Am I the only person who finds "smart" Internet-enabled tv to be totally underwhelming?
The range of tv/movies/games is poor unless you pay a premium, typing in URLs takes forever and everything, including software updates, seems to move at glacial speeds.
Apart from the buffering-prone BBC iPlayer, it seems to having nothing going for it at all. Was I expecting too much from it?
"Make me a baby!
Make me a star!
Leave my coffin slightly ajar!"
- Lesley Gore
Depends on your internet service and the services available on your TV. I've got Netflix on mine (a Samsung LCD), and that alone is worthwhile; software updates take a few minutes, but no better or worse than updating a Blu-ray player or a video game console (I have cable broadband, which rates about 6Mbps downstream). Typing in search terms on YouTube using the TV is a little chore, but if I browse with my computer and add the videos I want to watch to my favorites list, I can quickly access them on my TV.
The Pay-per-view type services like Blockbuster, Vudu or CinemaNow, streaming music services like Pandora, and all those other apps available on Samsung's service don't particularly interest me, but it's nice to know they're there if I need them. I usually watch TV with my laptop at arm's reach, so that's probably why I don't find myself using those features, but I could imagine that someone who isn't like that might find it useful to sign onto Facebook or check traffic on Google Maps using their TV.
But while not exactly an "internet" aspect of the Smart TV, the feature of it that does get the most mileage from me is the Media Player, which allows me to stream movies from my network PC; the Samsung is compatible with a lot of file formats (more compatible, I've found, than other brands of connected TVs and even Samsung Blu-ray players). I use it just as often as I do my cable TV connection.
So while these features can be found in current Blu-ray players or set-top boxes like the WDTV Live, I think it's neat that they're integrated into my TV from the get-go.
Perhaps LG's offerings are still in their infancy. No Pandora in the UK sadly, thanks to the greed of our music industry, which deserves to die if only for its lack of foresight.
Netflix has only just arrived in the UK and has already been castigated for the poor range of movies it offers. LG don't supply it via TV as yet.
Playing media from an external drive via a Blu-Ray player is something of an advance, given the amount of time I used to spend burning discs.
I'll stick with Kickass torrents and my laptop for now.
"Make me a baby!
Make me a star!
Leave my coffin slightly ajar!"
- Lesley Gore