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Comment by ketralnis | Hacker News Reader

I owned the Logitech Google TV which I bought for about $300 early in its lifespan. After about a year they shipped some really bad updates to it that made it so slow that it was essentially unuseable and removed several key features, and then never shipped another update to it again. Logitech and Google both lost interest in it and after not long all of the apps like Netflix and even Google's own Youtube stopped working because of changes to the underlying services.

Will this be different? I doubt it. I'm not putting more money into Google hardware to find out that they'll break it and then lose interest.

Meanwhile my second gen Apple TV is working great.

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My Nvidia Shield TV from 2015 is still doing great

likewise... been exceedingly happy with mine... though I'm on my third remote, went with a non-nvidia one this time.

Same. This recharger + 4 battery set has been invaluable with my remote.

https://www.amazon.com/Lithium-Battery-Charger-Rechargeable-...

WHAT!!!!???? I did not know this existed! Thank you.

I prefer the remote control app instead, why find a remote when it can just be on your phone, y'know?

Because I can't feel the buttons with my thumb and have to look down, unlock my phone, switch to the right app, and then tap. It's a horrible experience.

Your phone is fine until you want to pause the movie to answer the door, but it takes tens of seconds just to reconnect to the TV dongle.

Or when you want to pause said movie because you're getting a call, which prevents you from pausing the movie. Happens to me all the time while Chromecasting.

Yet another reason to avoid using phones for phone calls!

I use a wireless Xbox One S controller as a shield remote. It works great; I also use it when streaming games from my PC to the TV. I tried the shield controller and was pretty unimpressed.

The newest nvidia remote is leaps and bounds better than the last.

I recently bought one of the new generation remotes. Order of magnitude better and only $30 (has a backlight and mix still!)

That's the crapshoot, isn't it.

Would you have been able to know in 2015 that the Nvidia product was going to be supported, but the Logitech one would be abandoned?

Real question actually. I doubt it, but that's a weakly held opinion.

Your chances are better when you can control the firmware yourself.

But ... DRM.

Has logitech ever been been good at updates in general? Why would a peripheral company even be good at home entertainment? I'd agree that Nvidia's connection to home entertainment is just as vague, but they still sound much more reliable to me than Logitech.

And as much as people love bringing up Google deprecating stuff, I still trust them far more on updating this than any outside company.

Logitech has been in the home entertainment space for a long, long time (with their Harmony remotes, which did need software to make them work). In 2015 I'd certainly have placed more trust in a Logitech device in that space than an Nvidia one.

As a Squeezebox owner, I disagree. Their tech was good, but then the company that made them, Slim Devices, was acquired by Logitech. Everything got rebranded and then... they lost interest.

Which is a shame, but the Squeezbox world was perfect in that hardware and software worked perfectly together and it could integrate with services like Spotify, but you could actually also use it with your own music. Try that now, to have a central multi-room system for audio that is not dependent on external services.

To answer the original question: I don't trust any tech company that tries to blur the lines between physical products and digital services. That is, I don't trust any of them anymore.

Are these the Harmony Remotes that required Silverlight?

IIRC, in the beginning they required a desktop application to be installed, and later Logitech released a new Silverlight-based version of said application on the web.

Of course, the application needed to communicate with the remote via USB, which I don't think was natively possible in the web browser at that time.

Logitech remotes have a greeat (and well deserved) reputation.

The harmony programming software is terrible. Thankfully you only need to fight with it until you get things set up nicely. The kicker for me is the fact that it asks you every time you use it if you'd recommend it to friends and family. I made it a point to say "no" every time.

Harmony remotes are merely the least bad option.

Probably not. In fact Nvidia dumped the Nvidia Shield tablet but kept released new tv devices recently.

Spec-wise, that tablet also held up for longer than expected, even after being discontinued. Although that's also saying something about the abysmal Android tablet market.

The Nvidia shield is still amazing although I'll chime in saying my OG rechargeable remote has also failed. The new one takes AAA batteries. Bleh.

> The new one takes AAA batteries. Bleh.

That's preferable in my opinion, because then you can just keep rechargeable AAA batteries on hand and switch them out. Cheaper than proprietary un/removeable rechargeable batteries, more accessible than those coin batteries. (At least here)

Sounds like this deprecates it though :(

https://9to5google.com/2020/09/30/android-tv-replaced-google...

5 years is really not that long..

My Chromecast from 2013 still works.

I bought two of them and loved them for a couple years, at least for the content it opened up.

However casting was unreliable. I never figured it out but I remember posting on HN about it years ago and other people had the same complaint.

Then the YouTube app on my android phone would hang or crash. My Android phone kinda rotted after 4 years or so. I had a dedicated one for chromecast.

Now I just use a wireless keyboard and an Ubuntu box connected to the TV. Works quite well, I can get all the apps and content I want through the browser.

Are you able to do Netflix in HD?

Yes, although the frame rate really sucks. I think that is a separate issue though. (You really notice it on action scenes)

I don't see why there would be any problem with Netflix in HD in the browser on Ubuntu ?

This PC is also from 2012 or so, so I think I should upgrade and maybe the frame rate will improve... I haven't isolated the issue. It's fine for most shows.

But I suspect Netflix encoding quality also sucks, because most people don't care as much as I do, so I haven't debugged it.

> I don't see why there would be any problem with Netflix in HD in the browser on Ubuntu ?

Because there isn't a browser released on Linux that has the right DRM capabilities to run Netflix's DRM, and thus Netflix on Linux is limited to less-than-HD, hence why I asked if you were able to get it working.

I just use Firefox on Ubuntu and it seems fine? Doesn't seem SD. Maybe I'm missing something -- is there a way to check?

The thing I notice is more the frame rate than the resolution. The resolution looks HD to me -- I can tell the difference with offline videos.

Hm I suppose it is possible I am getting some degraded quality from Netflix. I always thought it was because of the old PC and/or their bad encoding quality.

I mainly watch non-demanding video on Netflix, like a cooking show or standup comedy ... YouTube is definitely HD for me.

https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/netflix-caps-video-qu...

The last time I checked, Netflix was capped at 720p on non-Android Linux machines, but it's been a while since I've actually checked. I think the sentiments and conclusions in this thread[1] reflect the state of streaming HD content from Netflix on Linux, still.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/c26pc0/netflix_1080...

720p is High Definition by definition.

You got me there.

I use a useragent changer to look like Edge and that seems to be all it takes to get the full-scale HD on Linux. Doesn't seem like Netflix go out of their way to disable it, though useragent sniffing is... Something you should never be doing.

Interesting. I'm going to give this a shot, thanks.

Search for the video "Test Patterns". There's several different resolutions and framerates some with HDR too. That should help you figure out what you're getting.

Mine still "work" but something changed around 2017 and they became so unreliable I don't bother any more.

The Chromecast to Device connection is lost after about 10 minutes, making all controls not work. Can't pause, skip, select a new episode, etc.

The fix is seemingly random - maybe 50% of the time recasting from the app (Netflix, Hulu, etc) works. 30% of the time mucking around in the Google Home app will work, and 20% of the time I just have to unplug it.

Near as I can tell it's agnostic of client device, casting app, Chromecast gen (I've got 3 different versions around), or router.

We've kindof just given up and gone back to Roku.

Had the same problem. The solution seemed to be a stronger WIFI signal. Adding an extension cable to move the chromecast further away from the TV prevents the tv from blocking signals.

I had a similar problem, turns out my router was dropping bonjour/upnp packets. I think that was preventing my devices from properly discovering what services were available on my network. I never found a solution for the problem (OpenWRT+WRT3200ACM), but bought a different router and the problem magically went away (OpenWRT+R7800).

Could be any number of reasons why you are having issues unfortunately.

Interesting. Thanks for the information. Might be a project for a cold night this winter, or we just are pretty happy with Rokus now.

I'm certain the onset of the problem didn't coincide with a new router, and I've gone through a couple since it started so I assumed that wasn't the issue.

Yeah, who knows. In my case it worked for 1 to 72 hours after rebooting the router, then would drop 100% of the packets until the next reboot. It took some time to figure out what was going on.

I had the same problem, including the deteriorating performance when it used to be reliable (I don't know if the timing is the same but sounds about right), and the router fixed it for me as well. Maybe there were protocol / firmware changes that increased the demand on the router?

I went from a bargain router to a nicer mesh setup this spring and the problem just vanished overnight.

The fix for this is supposed to be go to into your Android settings and turn off battery optimization for Google Home and each app you cast.

It didn't work for me but loads of people reported success with it. It's a shame because I loved the Chromecast but had the exact same issue as you describe.

The only issue I have with OG Chromecasts is that YouTube channels with 1080p60 videos tend to make the system stutter like crazy. Other than that the original Chromecasts I bought still work pretty much flawlessly.

The 1080p60 bug can be fixed by cutting the plastic lid off the Chromecast and adding a fan.

> The 1080p60 bug can be fixed by cutting the plastic lid off the Chromecast and adding a fan.

I can't tell if you are serious.

I can imagine circumstances where this would work, but... they involve the chromecast having a temp sensor and software to lower the clock speed to prevent overheating, resulting in skipped frames, but at the same time somehow not be able to lower the bitrate of the video stream.

Seems... mildly improbable.

Pretty much every single processor made in the past decade, if not two, has a core temperature sensor along with overheating regulation. Even the Raspberry Pi.

So the overheating regulation is part of the firmware, rather than whatever software is running?

Typically embedded linux systems use the linux CPU frequency scaler, which uses various inputs including CPU temperature to scale the CPU clock frequency.

There is an extra element here... All of what you said is true, but the actual issue is not with the video decoding, but with the thread that feeds data from the network to the video decoder. That thread has some long running stuff running on it, which causes the task to enquire data to the video decode hardware to be delayed.

It used to work years ago, but as more and more software bloat has been added to run in this thread, the delays have increased to the point of stutteryness.

Some videos are jumpy because they have fewer seconds buffered in the hardware decoder.

So, in that scenario, how does the fan help?

Fan leads to the CPU throttling less, so the long-running events on the main thread run faster and delay the tasks that load data into the video decoder less.

This infuriates me. Google must know about this, and can surely lower the bitrate for these old Chromecasts, yet have chosen not to. Every time I encounter this on my old Chromecasts it reminds me of how they ruined the Nexus 7 with its final major os update. Blatantly trying to get people to buy new devices. Do no evil, my arse.

Chromecast Gen 1 never supported 1080p@60 and was advertised upto 1080p@30 or 720p@60. So I don't know how is it okay to expect a device that continues to function after 7 years(I have 2 still functioning) to support something it was never intended to in the first place.

Can't YouTube serve up the videos in formats that the original Chromecasts can consume? Surely either YouTube can know which Chromecast is making the request, and serve up an appropriate quality, or allow the Chromecast to request a lower quality version of the video. To be clear, I don't expect to be able to see videos in higher quality than was available at the time of purchase. I expect to be able to 'watch YouTube' as was advertised on the device's box.

I have an occasional issue where the chromecast just doesn't show up on wifi. You have to power it off and then on again. Has happened with a couple of different ones in a couple of different houses (i.e. different wifi networks).

i feel so sorry for your wireless network. They used an ancient chip that totally soaks airtime.

I hear you. Google nerfed my Nest Hello last year without explanation, while letting my other Nest products pretty much die on the vine, even if I want to pay $X/month to enable my multiple $150+ cameras to be useful.

There is just so much wasted potential there. We have a "legit" security system that my wife wants to turn on expensive $50/month monitoring on, and I have been fending her off saying look we have all these motion detectors and cameras in the house, Google will pull this all together and do it 10x better, but it seems that day is never coming.

Remember that Android TV and Google TV (the original one) are completely different products.

Reason Shield TV is still doing great is because they didn't cut any corners and future proofed in a way no one expected it from nvidia. It's great. It complely replaced my 6700K + GTX 1080 powered HTPC because streaming games from my PC to shield was easier than using windows from 10 ft away.

I was a little worried that it stops getting updates, but now I just have no reason to upgrade it because it's getting all the updates and performing great. I got the new dongle tho because it cost as much as new remote for shield...

Only weak points of 2015 shield to me: game pad was trash, remote control was large and yet easy to lose and bend.

As far as I understand, a second generation Apple TV can't even play Youtube videos.

I thought that it didn't play certain resolution YouTube, as even the newer generations only just got 4k support for due to codec issues?

No, YouTube does not work at all on the second generation Apple TV since 2015.

While (I think) it has rudimentary YouTube support, it does not have an AppStore, or any sort of “ecosystem” around it that would need as much maintenance as an Android device or the APLE TVs running fully fledged tvOS these days, so I don’t think it’s an entirely fair comparison. In the UK it doesn’t have iPlayer, which is probably the most popular VoD app after YouTube.

My Dell laptop still works great.

I'd blame Logitech in that case, because my 1st gen Chromecast is still going strong to this day.

The Google TV predates the Chromecast by about a year. It's probably why Google lost interest in it. That's my point: Google's product ADHD will happily drop your chromecast too, especially with the launch of this new Google TV product.

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