I'm very skeptical about this. From the videos it looks like a HTPC solution that's very scattered, it feels like another one of those boxes that tries to do too much and don't unite the needs into a simple solution.
As long as broadcasting companies exists and want to get payed and payed by commercials, a TV solution aren't going to work unless you find a way to include them in the deal. The current model broadcasting companies are using are of course a dead end, people don't want to pay for 100% content when they only are able to view 5% because the rest is sent when they don't have the time to see it or they aren't basically interested in most of the stuff on a specific channel. Yes, I know you have Tivo in US, but here in Euorope we have to make our own Tivo box with MythTV or similar if we what that kind of functionality. IMHO opinion it will work to pay with a monthly subscription fee as we do today but we really need to be able to choose when and where we want to view the TV. I like to be able to view it in my iPhone when I'm outside or view it in the evening even if it was broadcast during the day and I want to view old shows whenever I like. To me, GoogleTV looks like a HTPC solution for less tech-savvy people, but the problem is that from the demonstration video it looked pretty complex. I'm very sure my parents would get very confused by it. I wonder what target audience GoogleTV really have. People interested in technology are going to setup a much better HTPC solution and GoogleTV seems to be too complex for less technical people. Young people are going to want an iPad or something similar which is more interactive and mobile. From the videos it looked very focus on Internet content, do people really want to view that on a stationary TV with a simple remote control when there are things like the iPad and iPhone ? If they would limit GoogleTV to just be a Youtube viewer or a viewer for very few video sites with a united simplified user interface I think it might have some potential. However, this doesn't really seem to be the case from the announcement and posted videos. I'm going to continue using my MythTV box, someone have to do something that makes recording/scheduling better before they get my interest. At the moment I'm skeptical if anyone is going to unite the TV solution into something that's usable, Microsoft has tried and failed IMHO. Apple did also try but skipped the recording part which makes AppleTV useless to me as long as I can't purchase individual shows easily instead. It probably works a little bit better in US where the possibility to rent contents is possible if I've understood it correctly. That way it can at least work good for movies. Google isn't going to unite anyone, they want to do too much and don't have a clear strategy and the ability to limit themselves to the important parts. For now, I really believe that Apple making a second try is our only hope, they don't seem to be into stationary devices any more which probably is a good thing since a good TV solution really shouldn't be stationary. I want to be able to view TV where ever I am, there is no reason I should be limited to viewing it in the living room. It should be said that I'm not against Android, with the current amount of development resources, it's going to be hard to move the Squeezebox products to the next level with a platform like SqueezeOS where Logitech have to do everything themselves. Maybe even their GoogleTV development will help in this area, it might be an opportunity to add more developers to Squeezebox platform to move it over to a standard platform to ease the integration with GoogleTV. I wonder if Logitech's GoogleTV box is where all the disappeared Squeezebox developers went, doesn't seem that unlikely. And finally, as exile indicates, we are going to pay for premium, if anyone believes that it will be free just because the box can use Internet you are definitely wrong. Hobby broadcasters with lower quality on their material are probably going to be free, so a box like this could make that kind of content more accessible. However, for premium content they need to unite the commercial broadcast companies, which seems like a very hard or even impossible task. By the way, isn't it interesting to see how a hardware company like Logitech focus many new investments in software related development ? I wonder if that's an intentional strategy or if they just jumped on the GoogleTV train without knowing what it really meant ? -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info) (Install my plugins through Extension Downloader) (Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library, Title Switcher and Database Query plugins' (http://wiki.erland.isaksson.info/index.php/Category:SlimServer)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79007 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
