Garden pleasures
Sony, of course, curates its own online walled-garden on TVs and Blu-ray players, the Sony Entertainment Network. And indeed there’s an icon for it here. However, this only connects to the company’s movies and music on demand services, Dailymotion and a couple of Z-grade streaming services. You’ll find a better selection of content on its own hardware.
Google Play store access from the set top box
Obviously, more content is inevitable, but will the system attract anywhere near the level of development that the main Android ecosystem enjoys? Google TV’s head of global distribution Suveer Kothari is optimistic. He insisted at a pre-launch confab that “a host of applications would be forthcoming, including a rash of multi-screen gaming apps.” He may well be right. But buying into Google TV right now still represents a leap of faith.
Mix and match: Google TV has some way to go before it replaces alternative content portals and broadcast sources
Verdict
Overall, Sony has produced a powerful, well-equipped internet-enabled media player here, and the applications dedicated to the Google TV OS are slicker than a Brylcreemed ferret. But the fact is Google TV’s open internet still looks pretty barren when compared to the playing fields available behind the closed doors of Panasonic’s Viera Connect portal or Samsung’s Smart Hub. ®
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COMMENTS
Nice remote
I like the remote. Not so sure about the box. I think these devices would be a lot more popular if they played anything that was thrown at them (mkv, avi, asp, mp3, aac, dts, ac3 etc.) via a native DLNA client AND offered apps to other services. Perhaps you can build it up to be something like that especially when XBMC turns up. At that point it may actually be worth a sniff.
Burning the £200 would be more entertaining than buying this.
Re: Boo
You're saying that the BBC don't have the clout to stand up to the rights owners? Or that the BBC bosses are just too pusillanimous? Shame on it either way,
Potentially very nice but XMBC is needed
There are catchup plugins for XBMC, the Android port is progressing nicely and would make me buy one.
One problem - due to the way Android works platform specific hardware support is needed.
Since Marvell are the chip manufacturer and do the low level software I am going to write to Daniel Yoo (corporate communications manager) at yoo@marvell.com to suggest that focussing 1-2 engineers on this task could increase sales considerably.
Then all that Sony needs to do is add XBMC to the list of accessible apps or even include it by default.
Bit pricey
But if these came down to around the £100 mark and the XBMC Android port is finished they could be pretty nice.
Assuming compatible UK catch-up TV of course.
