Category: Tech

Bought and sold

I’m sold on the Logitech Revue with Google TV. When it was introduced I doubted the concept of putting a full keyboard in the lap of a TV watcher, and I was unsure about integrating cable TV, but it all works and works well. But it’s complicated, and doesn’t really sing until you customize it. Once I realized it could do IR remote control throughout the room, and not just the RF for the keyboard, my last reservation gave way, because now the volume controls work with my ancient (8-year-old) Kenwood THX Dolby Digital receiver. Logitech’s hardware is great, as always, and only a few software improvements are needed:

  • Add an app for Amazon Instant Video similar to the Netflix player
  • Fix surround sound for Netflix and Amazon
  • Rework the UI

That’s pretty much it for me. For most people, internet TV is the killer app, and the Roku HD for $60 is all they need for hardware. But if you’re accustomed to sitting with a netbook or laptop with the TV on, the Logitech Revue is a good deal for $200.

Web TV returns

I have a couple of posts that are almost done, but I have to sit at my desktop computer to finish them. For one there’s audio work to do, for the other there’s scanning. But right now I’m neither there nor in my usual 11-12 weeknight spot on the porch, I’m downstairs in front of the projector screen. The Daily Show is playing in the corner while I type this. I never had a use for picture-in-picture, the most oversold feature in TV’s of a bygone age, but being able to browse the web while having TV in the corner, while sitting on the couch ten feet from a 65-inch image, is surprisingly better than having a netbook in my lap and having to look up at a regular TV. For a web TV player I prefer the Roku, but it is neat having the Logitech Revue combine online video with cable TV and web browsing.

Tempting

Logitech Revue now only $200? No! Must… remain… loyal… to… Roku!

Follow-up: I’m typing this on a Logitech Revue with Google TV. As many others have said, it’s an interesting but problematical product. For example, Amazon Instant Video requires getting into the Amazon site with Chrome, instead of having a custom player. At first it thought I had a bad Internet connection and video quality was horrible, but I seem to have fixed that by going to an SD source then back to HD. Neither Amazon Instant Video nor Netflix have surround sound. The Roku player does this fine, extracting the center and surround channels for Dolby Pro Logic from the stereo channels. I’m not hung up on having true 5.1 Dolby Digital for streaming video, Pro Logic is good enough, but knowing it can be done, and very nicely, and not having it work is annoying. Another complaint is that it doesn’t seem to be able to find the Logitech Squeezebox Server that’s in the house. This is ridiculous, being a Logitech product! The Squeezebox Radio and Squeezeplay programs do this, so why no MySqueezebox support for the Revue?

Further follow-up: I’m still not sure if Squeezebox support is built-in, but if it is the server needs to be on the same IP subnet as the Revue, which is silly. There should be an option to enter the address. Much more consistency is needed between the various video players. Having to use Amazon’s web interface is particularly annoying. I’d like the option of using either that or one like the Netflix app has. It should also be easier to edit the home menu. But still, now that I’ve been using it for a few hours, I’m seeing more of what Google was thinking, integrating with cable TV instead of cutting the cable.

There’s a big Android update coming supposedly in a couple of months, and if I keep Logitech Revue I would expect it to fix the lack of surround sound on Amazon and Netflix. At the moment I’m on the fence about keeping the Revue, whereas I never had any doubts about its audio cousin the Squeezebox Radio, or the Roku player. But now that I see it’s working well with the FiOS DVR, and I am, after all, blogging with it right now, I’ll probably hang onto it in the hopes the software improves.

A blogger’s final post

I started using WordPress in September, 2006 with the then-current version, 2.0.3. A bit over a year ago I was curious about the differences between WordPress and the previous leading blogging software for self-hosted sites, Movable Type. (Mark Evanier uses an outdated version of Movable Type.) I found this item by a blogger named Derek K. Miller. I was particularly interested in Miller’s discussion of a WordPress plugin that generates static pages, instead of using a WordPress caching plugin as a way to speed up sites on shared hosting services. (I later decided to cache.)

Miller was a writer worth reading, so I checked out some of his other posts. He was a musician, husband, and father, living in Vancouver. Reading Derek K. Miller’s posts, it quickly became apparent that he was a very sick man, and he was being treated for advanced colon cancer.

Derek, you have a big and loyal following — fellow musicians, fellow Vancouver residents, and others whose lives are affected in one way or another by cancer. Because of that I didn’t link to your blog, and I didn’t contact you, but for the past year I’ve been following penmachine.com. I am saddened to learn that you died two days ago.