A public accommodation is being treated like some sort of private members only club. It's just not seen for what it is (or criticized as such) because the context has changed and most people haven't caught up yet.
A fancier real-time viewer is not going to change that fact.
You need something to search through all of those 500 channels for weeks on end day and night to find the few things that are worth bothering with. If you just "channel surf", you are not likely to find anything.
Unfiltered cable does seem like crap.
You need a different kind of device. It's not GoogleTV. It's trying to solve the wrong problem.
They could perhaps even improve upon what is already out there filling in some of the gaps that some people perceive in those projects that already exist. They could also greatly accelerate the development of their "new thing" by reusing old code.
That last bit is the whole point of Free Software.
Not that one HDMI port and one power cable is such a burden to begin with.
On the other hand, an external box allows you to standardize the experience between multiple TV sets without forcing you to buy the most expensive component by far from ONE AND ONLY ONE vendor.
It's bad enough when the $100 box represents a "check in and never leave" vendor lock situation.
Like someone else pointed out, this does NOTHING to solve the problem. It only MASKS the real problem. The correct solution is to actually solve the underlying problem. Where are these BIOS hacks coming from to begin with? They aren't coming from the traditional source from the days of MS-DOS.
You're just covering up the real problem and adding some non-competitive nonsense on top.
If there is some "server" that has a "desktop" part to it, that part should ALWAYS be separate from the actual service/daemon. Anything else is just crap engineering. It's just more needless crap to complicate what you're trying to do and make it less reliable.
> The simple fact is, many of the commenters on this thread think that what they do is untouchable by a layman going to classes for a few weeks.
That's true of most disciplines actually. This even includes things like "skilled trades" that require no special post-secondary education.
There's just this pervasive tendency to try and devalue ANY skill or professional service. A side effect perhaps of the corporate tendency to devalue everyone. It's not merely limited to computing.
Perhaps there's just a high enough incidence of Aspergers within programmers that some of us will dare to state what everyone else keeps under their breath.
Exactly. This is a concept geared towards people that really have no interest in computer science as a means to convince them that they don't have to learn about a lot of the fundementals.
Linux has gained traction in any market not dominated by a single vendor that had a greater than 90% share of the entire market even before Linux got started.
You mention MacOS in passing.
Apple couldn't unseat MS-DOS with a product that implements just about every "well meaning" suggestion ever hurled at Linux.
He may be an annoying git but he's a very irreplaceable annoying git. His extreme views also help offset the extreme corporatism that seems so fashionable today.
If it were up to Apple Fanboys, BMW would be the only option regardless of how much money you make, how much money you want to spend, whether or not BMW is infact crap, or whether or not you buy into the brand hype.
So you have one and only one set of tradeoffs.
At least Dell and Samsung products are interchangeable.
> Good luck getting any content from a cable provider with MythTV
Been recording HD cable with MythTV for longer than PC CableCard tuners have been widely available.
CableCard is a DRM format with all of the fun and limitations that come with that. It's usefulness mainly depends on your particular cable operator. They can be accommodating enough that you can tune all of your channels even in MythTV or they could make it difficult to even use a Tivo.
> Is the fact that their 27" monitor is $1000 meant to be some sort of "proof" of overpricing?
Yes.
Apple will push the most expensive high margin option available to the exclusion of all else. This will make the Apple product more expensive than anything else.
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That's not a sufficient excuse.
A public accommodation is being treated like some sort of private members only club. It's just not seen for what it is (or criticized as such) because the context has changed and most people haven't caught up yet.
Nothing is on.
A fancier real-time viewer is not going to change that fact.
You need something to search through all of those 500 channels for weeks on end day and night to find the few things that are worth bothering with. If you just "channel surf", you are not likely to find anything.
Unfiltered cable does seem like crap.
You need a different kind of device. It's not GoogleTV. It's trying to solve the wrong problem.
They could perhaps even improve upon what is already out there filling in some of the gaps that some people perceive in those projects that already exist. They could also greatly accelerate the development of their "new thing" by reusing old code.
That last bit is the whole point of Free Software.
Even Windows and Mac users are in on that party.
Roku already solved that "problem".
Not that one HDMI port and one power cable is such a burden to begin with.
On the other hand, an external box allows you to standardize the experience between multiple TV sets without forcing you to buy the most expensive component by far from ONE AND ONLY ONE vendor.
It's bad enough when the $100 box represents a "check in and never leave" vendor lock situation.
Like someone else pointed out, this does NOTHING to solve the problem. It only MASKS the real problem. The correct solution is to actually solve the underlying problem. Where are these BIOS hacks coming from to begin with? They aren't coming from the traditional source from the days of MS-DOS.
You're just covering up the real problem and adding some non-competitive nonsense on top.
If there is some "server" that has a "desktop" part to it, that part should ALWAYS be separate from the actual service/daemon. Anything else is just crap engineering. It's just more needless crap to complicate what you're trying to do and make it less reliable.
Apply the same amount of effort to coding the remote monitoring method as you do the stupid GUI wigdet and you won't have that problem.
> The simple fact is, many of the commenters on this thread think that what they do is untouchable by a layman going to classes for a few weeks.
That's true of most disciplines actually. This even includes things like "skilled trades" that require no special post-secondary education.
There's just this pervasive tendency to try and devalue ANY skill or professional service. A side effect perhaps of the corporate tendency to devalue everyone. It's not merely limited to computing.
Perhaps there's just a high enough incidence of Aspergers within programmers that some of us will dare to state what everyone else keeps under their breath.
Exactly. This is a concept geared towards people that really have no interest in computer science as a means to convince them that they don't have to learn about a lot of the fundementals.
No. Not a problem for anyone.
You only plug these things in once.
You make it sound like some sort of constant ongoing bother.
AV cables are a problem because there a number of alien options that may or may not work or might magically break some time in the future.
Power is simple and standardized and has been around long enough that even your great grandma can handle it.
The crap interface bundled with your SmartTV's smart features will likely cause n00bs more problems than plugging something into the mains once.
Who needs Ron Paul? The frontrunner is a venture capitalist.
I dumped my iPhone for an Android.
Clearly my use of a phone is too "geeky".
What's a problem exactly? How is that different than any other platform that has diverse hardware and different OS release levels applied to it?
It makes for some sensational rhetoric but seems to be less meaningful in practice.
I can't play the latest and greatest CPU/GPU crushing game on an ION but no one seems to think that's such a great tragedy.
Linux has gained traction in any market not dominated by a single vendor that had a greater than 90% share of the entire market even before Linux got started.
You mention MacOS in passing.
Apple couldn't unseat MS-DOS with a product that implements just about every "well meaning" suggestion ever hurled at Linux.
If any HTPC needs any sort of keyboard then they botched the software badly.
RMS is the reason FOSS exists to begin with.
He may be an annoying git but he's a very irreplaceable annoying git. His extreme views also help offset the extreme corporatism that seems so fashionable today.
The latest Roku just has the HDMI port.
There aren't any cables at all.
Power cables aren't such a big deal. It's not 1890 anymore. Really.
...that fanboys would make excuses?
If it were up to Apple Fanboys, BMW would be the only option regardless of how much money you make, how much money you want to spend, whether or not BMW is infact crap, or whether or not you buy into the brand hype.
So you have one and only one set of tradeoffs.
At least Dell and Samsung products are interchangeable.
So you have fled from one batch of overpriced kit to another.
Although this approach would be more like avoiding the purchase of an Apple branded TV entirely.
> Good luck getting any content from a cable provider with MythTV
Been recording HD cable with MythTV for longer than PC CableCard tuners have been widely available.
CableCard is a DRM format with all of the fun and limitations that come with that. It's usefulness mainly depends on your particular cable operator. They can be accommodating enough that you can tune all of your channels even in MythTV or they could make it difficult to even use a Tivo.
It all depends. Do you have any non-iTunes media? Do you EVER want to have any non-iTunes media?
If so, then a crappy old discarded machine just isn't going to cut it. You need something that can transcode stuff so that the ATV can play it.
Besides. Plex stomps all over iTunes when it comes that metadata and cover art stuff. iTunes doesn't help you with that one bit.
This is irrelevant to the UI issues that were originally complained about.
XBMC can be self contained. So can Plex for that matter. ARM appliances need a "media server" mainly to deal with stuff they cannot decode.
> Is the fact that their 27" monitor is $1000 meant to be some sort of "proof" of overpricing?
Yes.
Apple will push the most expensive high margin option available to the exclusion of all else. This will make the Apple product more expensive than anything else.
You won't have a choice or any other options.
Fanboys will make excuses.
What constitutes "integration" exactly?
Having a built in app that comes preloaded isn't really "integration".
> but not being a linux guy was pretty baffled by the options to install the various packages
apt-get install xbmc
> and the interface sucks. Every try and scroll/page through 400+ movies
Which Plex solves how exactly?
Plex is essentially an XBMC for. However Plex manages this problem was likely already solved in the original (XBMC).