Android TV

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

OTA, clearQAM and CableCard are at least good enough that they're willing to support live TV. They just (apparently) don't have enough interest to add the EPG, scheduling, storage, and DRM capabilities for DVR.

Is google really "supporting" it, or is that all Silicondust? And I get the impression live watching is a lot easier than recording, from a licensing/DVR perspective.

CableCard could certainly be a lot better, but it's good enough that one company has managed to made a moderately successful product around it. And Microsoft probably could have had moderate success with WMC if the company hadn't lost interest by the time they mostly got it working.

My point was though, it took someone with Microsoft's resources to implement it, the costs are exorbitant just to get the licenses necessary. Cablecard works fine, but getting "approval" to use it is a nightmare.

I think Google could use CableCard just as well as TiVo. They could probably even sell enough things to recoup licensing cost. But a company like Google is going to look for a lot more than just that, and I'm not convinced there's much of a market out there for 3rd party DVRs.

Exactly my point, Google could easily do it from a philanthropic POV, but from a business perspective, why would they?

I hear you- in many ways it would be a step down from from what we have. I'd trade off many things, like customizations and comskip, just to have something currently supported. But, I'd want to keep expandable storage and the client-server model. Plex is good enough I'd probably look past lack of local media support.

But that's kind of my point, if you have to use something else for networked media (Plex/XBMC/etc), then what would make you choose Google Fiber DVR over any of the alternatives? I looking at this as a thought experiment really, say you could just pick and use any DVR you wanted for the same service (take TV service features out of the equation), would you pick SageTV 8 (Google Fiber DVR), Genie, Hopper, come Cable whole house DVR? Why? What features would make you pick that?

I'd probably switch to Google Fiber TV if I had the chance- the support plus the ability to stream to mobile devices would be big wins for me. But, it would be even better if this was part of Android TV. I imagine we'll see some apps there to help with things like local media playback.

I mean I think most here would pick Google Fiber (the service) over the alternatives in a heartbeat, just for the internet alone it's worth it, and it would come with a DVR we're "familiar" with. But take the fiber service out of the equation, and unfortunately, there's not a lot to make SageTV 8 stand out.

[7up]

Possibly wishful thinking but as Google demo'd Live TV running on new Android TV box via SiliconDust tuner, is an Android (SageTV?) PVR app possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_2XeufnF4

[Taddeusz]

With Google's latest announcement from at CES 2015 about Android TV I'm kind of wondering what the fate of the SageTV code in Google TV will be. It sounds like they are essentially shelving the Google TV codebase in favor of Android TV.

They announced that most of the Google TV hardware will not be upgraded to support Android TV. How does this affect the service that they've been providing? I wish Jeff could tell us more about what's going on.

[stanger89]

Sage was never part of Google TV, it's part of Google Fiber. GoogleTV != Google Fiber.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage was never part of Google TV, it's part of Google Fiber. GoogleTV != Google Fiber.

Oh, duh... brain fart.

[reggie14]

I'm not sure what to make of the death of Google TV and rise of Android TV.

Google appears to have very little interest in watching cable/OTA TV through Android TV. At least the HDMI-passthrough features of early Google TV devices gave some hope that Google might decide to expand into the DVR area. Despite the early work with SiliconDust, I'm not expecting any movement in that direction with Android TV.

While Android TV is going to be running directly on smart TVs, it looks to be an entirely separate environment from cable/OTA TV. That probably shouldn't be a surprise, but if Google knew Android TV was going to make it onto TVs (which they presumably did), I don't think it would have been crazy, or terribly difficult, for them to add OTA support into the interface.

I suspect Google looks at DVR largely as a dying technology. If the FCC does as expected, and puts Internet TV on par with cable, Sling TV could be just the start. The lack of a DVR or full on-demand viewing makes Sling TV nearly worthless to me, but it gives me hope for better products and services in the future.

Despite the vague comments from Jeff years ago, I never thought the Google Fiber TV system, or anything like it, was going to make it into a retail product. But maybe Google can create an Internet TV service worth buying if the regulations change. The old CableVision network DVR precedent might even stick with a Google Internet TV system in a way that it couldn't with Aereo.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I suspect Google looks at DVR largely as a dying technology. If the FCC does as expected, and puts Internet TV on par with cable, Sling TV could be just the start. The lack of a DVR or full on-demand viewing makes Sling TV nearly worthless to me, but it gives me hope for better products and services in the future.

You bring up an interesting contradiction in the whole technology. The whole point of SlingTV is that it's a cheap way for people who cut the cord to get back some of their favorite channels without going "all in" for a dish system. With it having no DVR capability, the only point in it would be for live "real time" viewing, right? But if society is moving in a way that even makes the relatively-young DVR tech obsolete (in favor of streaming on-demand), then what's the use? It's like it's going back two technological steps. It's not on-demand and it's not even DVR'able. So while they are pushing it - or at least the articles I've seen seem to be pushing it - towards cord-cutters, trying to get them back, it seems like it's more likely for non-tech-inclined people who want a cheaper TV solution and less channels than getting full-blown cable/satellite, but aren't techie enough to have already gotten those channels via some other means (Roku, AppleTV, or whatnot). Sorta like my (elderly) parents... they have Fioptics TV and pay over $100/mo for hundreds of channels and on-demand options they will never use, and they don't even have a DVR. They pretty much watch local network programming and my dad watches ESPN all day. I will be suggesting SlingTV (plus an antenna) to them.

From what I see, the only reason to have SlingTV would be live sports on ESPN and live news on CNN. And when I saw the first articles about SlingTV, I admit, my thought was that for a lot of people, this is a way to pay $20/month for ESPN and/or CNN. Anyone who cut the cord but still really wanted those other channels (the ones with pre-recorded shows) would probably have found a way to already get them via another service, and wouldn't care about seeing them "real time".

I have been OTA+Sage+PlayOn for years now. My wife records some shows from the channels SlingTV provides, via PlayOn. No interest in seeing them real-time. I don't watch much (any) news, so the only reason I would consider PlayOn would be for ESPN... but I have my parents' password (because goodness knows they aren't ever using the online version) and get anything I want (which is only occasionally) through PlayOn into Sage.