Revue Review Part Deux

So for the first time in my life I won something with a retail value greater than something found in the quarter machines my 4 year old is obsessed with. I was one of the 10,000 people selected by Google to take the Logitech Revue for a spin (I am pretty sure they don't read my blog and see the bashing I gave it one step down, but then again I am pretty sure not many if any people read my blog).

I decided (by the coaching of my lovely bride) that if I was going to do this, I should just go 100% and see how it stacks up to my (now in a pile in the middle of my living room) Windows 7 Media Center. I am just going to boil this down to the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Intuitive: some people have said other wise, but I thought from hook up to navigation I felt like I didn't have to use my degree to get around. Once again I am comparing this to setting up a W7MC PC.

2. Potential: how can you list potential as a pro?, and list it so early? Well right away I see the promise when I see the "Gallery" app from my android so prominently displayed on the screen. It works the same way as on my phone, integrates with my Picasa account (which I still need to do a write up on), and is just a work of art on the big screen. Similarly the Netflix and Pandora apps just work and are easy to setup. I do have to say though the Pandora app has no where near the sex appeal as the Boxee variant, but this whole device suffers from that.

3. RF Keyboard and Android Remote App: Very well done, however the keyboard has a con, see below. Side Note - great IR blaster.

4. Integration with Google Reader: My "Queue" shows up in my Reader account, which means if I find an interesting Pod/VodCast I just add it to the mix through my browser from anywhere.

5. Browser:  It works really well with the keyboard, has flash support, and even "incognito" browsing if you so desire.

Cons:

1. No Apps: I am just going to say Google has at least stated this is coming. However, this has to be stated early since most of the following cons (sans keyboard issue) are related to a single app's failing, and there are already apps on the market available for my Android phone that resolve all of these issues, but I still have to list it as it sits now.

2. Sorting (app Logitech Media Player): Only alpha sorting, this is horrific for somebody like me that downloads a lot of their shows. I have to say though this failure is pretty common, I have had popcorn hours and wdtv's with this same issue, amazing something so simple being overlooked.

3. No SMB only DLNA (app Logitech Media Player): This was my first time using DLNA and it was horrific. My opinions about DLNA is it is a cheap work around to lazy manufactures for not just throwing in more support for codecs. I tried Windows 7 "Play On" and "Mezzmo" for the PC to get my content to this device. When transcoding kicked in I could hear my fans on the downstairs PC kick into high gear and the output on the TV upstairs was grainy and double compressed, not to mention audio sync issues. Google and Logitech say more format support is coming, but if it comes through DLNA forget it. An SMB browser is sadly needed.

4. Keyboard Backlight:  Or lack thereof.  Really Logitech?  Really?  This thing costs $300 and you can't backlight the keyboard?  Do you think most media viewing areas are well lit?  This one chapped my hide.

5.  Reliance on another "box":  Most of the features I am just not using in the Google TV because I don't have satellite (this has integration for Dish Network) or an external cable or even over the air tuner box.  I think they should have bundled in something for the price point, at least over the air.

New Setup:

So the final question, Mr. W7MC, what is in your rack now?  Well, I honestly don't know if I am going to go back to the a full fledged PC.  To get rid of con #3 I hooked up my WDTV Live, because it has a great SMB browser that plays all formats without transcoding.  For live TV browsing I moved my antenna up to my TV and ran the optical out it provides to my receiver.  I don't have a guide now, and I can't record live tv, but those were 2 items when you are mainly grabbing your shows from "other soruces" that aren't much of an issue.  It also turns out my TV has a better OTA tuner than my TV Tuner card in my PC had, so I get more stations (namely PBS Kids, so the toddler is happy).  Those 2 changes combined with the Google TV for Netflix and Pandora and a future app platform down the road are all I need.  I have my hopes I will again be able to retire the WDTV Live after a future firmware version.  We will have to see what Q1 of 2011 brings.

Side Note:  It wouldn't be impossible to pull off this switching nightmare and remain wife approved without a Logitech Harmony remote, if you don't own one, go buy one (link below to a cheapo entry level).  

Would I buy this device?  Nope.  A single WDTV Live Plus would do what I want and more.  I do think though at some point after apps are released that something like the Sony version with an integrated BluRay player is going to be veeery promising.

I will miss Windows 7 Media Center + Boxee for the sex appeal, but I am guessing not running that beast 24x7x365 is going to bring some savings to the power bill.

Revue Review

Logitech announced their Revue with Google TV today.  I can't get excited in the least with the information they presented.  The box itself is $299, upgraded remote is $129, living room video conferencing is another $149.  So for the "basic" full featured setup you are looking at $450.

On price alone (in typical Logitech fashion) the device can be eliminated.  For that price you can almost get a full featured Windows 7 Media Center setup going in your living room, or the Boxee box due out soon ($199).

After some digging on the Logitech site I discovered another gigantic failure:
Supported Media Formats
Notice MKV?  No?  Neither do I.  I am speechless on this one.  I guess I will wait for legit reviewers to get their hands on this one to pass full judgement.  I see lots of full HD formats, and I know MKV is just the wrapper for some of these, so this might just be a horrible typo.

Update:  MKV supported, discussed during Q&A
Live Engadget Feed

Do I want one of these?  Yes.  But this thing SCREAMS early adopter all over it.  I think I will wait for others to get their hands on the platform and see what they can do.

Oh yeah, no app store until 2011 either.

This is an amazing leap forward though and there are things I am very happy to see.  Once apps start flowing into this thing and the price comes down (i.e. somebody else makes one) I will be be lined up with cash in hand. I am praying for either a NHL or NFL app, then I could even kiss my antenna goodbye.

Final verdict:  Pass/Wait.

If you have the itch to buy something, here are some alternatives.  I personally have a WDTV Live and love the little guy.  I hear amazing things about the Roku box, and as always, the Apple hockey puck hits the price point a lot better than this device and will most likely have apps eventually.

Mucking About with Shaun the Sheep

So now that I have my media center setup I can focus on watching content, and I stumbled across one that will have everybody in the clan yellowing their shorts with hysterics.

Shaun the Sheep is from the maker of Wallace and Gromit (Nick Park) and is only aired on the BBC (from what I can tell), however, both are widely available on Netflix streaming or DVD.

The show has everything except the spoken word.  The characters have the best expressions and sounds from the flock's side stretching smile to the dog's eye rolling at the farmer's stupidity.  Most of these clips are short, 7 to 10 minute long so they fit perfect into a hectic night or that last pre-bedtime show for the little one.

I think my favorite character in the show aside from Shaun and Bitzer (the dog) is "the fat" sheep Shirly.  They use this character to achieve so many physics bending scenarios every time she shows up in the scene you don't know what is going to happen.  The next runner up goes to the hardcore heavy metal pigs on the other side of the fence, every show needs a common protagonist, the pigs do it with amazing brutality. 

I am not sure how the BBC continues to find and produce such great content (if you haven't seen The IT Crowd, do so, and I can't forget to mention Monty Python or Faulty Towers).  I would say it has to do with living in such a gloomy place you have to have a sense of humor, but I live in Minnesota and all we have produced is Louie Anderson (although he is hilarious also).

There is also a spin off show my 3 year old can't get enough of called Timmy Time (Timmy does show up in most Shaun episodes).  It basically expands on the barnyard animals, but of course they are attending pre-school and learning to share, be good sports, solve problems, and such.

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_the_Sheep

Official Site:

http://www.shaunthesheep.com/

Shameless Plug:

Media Center Happy Times (and cable cutting)

So my life's outside goal for a while has been cable cutting, figuratively and literally.

A while ago when my wife and I received our android phones, we did away with the high taxes and very little used home phone line and went to Vonage, which after that was taxed to almost $30/mo.  We now use a $5/mo phone number parking service for our original home number which just emails us received voicemails (which thanks to our fancy phones, we can return those calls almost instantly) (http://www.family-phone.com/ for those interested).

A LOOONG while ago (almost 5 years now) we did away with satellite because we just weren't watching enough tv to justify the cost.  I was transfixed by a certain online game (which I haven't touched in almost 6 months now) and my wife usually fell asleep at 8pm.  We tried Tivo + Antenna, but slowly the house was filled with old Xbox's running XBMC (http://xbmc.org/).  The main TV bounced from media center to Tivo to media center a few times.  Recently as part of my recovery from said game I occupied my time by solidifying what was going to go in our main room.  I first tried a WDTV Live, and while it was well worth the price, I still needed the ability to view live tv for sports, news and weather.  I decided to dust off some of my now several year old media center hardware, slap a lower end graphics card in it capable of 1080p decoding, and a shiny brand new antenna card. After a little trial and error I was sold on the new version of Media Center for Windows 7 that comes with most versions.  It picked up the hardware decoding, a few easy hacks and codec packages and viola, it was a thing of beauty.

Here are the pluses:

1. Built in antenna card support, recording, live tv pausing, channel guide, etc.  Extremely easy setup compared to some of the other linux/windows TV capturing packages, especially the channel guide.
2. It is part of Windows 7, probably already running on your machine and you just don't know it.
3. One of the better Netflix integration packages out there.
4. Just plain pretty, the interface is amazing and wife friendly.

Here were my largest cons:

1. No Pandora, or other assortment of services (but it did have Netflix, which is a tough one to find for free).
2. No good RSS video updating services.  A few built in but they never seemed to update on time.
3. Out of the box menu layout.  Once you are in a function, it is perfect, but before that getting around wasn't obvious.
4. Source material.  Antenna alone is limiting.

So while I had already trumped most of these issues, Friday I finally sat down to get this tool perfected, and I found 4 solutions (all free):

Media Center Studio (http://www.adventmediacenter.com/):

This tool allowed me to do a few key things.  First is customizing the menu labels and showing/hiding items I never used.  Lastly it allowed me to seamlessly link outside programs to Media Center (namely XBMC, Boxee and HULU Desktop).  As you can see from the graphic at the top of this post, now the menus are much cleaner, narrowed down and personalized to just my needs.  When I select Boxee, Windows Media Center closes, Boxee fires up, when I exit Boxee, Windows Media Center returns full screen.  This gives me access to great Boxee apps, but mainly, Pandora.  Solved #1 and #3

Hide Menu Strips (http://mikinho.com/wmc/start-menu-plus/):

This tool allowed me to hide certain menu strips the above mentioned program would not.  You have to run it as an administrator, but it is very straight forward.  Solved #3

Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/):

Juice is simply a RSS reader and downloader.  I placed all my Revision 3 and Twit shows I know and love into this and presto, it sits in the background and saves dated shows to a folder Windows Media Center can see.  Solved #2

Vuze + Status Mailer + Custom code (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.php?plugin=azstatusmailer):

For the source material you can find many sites out there that cover this well.  I was just after TV having a Netflix account to keep the more illicit activities at bay.  And I am sure even grabbing TV this way is leaving "gray area" and entering the red zone (something the Vikings couldn't do today), but for now, this works.  If you are wondering which service, I wanted to get TV TORRENTS, you should be able to figure it out from there.  Either way I had a few issues.  The site I used allowed me to manage my favorite shows and get an RSS feed of those shows as they were posted.  However that feed contained both nicely compressed copies I could play on my old Xbox+XBMC hardware anywhere in my house that looked great and were a third the size, and the huge HD uncompressed MKV files of the exact same show.  So if I were to simply sick Vuze on the RSS feed, I would be grabbing 2 versions of the same show AND all "full season" torrents that get posted to that list as well, not acceptable.  Here is where a little custom code, local web server, and visual studio 2010 come in, but here is also where a lot of people probably will still have a problem not having the ability to execute this, although, everything I mentioned is still free, and I can provide you with the code if asked nicely (would have posted it, but blogger isn't a fan of the elusive code block, looks like that requires some tinkering also). The code basically sucks in the RSS from said service, checks the enclosure size and file format, and eliminates all mkv and files over 800mb, then spits out a cleaned RSS I can use in Vuze.

Next comes Status Mailer.  A nice Vuze plugin I can use to email me when a show is downloaded from the service via email, which having my phone next to me at all times I can be notified while mucking about the house when a show is ready for my viewing pleasure.  I use my gmail's SMTP settings to do the heavy lifting, send a message from me to me on their servers.

Finally I set Vuze to auto-download this code cleaned feed, and I have a system that outshines anything Tivo or anybody else for that matter has to offer.  All files are downloaded and saved to a central media server that can be viewed from any TV in the house, just in time for the Fall seasons to begin.

This has been a several year project, I won't lie.  It shouldn't be that hard to get setup since others can avoid the trial and error, but it honestly is where TV should be by now.  I actually miss ads a little, and I do wish broadcasters would get their head out of their respective ends and offer a service that is ala-cart and fee based, but the nice part about this setup is it is very cheap, and highly adaptable as things come around.

I also finished tweaking a home power monitoring setup and wrote another program to sort and backup all my pictures to Picasa, but I will save those for another day.

Feel free to comment, ask questions, etc. (yes I know nobody reads these, I am not delusional, well....)