^The Roku is a streaming device. So it supports every video and audio container that has packet streaming capabilities. Which mov, mkv, wmv, mp4, and damn near every other modern container does.

Avi doesn't. Avi is an archaic codec wrapper that would have died 10 years ago if it weren't for the piracy scene. There are so many problems and error conditions dealing with avi containers, it's honestly not a surprise that they just skipped it. There is literally no legal content using the container anymore, and any illegal content worth two shits has moved on to mkv.

5/9/2012 10:40:35 PM

Quote :

"Avi is an archaic codec wrapper that would have died 10 years ago if it weren't for the piracy scene."

You're not wrong, but until very recently it was still the most popular wrapper out there. I was just surprised to find out that it wasn't supported at all by what is one of the top media streaming devices on sale today. Especially when I can't even think of another device that doesn't support AVIs. Even $30 elcheapo walmart dvd players will play xvid encoded AVIs. True, the rest of the world has moved to MKV and mp4, but there are still millions of AVIs out there. From legitimate sources or not.

5/10/2012 11:53:49 AM

Quote :

"I was just surprised to find out that it wasn't supported at all by what is one of the top media streaming devices on sale today. Especially when I can't even think of another device that doesn't support AVIs. Even $30 elcheapo walmart dvd players will play xvid encoded AVIs"

See there's the problem. The Roku is a STREAMING device. Avi's cannot stream.

DVD Players are NOT streaming devices, so they can support Avi's.

5/10/2012 2:15:14 PM

Quote :

"See there's the problem. The Roku is a STREAMING device. Avi's cannot stream."

I have no problem streaming AVIs with my Popcorn hour. Or my WDTV. Or my Revue. Or my Apple TV. Or my Playstation 3. Or my Xbox 360. Or my modded Wii. Or my original modded Xbox. Or my iPhone. Or my iPad. Or my Windows 7 Media PC. Or my Mac Mini running Boxee. Or my Macbook Air with plain old OSX.

I'm sure you'll reply with some technical details about the format that indicates that you know 10 times more than everyone else about them, but the fact of the matter is that with every single media streamer device I've ever used (and I have used more than a couple) AVIs are supported just like every other container I've ever heard of. Aside from MKV support on a stock XBOX 360 or PS3, I've never had to care what format I'm watching, because they all just usually work. And you will not convince me that it's not weird that arguably the biggest name brand media streamer out today will not play a divx avi, when almost literally every other device that does even anything remotely close to the same task will.

5/10/2012 3:59:45 PM

^Nope, no argument at all. I completely agree. I was like WTF too when I saw the Roku just flat doesn't support avi containers.


To the average user, there's no difference in the interaction or UI. Basically it's been the "standard" for so long, that everyone except the consumer has had to jump through more and more hoops to keep the shit working.

The technical difference is that AVI's actually just use progressive downloading.

Streaming video containers can begin and end at any arbitrary point. AVI's must always be loaded from the beginning (as they have a global header) and then "seeked" to a playback point.

But from a manufacturing and platform standpoint these are BIG differences. You need a much much more powerful processor to deal with AVI "streaming" because it has to be able to load and seek fast enough that people won't get pissed off by the lag. You also have to process, cache and store the entire video locally (potentially) so you need more storage capacity or some really fancy software to deal with chunking the video.

From a content production standpoint, AVI also blows chunks. You have to manually create key indexes or the video wont be able to seek at all. You are extremely limited to the codecs you can use for video and audio. There are tons of hacks to AVI containers and codecs to overcome limitations, but none are standardized and very few work on embedded devices. You also have a 4gb file size limit, you have to deal with header corruption, splicing and editing is a bitch, variable bit rate encoding is unreliable because AVI doesn't support b-frames, and a bunch of other crap.

5/10/2012 4:28:14 PM

Noen, i'm 95% sure you thought MKV was a steaming pile of shit only used by pirates, as well...is that still the case, or have you changed your mind in the past 6 months?

5/10/2012 5:07:01 PM

^you mean in the past 3 years?

Here's the post you're referring to:
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=555070&page=1#12514747

My two reasons for hating MKV: It didn't support streaming, and it had shitty codec+software support.

Over the past two years the codec has actually gone from "supporting streaming" to having a real streaming implementation (WebM) that has been adopted as an industry standard AND have gotten hardware support for streaming through the same standardized implementation.

Problem #1 solved.

Once VLC supported MKV files, things improved. Then DivX added support, eliminating the need for the CCCP pack or any of the other malware infected "codec/splitter/etc" packs. They also didn't get a hardware implementation standardized until 2010, which is now available on many devices.

Problem #2 solved.

So yes, my opinion has changed over the past 3 years, because the project has changed dramatically over the past 3 years.

Amazing how that happens, huh?

[Edited on May 10, 2012 at 11:43 PM. Reason : 3]

5/10/2012 11:43:24 PM

Quote :

"I said you'll be able to do it on another platform. Able to be done != application exists. I should have been more explicit in my wording, as it was obviously misinterpreted (and looking back I can see good reason how and why)."

And now you will be able to it completely with Xbox Smart Glass. So, how's that functionality coming on GoogleTV? Oh, yeah.

Oh, and Xbox is getting IE this fall. So what's the advantage of Google TV again?

6/4/2012 7:51:59 PM

Well for starters, you can buy the hardware for $99 and there's no retarded monthly fee just to be able to use the media features.



Not that I wouldn't pick an xbox over Google TV if those were the only two options. But I'm thankful that there are other options available.

6/4/2012 7:59:57 PM

Xbox 360 4gb can be had for $149. That retarded monthly subscription is why the services work so well and continue to expand. And it's all of $4.12 a month right from amazon for a 12month card (even less if you get a deal, which happens all the time, getting you down to 30-35 bucks a year). Or you can just reup monthly for even less. There are routinely $1 for 1 month, and $2 for 2 month options on the dashboard.

Hell, once ESPN Watch fully launches, it'll be cheaper to pay for XBL Gold than what you pay for ESPN as a basic cable station every month.

6/4/2012 8:58:08 PM

You will never convince me that it is better to pay for services that are available in literally every other media device for free. It's just not going to happen. This isn't like the 360 vs PS3 arguments where you can argue (rightfully so, I might add) that paying for XBL is worth it for matchmaking services alone. We've gone back and forth over it before, and you have your opinion, and I have mine and it's doubtful either will change, but I think that it's spectacularly retarded that I literally own 15 different devices that are capable of streaming netflix to my TV, but the Xbox is the only one that tries to charge me an extra fee in order to get it to work. In my opinion, that's not acceptable. I don't care if it's only a quarter a month, I'm not paying one extra cent on principle alone.

Quote :

"Hell, once ESPN Watch fully launches, it'll be cheaper to pay for XBL Gold than what you pay for ESPN as a basic cable station every month."

Now if I can actually watch ESPN on my Xbox without having to pay for cable, that would be a feature that I can't get anywhere else. I haven't read up on it today, but I assume that's not the case and that you'd still have to have a qualifying subscription to ESPN plus an XBL live account, which again, is in my opinion completely unacceptable.

6/4/2012 9:07:23 PM

Yeah, we'll have to see. WatchESPN's faq says you have to have a qualifying TV subscription, so I imagine you're probably right. But fuck I hope not, I would completely ditch the cable subscription.

And with all the services they added today, I don't know of any other single device with the same breadth of content services. That can all be searched together.

When they added Amazon VOD it really put the nail in the content coffin for me. Now I definitely wish the apps weren't so fucking slow and clunky, but at least they all work consistently and everything is searchable.

Maybe the cost isn't worth it to you. For aggregated search, voice and gesture control, video chat and yearly updates, it's worth it to me.

[Edited on June 4, 2012 at 9:33 PM. Reason : .]

6/4/2012 9:25:02 PM

From your link:

Quote :

"How can I get access to all ESPN networks available on WatchESPN? Online registration through your TV service provider is required in order to access content on all networks. Non-participating TV provider customers have access to ESPN3 programming online only at WatchESPN.com, as long as they subscribe to a participating high speed internet service provider. Click here for a list of participating video providers. Click here for a list of high speed internet providers."

You just get the stuff on espn3 if you don't have cable.

6/4/2012 9:28:34 PM

^Yeah I read it more closely and it looks that way.

However I will say there's a loophole in that clause, not just for ESPN. You get 5 device activations for most XBL services on top of a single cable tv subscription.

6/4/2012 9:36:46 PM

Quote :

"aggregated search, voice and gesture control, video chat"

I use and want literally none of that

6/4/2012 9:56:22 PM

^Yup.

All I care about is local streaming and a great UI. Neither of which the Xbox has. I suppose it would be neat to be able to use a device that I already own and get some extra features out of it (The espn3 app is freaking sweet on 360) but again, that's already stuff that I can get for free elsewhere. I know I'm in the minority by having a 360 and not having XBL gold, but I just can't justify paying for it and I think it's silly that I have to be lumped into all the gamers in order to use the media stuffs. But oh well.

6/4/2012 10:00:17 PM

^Yeah, local streaming is definitely the xbox's weakest link. WMC is 95%+ of my xbox usage in our bedroom, and while it works, it's not exactly pretty.

I am hoping that Win8 and the fall Xbox update will bring some much needed love to the WMC extender functionality. Because it's laggy and quirky and inconsistent today.

On the upside, it plays pretty much everything now. MKV's all play fine (except the 3d content), everything AVI plays fine, just the skip/goto controls are really poor compared to what most of the apps and other devices afford these days.

6/4/2012 11:48:46 PM

whoops! thought this was a Google TV thread.

*backs out slowly*

6/5/2012 10:43:45 AM

Nope, Google TV died

6/5/2012 1:34:46 PM

Well we finally got our big update...and nothing is in the google tv store. It still sucks. No HBO or amazon.

7/9/2012 7:52:33 AM

good thing i got off this train back when i did

7/9/2012 10:58:14 AM

http://www.vizio.com/costar/overview

7/9/2012 11:05:55 AM

Hmm, its got OnLive and Amazon..... Do we know if it can read and play off of network shares, load metadata, etc...?

7/9/2012 11:58:54 AM

with http://www.plexapp.com/ i think

7/9/2012 12:04:10 PM

^,^^ it does DLNA media out of the box. Not sure about a CIFS or SMB share though. But supposedly that Plex app can do those. I'm interested in this thing myself. I just don't want to get it and then have Google TV die 6-12 months later.

Also didn't realize it did Amazon video. Very nice.

[Edited on July 9, 2012 at 2:17 PM. Reason : meh]

7/9/2012 2:17:15 PM

Ill probably get one to test.

7/9/2012 2:21:17 PM

so does google tv still suck? http://discover.store.sony.com/googletv/ and http://www.vizio.com/costar/overview looks interesting, but i have heard very little about google tv advances in the last 6-12 months

11/10/2012 9:04:19 PM

Yes it still sucks

11/10/2012 9:09:59 PM

they haven't advanced enough for me to upgrade my old box yet

I def prefer watching netflix on it over my Xbox though

11/10/2012 9:28:42 PM

^^Not that I think for one second that you're wrong, but have you actually tried one lately or kept up with the advances or are you just stating your opinion from before? I, too, recently wondered if those new devices still sucked. I would think they would have to either improve it or do away with it completely, and since they don't seem to be doing away with it...

11/10/2012 9:50:58 PM

^They haven't addressed any of the core problems with it. It's still at the core a severely underpowered set of devices, using a hodge podge of keyboard + trackpage on a touch built UI (Android) with a non-existant app ecosystem.

It's still based on Honeycomb. Not even ICS. Old hardware, old platform, very little content.

11/10/2012 10:01:09 PM

I figured as much, I just didn't know for sure. I wonder why they are half-assing everything. Seems like they could put some actual resources into it and be one of the best products out there fairly easy. After seeing first hand how shitty a Roku actually is, it shouldn't be too hard to combine the Google name with a non-shitty product and actually get people to want them.

11/10/2012 10:28:19 PM

is that not what the nexus cube thing is? nexus Q or something.

the device in this niche i'm after is the ceton Q + echo

does anyone know if you can sideload apps into the googletv platform? looking at that vizio device, it might work for a project I'm doing. I need something that can do an overlay of a live tv stream - think pop up notifications/rss.

[Edited on November 11, 2012 at 8:46 AM. Reason : does google tv use standard android apk's?]

11/11/2012 8:30:31 AM

^Yes but I don't know why you would. If you are just looking for a cheap android device to plug into a TV/Monitor, you can get any number of Android-on-a-stick's running ICS for half the price (50-75 bucks).

11/11/2012 12:16:09 PM

But they don't do overlay over live tv like he said he wanted. To the best of my knowledge, the google tv platform is the only thing that allows for that sort of thing.

11/11/2012 1:50:53 PM

so i picked up one of these http://discover.store.sony.com/googletv/ and i'm quite happy with it. there's a couple things about the UI that I would change, but it's immensely more usable than the wdtv i tried this past weekend. it's a little overpriced (though i did get it open box discount at best buy) and chrome lagged on me pretty hard once, but i think i'm gonna hold onto it

11/13/2012 12:16:36 AM

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2012/11/making-it-easier-to-watch-youtube.html

Quote :

"We’re making it even easier to play videos from your phone or tablet on your TV, with a YouTube app update for Android and Google TV that automatically pairs your devices on the same WiFi. Just find a video on your YouTube app for Android — like the latest video from GoPro or H+ The Digital Series — click the TV icon that appears, and the video will play instantly on your Google TV. "

it's sweet the existing Play on TV option was kind of flaky

11/14/2012 8:20:13 AM

The Verge is doing a whole string of articles on how we currently get televised content and potential future for the industry. Pretty interesting to me.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/13/3640178/war-for-tv-inside-the-fight-for-the-living-room

11/14/2012 2:12:51 PM

I got a logitech revue on black friday for $70. I need to figure out how to update flash to 11.x final instead of 10.x that's on it, hulu crashes a lot as a result. I use it as a cheap slingcatcher in my bedroom - seems worthwhile for that since a slingcatcher is 300+ on ebay

11/27/2012 8:15:08 PM

Why doesn't Google just buy Roku?

Take something that already has a market niche and improve upon it.

11/27/2012 8:17:21 PM

It's not like Roku is that much better. If they did that it would just be to get rid of Roku as a competitor. What they need to do is hire somebody who has a clue how to design a UI that isn't complete shit. Roku could stand to do that as well.

11/27/2012 8:29:56 PM

I wish they'd add a slingbox-like ability to it (streaming from, not to)

that'd be amazing

11/27/2012 9:43:18 PM

i dont think the cpu on board could handle that data stream in real time since the only input is hdmi, which is an encypted data stream.

11/27/2012 10:22:55 PM

i guess i'll put this here?

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromecast

7/24/2013 2:03:33 PM

^ the needing to charge over USB is a huge drawback.

And I'm more interested about it from a Developer perspective - can 3rd parties add the "Stream" button to their app, so other services like Twitch.tv can be pushed to the TV over Chromecast?

7/24/2013 2:38:38 PM

^I'd imagine, that's how Airplay mirroring works, and it's been around since 2011, about time they started getting some competition.

7/24/2013 3:28:00 PM

If it's like how the google tv works, it's not sending video from your phone, it's triggering an app on the tv device to go act similarly. So if you're watching youtube, it'll trigger the youtube app to start playing the video you're watching at whatever time you're at. It's not like miracast or whatever with direct mirroring.

I noticed it supports CEC - is power supplied over that, or does that still need the USB charger?

7/24/2013 3:58:41 PM

The whole USB charge thing sucks. Still might pick it up since it is only $11 if you take out the three months of Netflix but I am not sure if it is much better than just hooking up my laptop to the tv via hdmi.

7/24/2013 5:30:32 PM

Eh you can plug it into a USB port on your TV or into a wall (supplied).

7/24/2013 6:22:57 PM

^It makes it 10 times less portable that way though. Imagine taking it over to a buddy's house and only having to jam it into an open hdmi port on the back of his TV. Now imagine having to carry, and find a place to plug in a power adapter in an unfamiliar AV setup.

Quote :

"I'd imagine, that's how Airplay mirroring works"

Quote :

"If it's like how the google tv works, it's not sending video from your phone, it's triggering an app on the tv device to go act similarly."

I've read it's the latter.

7/24/2013 7:26:52 PM