http://www.techradar.com/news/televisio ... le-1051893

True isn't it? Nearly went spare just trying to get Virgin's offerings to work at my mate's recently, and I use my PS3 for iPlayer and it's browser far more than games. I'm very tempted just to connect my netbook up to the TV and use it for nearly everything...

Setting everything up is really quite easy, use the right unit for each job and don't complicate things.

And this article from a tech journalist.

What he's getting at is the sheer amount of software/hardware that won't play nicely. Despite Sony's tragic history in such matters, I have to say the PS3 is pretty good in that regard.

His main gripe appears to be the number of controllers he has to use. Universal controllers have been available for over 15 years, and smart ones for almost as long.

Other hardware/software tech may still have teething difficulties and not work as a combined unit as he wants, but I still think this guy is over complicating things and making a mountain out of a molehill. Probably whinges in the kitchen that the toaster and hob don't communicate when he's making beans on toast.

Hmm, it isn't like that on my system...

The satellite receiver is built into the TV, so no extra fiddling around.

When I turn on the Apple TV, BluRay or DVD player, the TV automatically switches to the appropriate input. Nothing clever there, the last 2 TV sets (1990 and 2000) both did that as well. I'm not sure what the guy is talking about.

You'd be surprised how many TVs don't do that these days, mine doesn't, mate's doesn't, yet our old CRTs used to

As above, when i had a dvd player and CRT telly, the telly would switch to the appropriate input channel when I turned the dvd player on. Made things simple and easy. New TV and PS3 doesn't do that.

From what I have seen covering the department here that deals with TVs and set top boxes is that the biggest problem is the morons trying to use the things.

I know bugger all about any of the above, having never owned a TV or set top box of any description and generally not watching much TV, so if someone rings up and I am able to resolve their problem (invariably by reading verbatim to them from the relevant page in the manual) then they really are beyond contempt.

There _is_ a problem with TV reception on the whole, though. You have to admit that there is not a “one box does all” solution anymore. That went when cable/satellite TV started to appear.

1 - You can’t record one channel and watch another. You could with CHS, but the cable STBs put paid to that. Only later did this functionality start to appear, but, like many others, I saw this loss of convenience as annoying.

2 - Not all STBs can play all your media. Right now, I’m using my PS3 as a media playback device. I’m streaming video over the network from my main Mac elsewhere in the house. However, it does not stream anything bought from iTunes. For this I’d need an AppleTV (which would stream everything).

3 - HOWEVER, the AppleTV does not record. So for recordings, I have to use my PS3, and PlayTV which is a Freeview receiver. The issue with this is that it doesn’t pick up HD TV (it could if our HD Freeview standard was the same as other countries - but we have to be contrary, don’t we?). I can save recordings from the PS3 to my media server, but I have to put them through an encoding process as the files are .m2ts files, and the only thing I have that plays them back is Sony kit. These files are huge - crunching them down to mp4 files at least halves them in size. I can only do this with files smaller than 3GB as the PS3 can only read FAT32 drives, and those have a 3GB file limit. So those 3+ hour epics I record have to remain on the PS3.

4 - The number of remotes needed is staggering. One for the TV, one for the cable box, one for the PS3 and (if I had one), one for the AppleTV. Here’s the problem. Not all IR remotes are the same. One of the STBs we had used different kind of IR to the TV/DVD/Amp, so a universal remote would not be appropriate (they tend to cater for just the kind of IR that TV remotes use, not the more advanced data kind that some STBs use). The PS3 uses a BlueTooth remote. At a pinch, you’d need 3 remotes. One for the STB, one for the PS3, and a universal one for everything else.

So right now, we’re stuck in a strange land where there is no universal box. There is no one STB that does recording, outputs video streams to a media server for remote storage, plays DRM protected video (notably Apple’s FairPlay system). It is, frankly, a mess.

I am reminded by my parents that I have a stack of old VHS tapes with the original transmissions of Star Trek: TNG on them . It was easy back then to hoard stuff.

Okay, my four penn'orth...

We have two set-top PVRs (one Freeview, one Freesat).

Both have twin channels, meaning you can record two channels while watching a previous recording. We can also switch the TV to a different channel and watch that if we wish.

Our problem is the wiring needs sorting out. We need a new AV amp with HDMI, because currently we have the three inputs on the telly independent of each other!

When I switch on the upscaling DVD, the TV switches to the right input.

I think a problem is there are recognised standards but many manufacturers choose not to adhere to them. This means you may mix and match TVs, STBs, DVDs, BRs, etc, from different manufacturers but there's no guarantee they'll talk to each other beyond the official basic media standard. Theoretically, I can control a number of items from my TV controller, but only if they're from the same manufacturer and use their "special" connectivity protocol.

It's a mess, and seems set to get worse. Meanwhile, the way people watch media on a screen is changing apace!

I can't remember the last time I recorded anything, or what. Probably an episode of TNG or MASH, when I was working away from home in the early 90s. I didn't use the VHS recorder between about 92 and the time I threw it out, because it had spewed the backup battery over my hi-fi cabinet in '99.

I've never had a digital recorder - I tried the time-shifting function in Windows Media Player once, just to see how it worked, but never actually recorded anything.

To be honest, there is so little worth watching on TV these days and it is repeated so often, that there really isn't much point in recording anything. I guess I "watch" less than an hour of TV a week these days - a programme that I will actually try and get in front of the TV to watch, as opposed to sitting in the lounge, while the TV is on and the rest of the family are watching something.

And that is infuriating, I'll go into the lounge and they'll be watching TV and I'll ask what they are watching (a film or something) and they will answer "I don't know, why are you asking!" They get offended, when I ask them what they are watching, they are just watching TV, it is irrelevant what they are watching.

TV tech is terrible - even amongst devices from the same company. We have two Sky boxes, both connected to our network at home, and both incapable of reading the other's HDs, let alone allowing us to watch anything on another telly or computer. Our Apple TVs do a decent job of streaming from our shared iTunes library, but don't handle BBC iPlayer, and although you can jump through hops to get iPlayer streaming from your 'phone or iPad, the quality's lousy, and anyway, what's the point? You may as well watch it on your phone or tablet.

Our main TV is 'internet ready' and that does allow iPlayer (yay!) but it's such a fugly process to get to it, you have to really want to watch whatever it is you neglected to record. The clever telly is also supposed to let you log into your Google Picasa account to view your photos (or Facebook, twitter etc…) but I gave up after nine login attempts through a sh1tty remote because, honestly, I can get to them far more easily through my ATV, iPad, laptop, phone etc…

There's a bewildering (and apparently irreconcilable) difference in volume between digital channels coming through the TV tuner and the Sky box, so if I switch the TV on when the Sky box has gone to sleep, there's a few seconds of ear-splitting noise until it wakes. I mean, seriously, every car radio I've had for the last 15 years has had the volume fade in and out when changing channels, but for some reason this level of technical sophistication is beyond TV manufacturers?? And don't get me started on expensive TVs that have crappy sound, headphone sockets that don't disconnect the internal speakers but are controlled by their own volume control buried in a sub-sub-menu somewhere, and non-variable audio outputs that are inaccessible if you mount the TV on a wall.

A universal remote (Harmony 650) has helped the multi-remote problem, but it doesn't cover everything - putting the TV into 'internet' mode for iPlayer still needs the original remote, for example - and if you need to have the original remotes knocking about, then a universal remote is just one more damn thing to have rattling around.

[LIFTED] TV; needs to be grabbed by the ears and shaken until it's brain rattles.

No TV here, just Firefox and adblock plus. No problem with compatibility, just chuck a DVD in the disc drive. No big screen though.

Oddly enough, my laptop speakers are amongst the best I've ever heard so the sound isn't too bad either.

I did see a quote.. I think it was from Sid Meier actually (noted games designer) somewhere along the lines of 'Because I have a tech job my friends ask me to set up their computers and other stuff. I believe that, recently, televisions have got to the point where they are harder to set up than computers'.

Jon

Maybe I'Ve been lucky, buying named brands, like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Humax for my stuff, because they all seem to "just work" together. The only one that was at all difficult to use and caused problems / consternation at home was the Apple TV. The rest of the family found it very difficult to use, although it does at least automatically switch the TV to the right input, when it is turned on.

That the f*ing thing can't be turned off, is more of a problem. I don't know what Apple were thinking. The only way to put it in off or stand-by is to yank the power cord! Using the "stand-by" menu option just turns off the DVI output, the Wi-Fi, disk drive and mainboard still run at full tilt!

At to controllers, I just have 2, the a Sony universal thing I bought back in the late 90s and the Apple Remote.