[mythtv-users] Some notes on Google TV

[Brian Wood]

On Monday, November 15, 2010 12:57:02 pm Brad Templeton wrote:
> On 11/15/2010 11:44 AM, Travis Tabbal wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Brad Templeton
> > 
> > <brad+myth at templetons.com <mailto:brad%2Bmyth at templetons.com>> 
wrote:
> >     That's a bit of work.  While Android is linux based, android
> >     apps are JVM based, only  a very few blessed apps (like the
> >     web browser etc.) get to be in C.      So it means writing a
> >     frontend in a language that compiles to Java.    You aren't
> >     going to write your video playback in java, but I have to
> >     presume the GTV platform, which I have not examined, has APIs
> >     to stream videos in the GTV way (including their OSD stuff
> >     etc.)
> > 
> > That's not entirely correct. You can write apps in C on Android,
> > you need Java for the UI, but they provided an NDK for that. It's
> > basically JNI. So if you have a clean C library you can easily
> > attach a Java UI to it with those tools. It does lock you to the
> > hardware, but as they are mostly ARM right now, that's not so bad.
> > And you could include JNI libraries for other platforms if you
> > needed to. I'm not sure it's really worth it, but if GTV takes
> > off, it might be a nice thing to have around. For myself, GTV
> > doesn't seem to offer anything I can't do with Myth, that I care
> > about anyway. Some of the streaming stuff is mildly interesting,
> > but I get issues streaming on my internet connection. I'd rather
> > do downloads/recordings/rips.
> > 
> > 
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> 
> Thanks for the correction on the C apps.
> 
> I think it is true right now that there is not much more in GTV than
> Myth, but I think, unless Google fails at this, that this will change
> quite a bit as Android apps are written for the GTV and an app
> ecology develops.  Rumours are of a lot of TV and STB vendors
> integrating GTV.
> 
> However, there is still a list of things in GTV that Myth does not do
> that make it interesting.  To sum them up:
> 
> a) Play of various for-pay streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon
> VOD etc.
> b) Access to data from some cable/sat STB/DVRs, including listings
> data, current stored recordings
> c) Ability to control said STB/DVRs both to queue recordings, play
> recordings and issue remote control commands over IP
> d) Ability to do pass-through of HDMI video streams with
> modification, including placing OSD on top of stream, zooming/PIP
> etc.
> e) Integrated search over may sources of video and audio
> f) Integrated queue combining recordings and RSS videocast feeds
> g) Better integration with web browser, with web pages having ability
> to offer feeds, and interact with GTV.
> 
> E, F and G can be added to MythTV.   I think so can B and C.   D may
> be difficult and A would require linux players for these pay
> services.

I don't think you will ever see that. What Netflix does not want is your 
being able to make a recording of the content, and Linux, being open, 
will of course allow you to do that. They want a "protected path" for 
the video all the way through, including the OS. The Linux-based devices 
that can do Netflix apparently use a proprietary chip to handle the DRM.

(Actually I'd guess Netflix couldn't care less if you record things, but 
the studios who own the material do seem to care, and thus won't make 
material available to Netflix unless they comply with their wishes)

That's the reason I allow a Windows machine in my garage. It's running 
PlayOn (which requires Windows), and exports everything (including 
Netflix and Amazon VOD) as a UPnP server.

Of course there is nothing preventing me from recording the component 
output of a UPnP player with an HD-PVR, but I guess they haven't figured 
that out yet.

But why would I want to record something I can watch any time I want to? 
Let Netflix store things, and save me money and power.