cannot decode Mpeg2 (TV's with Roku inside can because they already come with an Mpeg2 decoder) which is the standard format ATSC uses. This meant that if I wanted to access the tuner from my Roku I would need to decode it on something else first. While I have a Plex server it isn't fast enough to decode meaning I would first need to upgrade. Then the Nvidia Shield went on sale and I finally decided I'd pay a little extra and see what all the fuss was about. There is a reason it is the #1 Android TV device on every best of lists out there. It is fast! It can handle anything I throw at it. It is supported. Nvidia actively supports the device and negotiates with content providers to make sure it has the apps it needs. This is why you can watch Prime Video on the Shield but you'll need to find an altered APK to get it to work on any other Android TV device. I've since replaced two of my Roku's and am ordering another Shield to replace my last Roku Ultra.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    5. Re: Love or hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've similarly had nothing but good experiences using AndroidTV Mibox on a variety of tv's up to 4k.

    6. Re:Love or hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the best thing to do is to get a raspberry pi, and find an emby share on reddit under embyshares. People have libraries full of thousands of tv shows and movies for 5$ a month.

    7. Re: Love or hate by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      That's netflix intentionally crippling the service on device they can't fully trust. They can't trust a fully fledged laptop. They can trust an utterly crippled android TV.

      Most streaming services do not do this.

    8. Re:Love or hate by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Like I noted above, you can sideload. It's not easy out of the box, because android TV literally blocks user from putting anything directly on the internal memory, and there's no easy way to tell it to run apks. But it's doable.

      The problem comes from lack of proper control system, as you only have a remote. If interface is touch only requiring things like swiping, you're basically SOL. Which is probably part of the reason you only have android TV google play out of the box, instead of full phone/tablet one, even though it's the same android on ARM underneath.

    9. Re:Love or hate by mcl630 · · Score: 1

      This is why you can watch Prime Video on the Shield but you'll need to find an altered APK to get it to work on any other Android TV device.

      My Sony TV with Android TV has the Prime Video app pre-installed. It works just fine and supports 4K and HDR (abeit Amazon makes it really hard to find the 4K versions of their shows and movies).

    10. Re:Love or hate by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

      I was aware but again it is a relationship with Amazon and Sony. Amazon's war with Google has been a bloody mess on both sides. Amazon only allows Prime Video on Android phones because of market share.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    11. Re:Love or hate by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      I wanted to test things out, so I went with Nvidia Shield, way faster than any smart TV, hook up a 2 T drive and run plex 'Server' and plex client, Kodi. Have not tried the Nvidia games thingy do have the Nvidia games controller. No comparison to performance vs a Sony Smart TV, the Sony is so sssslllloooowww in comparison (Switch on TV and switch on shield, you can switch on both at the same time but Sony is weird and does not allow width changes on network content and when that joint connection between Sony and Shield is broken in terms of control, the Sony TV no longer recognises it as internet content just another video device). The shield is not the most stable hunk of junk and tends to require a reboot every week or so. The Plex 'Server' is handy giving me access to every device on the network. Was it worth it, hmm, depends on whether you just wanted the device for basics or you wanted to explore want can be done.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    12. Re:Love or hate by JackieBrown · · Score: 1

      Try it on the nvidia sheild. It's a pure android TV experience and it works very well.

  5. proudly evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not only is Big Brother Google getting more evil by the day - they're proud of it!

    1. Re:proudly evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you punched a Google engineer today? If not, it's not too late! It's easy. Sound friendly at first and approach them and give away something for free, like a cup of coffee or a drink. Then take the swing. Make sure to hit hard, preferably in the eye.

  6. Re: GayPK will fuck your butt!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You may want to give yourself a nice long hug it will make you more resilient when your pipes burst in the impending inevitable annual cold snap

  7. And 500 use some Chinese Android TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've never seen official Android TV. I have seen many many many variants of a Chinese Android TV launcher.

    "is now being used by “tens of millions” of consumers, primarily in Europe and Asia. "

    So basically nothing.

    AIS, one of my TV providers has more customers with *their* Android box, than you have entire customers in Europe and Asia! And their Android box is some custom Android variant with some custom software on it.

    That's a fail, dressed up as a success. How come Android TV is a fail?

    Netflix does better in Asia than Google. What did Google do wrong, what do they need to do to fix it?....

  8. Re: by kurkosdr · · Score: 1

    Android TV's problem is that Samsung and LG have their own Smart TV OSes and pay TV providers have their own domestic OSes too.

  9. I thought this was an Onion piece at first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I misread the title as "Android TV Now Claiming Over 100 Pay [for] TV".

    I thought this was like Apple TV and pretty much another dead/failed project just waiting for me to get hooked on it so Alphabet could kill it.

  10. Surprising with no UI by reverseclipse · · Score: 1

    I've been disappointed with Google TV. I do not like that it doesn't have a UI like Roku or Amazon Fire TV. I do not wish to use my cell phone or voice commands as the only way of controlling the device.

    1. Re:Surprising with no UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google TV? What year is it?

  11. Convincing backers of legitimacy by tepples · · Score: 1

    we can do that ourselves (crowdfunding, or producers taking some of the money from their last project)

    Where do producers get money for their first substantial project, in order to 1. inform prospective backers that the project exists in the first place and 2. convince prospective backers that the producers are legitimate?

  12. Pet peeve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My biggest gripe with the American media is that African-Americans are grossly underrepresented.

  13. Not available in your country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately only a fraction of those are available in any given territory. Until they solve that issue it won't be any more attractive than streaming services that are already available. Put the "inter" back in "internet".

  14. 100 partners by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and 10 million hackers stealing programming with android TV.

  15. Re: GayPK will fuck your butt!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But at least the pipes are on the outside, so they are easy to fix!