Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the post in that in the long history of the "TV-Internet convergence" starting with MS's WebTV in the 80s most people viewed the TV as a tool to browse the web. That's why they failed because, as most people know, the TV watching and Web browsing experiences are quite different.

Then, there's the problem of the input device. Ever enter a movie name for search using the TiVo remote, AFAIK the best currently available? It's a pain. Now, one thing Google TV gets absolutely right is that your phone will be your secondary interaction device for your TV.

The real interesting question here is: will applications on the Google TV set-top-box be able to access the tuner and EPG functions. TiVo has a nice SDK for their boxes for years now, the reason you never heard of it because they don't allow apps to access these features out of fear from content providers. If you can write Android apps running on the STB that can access the video stream, now that would be super, but I don't expect to see this anytime soon.

"will applications on the Google TV set-top-box be able to access the tuner and EPG function"

Only of the TV and this would only work with "Over the air" tv. In the US most of us receive our TV and guide via our cable or satellite box and tune via that mechanism. Google TV and competing products have no easy way of accessing that data (the guide data and tuning).

There's some hacky ways of doing it but nothing really integrated.

I know :-) I work on developing new TV experiences for STBs for one of the two major STB manufacturers in the US. What I meant was: currently the Google TV box is just a means to get Internet content, called "over the top" in Cable TV parlance (because it's not controlled by the cable companies). If Google TV just does this, it'll be doomed like other systems because it will not be able to compete with cable STBs.

An interesting thing can happen if Google does partner with a cable provider to also add cable TV functionality to the box. I heard they've already partnered with Time-Warner for trials. That would be another TiVo-like system, but, of course, much more open. I see little chance of them persuading the cable guys to let their apps fiddle with the content, though. But who knows, it's Google.

Dish Network is listed as a partner and will be releasing a STB with this technology. If that goes well it won't take long for other providers to jump on board too.

That's just not really the case.

There's almost no way this makes it into a terrestrial cable box outside of a few trial markets. Or with a few small cable providers. I say this as someone who spent 4 years working for a large cable co building software that runs on cable boxes.

There's a bunch of reasons but here's two.

1. The large cable co's aren't generally going to deploy software controlled by a 3rd party. Microsoft has spent years banging their head against the wall that is the large telco with little success.

2. Cable already has a mature cable box focused software stack standard called tru2way which is already getting more traction then Android likely ever will in cable STB space.

The cable space is not normal and they don't make what appear to be rational sw decisions to the internet crowd.

Dish is an outlier and doing everything they can to compete but I wounldn't even count on them going into wide deployment with this.

This will live on CE devices, not cable and satellite STBs.

I have a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2250 and Windows 7, which I use with the cheapest basic cable package Comcast has -no STB, basically just analog and HD Clear QAM of the local channels. Upon installation, Windows scans your signal and asks your ZIP code and service provider, and that's it- the EPG is set up and works great. Hardly what I'd call 'hacky'. If Microsoft can maintain a database and have it work flawlessly, I don't see why Google couldn't...

Getting EPG data is not a big deal, but may be costly if you plan to sell services based off it, e.g. a single Tribune (EPG data monopoly in the US) EPG data access costs around $10K. However, if you are developing apps for non-commercial purposes, e.g. open source, you can get this data for $20/year at http://www.schedulesdirect.org/.

The real problem is to access the video stream. Currently this is viewed to be illegal (see the lawsuit in 2001 that pretty much sank ReplayTV, http://www.eff.org/cases/newmark-v-turner).

I'm guessing Microsoft has gotten a licensing deal with Tribune to get and share the EPG data for Windows Media Center. As far as the video stream, I wonder then how Microsoft/Hauppauge get away with it?

You're only getting access to the unencrypted channels. (and generally I believe only SD?)

The vast majority of Comcast's channels and content can't be accessed without a cable card or cable box.

Yes- I'm getting SD analog channels + HD Local Channels (which the FCC mandates they carry in the clear), although there are CableCard PC tuners out there, and from what I've heard, CableCards are available from Comcast (I just refuse to pay $50/mo, or whatever it is, to get the digital package). I also use my Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender to watch stuff I've DVR'd in the bedroom. I don't see how this is really doing anything different than what ReplayTV was doing. Maybe it's just that there aren't enough people doing it to have drawn the ire of the media companies...

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