LG Google TV Review
by Jason Inofuentes on October 2, 2012 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Google TV
- Media Streamer
- Media Player
- LG
- Honeycomb
- Android
- LG L9
- LG G2
God help us, if there’s one area where expectations may never be met, it’s in the ongoing-but-never-here revolution of television. Every year we hear about the next big thing in television, and every year no one ends up throwing their TVs out the window to make room for something new. Even the HD revolution was so tepid as to require a federal program to provide digital tuners for those unable or unwilling to replace their aging tube TVs. Sure, flat panel TV prices dropped considerably, but all that served to do was make profiting from the television business all the more difficult.
The value adds that have been thrown our way since then have been lackluster. Increasing refresh rates were a thing for a bit. Then there was 3D. And now Smart TVs. Of all those, Smart TVs are the only ones with the possibility of truly altering how we watch television on a day to day basis. And for a lot of reasons, they’re still likely to fail. Too many cooks stir the pot in the US television industry, and until someone manages to pare that down to a scant few, we’re not likely to get the on-demand, always ready, universal experience that this pastime has been aching for.
Google TV isn’t it. Apple TV isn’t it. Cable company DVRs certainly aren’t it. It’s not even your Roku, nor my beloved HTPC. So, that’s the bad news; now here’s the good news. They’re all trying. Smartphones had been around for a long time before this recent explosion of the market. The earliest Palms and BlackBerrys were anemic and dreadful to use for more than messaging, but they were just a start. LG remains committed to this space, and though they continue to explore their own Smart TV alliance sans Google TV, they are committed to fielding Google TVs. Samsung has recently joined its own Smart TV efforts with Google TV wares. And Google itself has extended its reach by adding television services to its Google Fiber initiative—a small experiment, no doubt, but one that could serve as an example for removing traditional big telcos from the TV experience.
For now, though, we have to take a close look at what we have. LG’s Google TV is an attractive TV, with plenty of features, and the promise of software updates well into the future. Though performance feels sluggish at times, the hardware platform is sound and capable. And at $1099, while it’s not an inconsiderable amount of money, it’s comparable to similarly specced sets. But is it worth the risk to tie yourself to this TV, when a non-Smart TV could be had for much less and paired with a $100 box that apes the functionality of this set? Only if LG holds up their end of the bargain.
What Microsoft needed in order to provide the experience we have with the 360 was a hardware platform prepared to meet any challenge it faced seven years hence, and the willingness to devote developer resources to make sure the hardware was always running the software users wanted with frequent updates. Whatever Google has in store for Google TV in the future, if LG keeps their first foray into the Google TV space current with software releases, then there’s a lot of potential here. We hope LG will meet their commitment.
If that kind of trust is too rich for your blood, then a wait and see approach could pay off. Then again, whatever set you have now, you’re probably just one Ben Franklin away from trying what’s next.
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cjb110 - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Having recently bought Sony's standalone box, I'd agree. I think its more powerful and better than SmartTV's. But it needs more focus from GoogleChrome is good, but its a different version than now on the tablets/phones, and missing useful things like page sync.
And I know Google/Apple want us to live in clouds, but until they launch all their cloud products worldwide, people need alternatives...so I think Google should have put more effort into allowing people to access content they already have. DLNA/UPNP would have been good.
Also their Play Store is a little to restrictive, the OS is better at handling apps built for other devices than they give it credit for, allowing apps to be installed with a warning would expand the ecosystem instantly.
JasonInofuentes - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
I'll agree across the board on this, though some of it isn't Google's fault. Google doesn't want to be on the hook for providing every aspect of the experience, and one piece they've always left to partners is the DLNA/UPNP component. I'm pretty sure all their devices are capable, but they leave it to the partners to provide an app to handle this content, and most do, eagerly, so that they can rebrand it and confuse the market. By calling it AllPlay or some such, they create FUD that their device will only work with similarly branded devices.And you're definitely right, the Play Store does have a lot more potential and loosening a few of the filters could go a long way. But then again, look at how many apps these days rely on portrait mode. Or have a very touch centric UI (I'm thinking particularly of touch and drag gestures). It could get really messy. Instead, simply green flagging apps could work, but then you need testers.
Thanks for the comments.
GotThumbs - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Even Though this is a break from the norm, it is based on current and upcoming technology. Down the road, I see the TV as the main interface for accessing phone, web, and home digital content. Every house will have its own server and devices will link to it for content or management. Items such as coffee makers will be wireless and link to your server for software updates as well as programming.I have an LG 5700 Smart TV. Even Though it does not use the same Google TV skin, I've found it very easy to watch the movies stored on my server. While the web browsing is sluggish and limited, I think this is a good start and look forward to the next generations of smart TV's that will be more powerful. Adding a touch screen capability for smaller tv's in kitchens would be cool as well.
Overall, I think the concept is good and now it's just a matter of getting up to speed for those of us who will put the technology to use sooner than the general public.
prophet001 - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
I know next to nothing about color spaces or monitor calibration.However, based on your definition of color gamut shouldn't the screen perform better? It looks to me like barely half of the color space is reproduced by this television.
How is that a "good" color gamut?
cheinonen - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
On the CIELUV chart that Jason uses (which is more accurate than the more common CIE xy chart), the goal isn't to cover the entire gamut, but to correctly align the color points of the TV with the points on the inner triangle (the black lines with + symbols on the points that you can see in the chart).While the TV might have a larger native color gamut than the HDTV/sRGB target, HDTV content doesn't support that larger gamut, so if it were to use it, you would actually be seeing colors that are incorrect and distorted from the intended targets. This is what you can actually see with some OLED screens on phones, as they produce a much larger gamut than the sRGB standard, but don't have the capability to correctly map sRGB content to their correct locations.
So in an ideal world, we would cover the entire NTSC gamut (which is what the full CIELUV color area represents), but we don't have content that can use that, or display technology that can display all of it, so we use a subset of it. The important thing is to map to that subset correctly, as otherwise colors appear distorted and unnaturally bright and vivid.
JasonInofuentes - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
+1 to Chris, our resident displays expert. Thanks.prophet001 - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Great explanation. Thank you very much :)org - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
I have despaired of getting a capable, polished local media/streaming box that I just have to plug. I have now an HTPC but it is not satisfactory for all the things I want.I preordered the OUYA, that should get close to want I want once I install XBMC on it.A controller will probably not be as good as a good remote control, but it will be definitely better than a bad one. And as an extra, I can play games on it. Not that into Android games, but a SNES emulator would be awesome. I can even play PC games with a desktop streaming solution like Splashtop. Maybe install a tv tuner on my file server and use Plex Server + XBMC...
I'm actually pretty excited!
JasonInofuentes - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
This, though, is why things like Google TV are such risky ventures. They need to make it truly plug and play so that it gets wide acceptance. But if it requires lots of tweaks on the user's part then it'll never spread. Plex and XBMC and even Windows Media Center are all great products, that require quite a bit from their users to work perfectly. It's the list of necessary user behaviors that has to be pared down for success. Good luck with the OUYA, though; let us know how it works out.Jason
cjs150 - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
The end result should be a system (whether standalone or as part of a TV I do not care) which plays everything whether stored on a NAS, streamed from the internet, DVD/Blu-ray or just ordinary TV - ideally you would throw cable into this as well but I have given up on cable companies ever seeing any sense.My perfect end result connects through high end AV equipment to deliver 5:1 surround sound and has one remote control for all.
Google TV is a long, long way from that but I have to accept that what I, as a geek, am willing to accept and what the average person wants are likely to be different. I can put up with separate boxes, funny file naming conventions etc. The average person wants something that just works - if it looks pretty as well that is a bonus.
Apart from any optical drive, it is already relatively easy to build a system that is completely silent, capable of ripping all CD/DVD and Blu-ray on to storage, will transmit 1 or 2 HD streams that are very nearly identical to watching directly from a Blu-ray player. Sound quality is good, TV capture (apart from cable) has been pretty good for years.
The problems with such a system are (a) software and (b) remote control.
The software issue revolve around lack of compatability with file formats, the ability to play blu-rays, file naming conventions to name just the big areas. I like both XBMC and WMC, both have strengths and weaknesses but neither are ideal because neither really take into account how we will consume media in the future. Simple example, I want to watch a movie: it might be on a blu ray disc, it might be stored locally on a hard drive or on NAS or I might stream from Netflix, Amazon or one of several other providers or I might simply want to browse the web. I should be able to effortless move through the various options. Currently that is not easy unless you want to spent some time setting up the system and coding.
Remote controls are interesting. Both Sony and now LG have come up with something that has a lot of potential to act both as a traditional RC as well as a keyboard for web browsing etc. To really become very useful they need to look at the Logitech Harmony range of RC with the "Activities" where one button starts a macro to do a whole series of things - but improve on the Logitech software so that there is real intelligence (i.e. remember that the TV is on so do not try and switch it on when moving from one activity to another). Ultimately (and this is already in development but still very early days) we need to move to using an Ipad or Android tablet as a remote where lots more information can be presented.
Long winded post I know. I like what Google and LG are trying to do, but this is barely even a beta product and far too immature to adopt now