Google dumps TV flop on UK

Slow news day..

..must be. First of all some Chicken Little nonsense from Gavin Clarke about the Linux kernel and now this - one of the longer reviews of something that doesn't exist yet i've read recently... wasn't the first paragraph sufficient ?

It may well be the same piece of crap that launched in the US - I don't know (do you ?) - but why don't we wait until someone's actually got their hands on it before giving it a similar, in-depth slating.

Unless, of course, you have some more information to share ?

Android

6 months is enough time to get the full Android on it.

mythtv - commercial options?

I'm kinda wondering why no company has jumped onto mythtv to offer a decent home media box that's marketed to a wide audience.

Boxee has sort of tried to get into a commercial space, but it's still not really there - there's no recording option.

I'm coming from the angle of having built my own digibox effort - mythtv with boxee - record, stream, schedule - but on steroids. Totally networked, schedule via a browser if you want.

What the public want, as far as I'm concerned, is streaming AND recording. Most of the digital efforts of the Apple TV ilk have no recording capability. That means you need another device to do that for you. It gets complicated - too complicated.

It all needs to be done on one simple box, hook up via HDMI, wireless network, integrated.

A lot of people just don't have the broadband for an 'on demand' service and also want the freedom to record anything, anytime for later viewing.

I think what the big media companies are trying to do, is to phase out recording of content, so that they retain control, which means revenue streams. They are doing this by putting barriers in the way of commercial digibox offerings.

The public just don't want that.

Google Quietly bought SageTV recently...

Which is "interesting" given what it's core is capable of.

At first glance it looks like yet another media center app, and a somewhat clunky ui.

Under the covers it's very nifty and flexible.

Think of it as all the best bits of XBMC (sage's default Ui is based on an xbmc theme, has the library functions, and very similar approach overall), MythTV (many front ends hanging from a backed), TiVO (intelligent recording / predictive recording if disk is free and nothing is explicitly scheduled), recording HDTV and streaming it to "clients" (1080i/720p), Place Shifting (thin clients on mobile devices to your own private system), and a whole bunch more.

sageTV is also very DVB friendly and multi lingual support is excellent thanks to a strong following outside us borders.

No idea wtf The Cf is planning on doing with it though as it's not very "Cloudy"

The most important thing for Google TV

Is to be an excellent media player with services on top and costing little more than a vanilla player. It's nice'n'all if you can access YouTube or whatever from a STB but I suspect most people would find the box useless if the basics are done wrong. I expect most people would not be plonking down 2-3x the cost of the vanilla box either. I'd add that Roku players which offer an overlapping feature set cost < $100. That's the price point it needs to aim for or less. Google can make money from ads, sponsorship and all the rest.

The second issue for GTV is that it's like some ginger stepchild to Android. It is android but it isn't android. Developing apps for the device is a pain. It looks like Google realise this too and are upgrading it to be an Android 3.x device. Perhaps that will make it nicer to work with and ensure more apps which in turn will make it more useful as a device.

Integrated TV

Matt 89 has it right.

The present standard of domestic TV functionality is abysmal. I've recently installed 3 new televisions. All 3 use different interfaces to determine if you watch DTV, analogue TV or some other source. One has a record function. another a pause function. There is no correlation in the way in which they are operated. If Apple want a new project, they should concentrate on producing a 4 x 3 screen TV with an intuitive integrated interface. The situation now seems to be so bad that when you buy a new product, the instruction manual is:-

a) Not present, or on a DVD which requires that the customer has a computer, and frequently,

b) Wrong ie not for the purchased product, and is always

c)Utterly inadequate in instructing how to use the product.

The list goes on. Everything uses different control codes. It took me 4 hours yesterday to reprogram 3 remote controls. Two were identical and used the same code number, but one of them had the volume control operation reversed. The 4th remote which she uses was just not programmable for another old TV, but it had worked fine for the even older one which went to the tip.

The latest TV has a LAN connection. What for I've no idea. Nor has anybody else who's looked it up on the internet. I know it's going to take a day of my time to sort it out. I won't go into the vagaries of hard disc recorders, or set top boxes. It really makes you appreciate computers, where there are a few standards.

The consumer needs to be supplied with products which just work out of the box, as Apple seem to do (apart from imail!). This is going to require standards. Where are they coming from?

Google can't work with the media?

> Be still, beating hearts! The expensive flop that embodies Google's difficulties in working with the media industries is coming to the UK ..

"Google TV [has] been blocked by the major U.S. networks since its launch in the United States in October".

"On Saturday, he said Google had not yet resolved its differences with U.S. networks ABC, NBC and CBS, and hoped the company would not encounter similar problems for its British launch".

I figure the most blockage will come from the Murdoch empire, similar to the opposition to iPlayer and Project Kangaroo.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/27/us-google-television-idUSTRE77Q1OY20110827

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/25/murdoch_bbc_iplayer_competition/

Eric Schmidt’s Edinburgh Festival Keynote: Full Transcript

'Delivering the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt sought to assure broadcasters:

“Google seeks to be your partner, not your foe.” But he warned them:

“Listen to the entrepreneurs, not the lawyers, if you want to revitalise your business.”`

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-watch-live-here-eric-schmidts-edinburgh-keynote-and-twitter-reaction/