mykeyb Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Pretty much as the title states, anyone got one, is it any good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 4, 2013 Administrator Share Posted January 4, 2013 I've not even seen one. (Follows thread). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Havent seen one in the wild. Reviews have been awful though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 The Sony one is meant to be crap but there's rumours of an Asus nexus q style device being announced at CES in a few days that will be a game changer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted January 6, 2013 Author Share Posted January 6, 2013 It seems you can get some cheap USB stick versions on eBay which appear to run a version of Android but not Google TV. The Sony box appears to be the best of the bunch but with CES starting there are rumours of several other partners coming on board. It potentially could be great if Google takes it seriously. But the could also be the downfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 6, 2013 Administrator Share Posted January 6, 2013 The downfall of what? Google produce a lot of junk. They are better at recognising it as such than many competitors. See Google Wave and Buzz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 The downfall is they seem to have taken the Google TV product as a bit of hobby (pretty much as Jobs did with Apple). If they dont take it seriously then it could well fail which will leave the door wide open for someone else (Apple or Microsoft). Apart from your television being the obvious place for people to consume movies and tv shows from the play store which Google will surely want a big slice of, it looks as though other people are looking at this as an option for gaming devices again Google want to make sure they are in there for this too. That is without getting into the other bits it does which are interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 7, 2013 Administrator Share Posted January 7, 2013 The downfall is they seem to have taken the Google TV product as a bit of hobby (pretty much as Jobs did with Apple). If they dont take it seriously then it could well fail which will leave the door wide open for someone else (Apple or Microsoft). Apart from your television being the obvious place for people to consume movies and tv shows from the play store which Google will surely want a big slice of, it looks as though other people are looking at this as an option for gaming devices again Google want to make sure they are in there for this too. That is without getting into the other bits it does which are interesting. Can't Android do all this already though? I suppose we might see a Nexus branded appliance to kick the market at some point, but any manufacturer could build an Android / XBMC / OpenGL device at any time, it doesn't need Google and wouldn't be locked-in or dependant on a single vendor. I'd rather an open device than one locked down to anyone - including Google. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 Yes Android can do this and can run XBMC too, many of the cheap Chinese sticks on ebay can do this to some varying level of success but they are usually running android 4.0 which all though very similar is not the same software as Google TV. Google TV looks to be as open as Android is with multiple partner involved in producing the hardware. They have announced that several other partners are coming on board at some point this year too. Google TV is probably where android was before the HTC Desire, it works most of the time but the hardware whether from Sony or Vizio has issues. If Google can work with their partners and actually get something to market that works then it may just become something more than a techies gadget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 Managed to get a Vizio Co Star of ebay yesterday after just missing out on the Sony Model going for £65.00 unused...... It will be going in the bedroom and will mainly be used as a media streamer, the other functions it offers are a bonus. Once it comes and I get it installed I will try and give a bit of an overview of it for anyone thats interested.................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eames Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Managed to get a Vizio Co Star of ebay yesterday after just missing out on the Sony Model going for £65.00 unused...... It will be going in the bedroom and will mainly be used as a porn display unit, the other functions it offers are a bonus. Once it comes and I get it installed I will try and give a bit of an overview of it for anyone thats interested.................... Fixed... and given that - what are the "other functions?" Does it have like a built in Kleenex dispenser? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted March 1, 2013 Author Share Posted March 1, 2013 Ok had time to have a little play and I am undecided. Firstly these are supposed to sit between your cable / sky box whoose video passes through, you can then use it to control your box and use the search function for both online and your subscription content which I am not doing and infact couldnt do because the Vizio only knows about the USA, you cannot enter a UK "Zip" code or make it UK based without rooting which amaziningly hasnt been cracked yet so if I had bought it for that it would be back on ebay. The apps I had read were few and far between and that is still the case so christ knows what it was like when the Logitech Revue came out. I havent really looked at games but might have a try over the weekend. I have Plex Server running on the main media pc and use the Plex app to stream content from there and this part works beautifully, This is the main reason I bought it and for £50 there are other streamers available but none that you can tinker with as much. The remote needs a bit of getting used to and on the side with the panel to control moving the pointer you could really do with a button to work as the left mouse button click as at the moment you have to tap on the panel which can have the effect of moving the pointer of what you are trying to click on. I will be trialling over the weekend if it is possible to play catchup tv content through the Chrome browser as that would be a big plus. I can see why the Android Tv Sticks on ebay are so popular as they run Android 4.0 and presumably have access to far more apps than Google TV does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Got the Sony Google TV box about a week ago. Mainly got it so my folks could watch Indian TV channels through a site that does flash based video. Quite happy with it for that purpose so far. Haven't really explored it in depth yet but from a quick look at the apps, it seems severely gimped for the Australian market. No access to Netflix, HBO Go, etc over.here. Typical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 You can probably do something with a VPN like Tunnelbear to solve that problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 Cheers. I might look into that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted March 8, 2013 Author Share Posted March 8, 2013 Considering that the Google TV Platform has been out for a few years it does at time feel very beta ish. The lack of apps will be the thing that kills it in my opinion. Infact I would go so far as to say if it didnt run Plex I would probably be looking at getting rid. The Samsung Homesync in comparison does look like it has the potential to be a better Google TV experience than Google can make and with a 1TB hard drive to house your media it might well be the thing I get to replace my ageing Dell PC which at the moment is being used to house my media files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted April 16, 2013 Author Share Posted April 16, 2013 As a follow up to this my daughters media streamer remote died a couple of weeks ago so bought an Android 4.1 Tv Box of ebay for £50 including the airmouse and its fantastic. It will stream everything of the Plex Media Server PC, even some stuff the old media streamer wouldnt plus she can play games on there to. Infact having seen this maybe Google should merge Google TV in with Key Lime Pie and have just on platform that can then have access to pretty much all the apps on Google Play. I know that I do not use the Google TV box in the way you are supposed to ie with Sky, Freeview or Virgin feed going through the box to the TV so you can overlay stuff on top but then who can do that on a family TV? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 On our GoogleTV box, we have Foxtel (similar to Sky I suppose) passing through it. Don't find much point in it. The only reason we do it is because, the TV only has one HDMI port in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted September 3, 2013 Author Share Posted September 3, 2013 Well just a quick update on my Google TV. Its a piece of crap. I have had to factory reset it at least half a dozen times as it keeps losing things like the Play Store, the icon disappears and obviously there is no easy way to install it. Its going on ebay asap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Get a chromecast. They're fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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