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All Giz Wants: A Google Set Top Box That Doesn't Suck
Google's upcoming set top box has great pedigree: It's Android-based OS, Sony and Intel are building the guts and design and Logitech doing what Logitech does best (input devices). So please, please, please don't screw this up.
Right now we know very little. We know it's Android-based and will have the Chrome web browser. We don't whether it's going to be the full Chrome browser, the Webkit-based mobile browser on Android or some hybrid of the two. Roku's CEO understandably tried to pump up the potential price of a Google TV, saying that it would cost $200+ if it were entirely browser-based, like ChromeOS, compared to the $80 of his own machine. But hey, couldn't this thing cost less with Intel and Sony's scale of manufacture, and ads subsiding the entire thing?
So we're left filling in the holes ourselves. Here's what we want.
The Googly features
For it to be a Google set top box as people imagine it, it really needs to have access to Google's resources. That's the reason why a heavy gmail and gcal users would get an Android phone versus any other phone.
• Really good YouTube support: Many devices support YouTube, like TiVo or Boxee or the PS3 (via the browser), but none are really as good as watching something on your computer, believe it or not. It's mostly down to the input device. If Logitech can make a remote/keyboard that has all the correct buttons and shortcuts for YouTube, this'll be a winner. And of course, you'd be able to buy/rent Youtube hosted hollywood movies through the device.
• Gmail, Gchat (including voice and video, so this requires USB webcam support), Gmaps, Gdocs, Picasa, GReader and all the other supported apps on Android. This theoretically shouldn't be a problem, since there will be some sort of Chrome browser on board. It's just a matter of making a comfortable 10 foot interface (and keyboard, if you're going to be typing) so it's not just WebTV 2010. This is a worrying point, since Google's always done data driven design analysis, which has turned out useful, but not very slick, interfaces.• Android apps: Google has limited access to their Android Marketplace for devices that run Android (tablets, the Nook) but aren't actually Android phones. Lessen the restriction so we can get some of the 30,000 Android apps onto the platform and this'll be THE set top box.
General media set top box features
Having YouTube and a browser on your set top box is fine, but set top boxes are for TVs, aren't they? And what you really want to do on your TV is watch video, which is why Google needs to step beyond just hooking up their own products to the box and expand into other video delivery.
• Hulu, plus support for various segmented online streaming video, like cbs.com, abc.com and Daily Show/Colbert Report websites. This shouldn't be a problem provided Google also has Flash support on their set top box Chrome browser, but you never know these days
• Netflix Watch Now!
• Local streaming: Google may want everything streamed from the web cloud, but not everyone has the pipes to support full quality video. So local network streaming, yes please
• Good codec support: A corollary of local streaming, but in order to watch all the proper codecs, containers and so forth (DivX, XviD, h.264, MKV, etc) you'll have to support them. This isn't a problem anymore, since just about all the network streamers are hopping on board with the latest file types
• Media Center Extender: Being able to act as an extender to Microsoft's Windows Media Center—which lets you have access to cable TV, but without having have a fat box next to the TV with CableCARD support—would bridge internet video well with traditional broadcast video. It also means paying Microsoft money to license the tech, if Microsoft will even allow Google the privilege. But having all those features PLUS what amounts to a TiVo experience in one box would make this a must buy, assuming the price was low enough.The other, weirder, component to this rumor is that Sony wants to embed this Android set top box tech in its TVs and "appliances", which is vague and broad. TVs are obvious, since the easy way of making your TV brand more worthwhile is shoving software components that let it do much more than just be a TV. The appliances bit might be something as simple as a small LCD-based kitchen computer, or a set top box of their own, or even putting this inside their PS3. All our wishlist items stand for Sony's version too, except it also comes with an item about Sony not proprietarying it to death.
Send an email to Jason Chen, the author of this post, at jchen@gizmodo.com.
Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.You're missing the point Jason. They need to take a page out of Apple and design a box that allows OTHERS to come up with the cool apps. So have a nice box with the right OS and hardware that leaves lots of room for apps and hacks and watch it flourish. Reply
All I really want google. Is a remote that doesn't have a 10 second delay like my Comcast remote. I feel like I'm beaming my signal to Afghanistan and back whenever I try to simply increase volume or change the channel. ReplyAnonymoose promoted this comment
I demand that one of these googly features is support for viewing through googley eyes. ReplyEdited by mecha2142 at 03/18/10 5:03 PM
Basically, Google? You know what Apple did with Apple TV? Do the exact opposite. ReplyAnonymoose promoted this comment
" Android-based OS, Sony and Intel making the guts and hardware and Logitech doing what Logitech does best (input devices)."
Who designed the Case?... RubberMaid?
Im gona have to hide it behind the tv. Reply
Just make it so there isnt 1+ seconds of lag between hitting a button and the menu item changing. Reply
I've avoided the idea of set top boxes for a while now. Something like this might just change my mind. Then again I'm planning on getting a PS3 at some point in the not too distant future. Maybe I'll wait and see what I can do with that as a sort of set top box before getting a true HTPC. I'm not nearly as media centric or diverse as many other Giz readers/commenters so I'd bet I can get buy with just the PS3. Reply
If it has full access to the Android Marketplace(since it is Android), that means it will also have access to games(which could also be developed specifically for the set top box); that would almost turn this set top box into a console? Reply
It needs both cloud connectivity and media sharing with other computers on the network. A one-stop shop interface to aggregate your picassa/flickr/facebook, but also do the same with videos and music files.Is there a file organizer like Picassa for music and video? This points to a future where there will be one. Reply
Edited by zeroprime at 03/18/10 4:49 PM
I'm gonna go out on a low, thick, stable limb and say that it won't suck because Google doesn't have partnerships with the media companies, so they won't get heat about playing all formats.That's just an extension of my conspiracy theory about why the AppleTV does sort of suck. Reply
Kaiser-Machead promoted this comment
Damn you, giz! Every time I see that headline(All giz wants), I instantly get the song "All a girl wants" stuck in my head. Reply
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There’s nothing like a Commodore. At just 17.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall, it’s designed to take up far less room — and use far less energy — than any other desktop computer.
Lifechanger: My Big Fat Music Collection
According to iTunes, I have 22,880 items in my music collection. That adds up to 70.9 days worth of music, taking up 145.26 GB of hard drive space. And thank God for it.
When I was 12 or 13 years old, we had a family computer that everyone shared. It had a 1GB hard drive. I downloaded single MP3s off of various websites and Hotline servers constantly. But the HDD was so small it was permanently full, so every single time I downloaded an MP3, I had to delete another of equal or greater size. It was a ludicrous balancing act.
Later on, when I got my very own computer, I upgraded to a larger hard drive, maybe 20GB, letting me start collecting full albums. I still bought CDs, but when I was at my computer I listened mostly to MP3s. I discovered some early, FTP-based private file sharing sites, and that really opened the flood gates.
When I was younger, I was a collector of things. If I was into a band, I wanted every t-shirt and poster that band released. And you can bet your ass I wanted every obscure track they'd ever recorded. Back then, rarities were still rare and I was still constantly tempted by import singles with new b-sides and overpriced concert bootleg CDs featuring unreleased songs. Downloading MP3s let me check out obscure curiosities without having to spend $18 for a three-track single from Japan.
Today, I've managed to temper my OCD collector qualities for everything but music. Those t-shirts and posters are packed up somewhere at my parents house, but my music collection has since migrated to a 500GB HDD in my laptop (backed up to a 1TB RAID array, of course).
Sure, you could argue that there's no possible way I could listen to most of my music collection on any type of regular basis, and you'd be right. But that's not the point. Even though my normal rotation of music that I listen to is probably 30% of my collection, I have the ability to listen to any of it at any time. Suddenly reminded of that party we threw sophomore year of college? I still have the playlist saved. What about the songs I listened to while driving to high school my senior year? Yep, still have all of those. And unlike CDs, it takes about 3 seconds to start playing any of it.
It just takes putting on an old Luke Vibert album to be transported back to my friend Ian's house up in NH, excitedly scheming some project or prank instead of doing our homework. And putting on Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West immediately brings me back to my freshman year dorm room on the first warm days of spring, hanging out with my roommate Matt with the window open and the breeze blowing in, feeling like my whole life was in front of me and overwhelmingly full of possibility.
If all that music from my past had been on CDs, you can bet that A) I would never have had so much of it and B) I would have sold back stuff I got bored with to used record shops to get new music. But the fact that it's been mostly free and takes up merely room on my hard drive allows me to hoard without the normal downsides of hoarding things, like being a freaky shut-in with a house that smells like mold and wet newspapers.
There are few things that evoke memories like music. I don't take a lot of photos, so listening to something that was a big part of an important time in my life is often the only tangible link I have to those memories. To some people, smell is the sense most connected to memory, but for me it's definitely music. And being able to store it all easily and have it at the tips of my fingers whenever I want is something I wouldn't give up in a million years. To me, music is memory, and being able to store it all and supplement my imperfect brain is one of the biggest benefits to living in this digital age.
Memory [Forever] is our week-long consideration of what it really means when our memories, encoded in bits, flow in a million directions, and might truly live forever.
Image is CC licensed from Flickr user Mosesxan.
Send an email to Adam Frucci, the author of this post, at adam@gizmodo.com.
December 31, 2009 - As we come to the end of the decade, we turn to one of the more dramatic changes we've heard in music over those 10 years: It seems to have gotten louder.
We're talking about compression here, the dynamic compression that's used a lot in popular music. There's actually another kind of compression going on today — one that allows us to carry hundreds of songs in our iPods. More on that in a minute.
But first, host Robert Siegel talked to Bob Ludwig, a record mastering engineer. For more than 40 years, he's been the final ear in the audio chain for albums running from Jimi Hendrix to Radiohead, from Tony Bennett to Kronos Quartet.
Bob pointed to a YouTube video titled The Loudness War. The video uses Paul McCartney's 1989 song "Figure of Eight" as an example, comparing its original recording with what a modern engineer might do with it.
"It really no longer sounds like a snare drum with a very sharp attack," Ludwig says. "It sounds more like somebody padding on a piece of leather or something like that," Ludwig says. He's referring to the practice of using compressors to squash the music, making the quiet parts louder and the loud parts a little quieter, so it jumps out of your radio or iPod.
Ludwig says the "Loudness War" came to a head last year with the release of Metallica's album Death Magnetic.
"It came out simultaneously to the fans as [a version on] Guitar Hero and the final CD," Ludwig says. "And the Guitar Hero doesn't have all the digital domain compression that the CD had. So the fans were able to hear what it could have been before this compression."
According to Ludwig, 10,000 or more fans signed an online petition to get the band to remix the record.
"That record is so loud that there is an outfit in Europe called ITU [International Telecommunication Union] that now has standardization measurements for long-term loudness," he says. "And that Metallica record is one of the loudest records ever produced."
Old News
"The 'Loudness Wars' have gone back to the days of 45s," Ludwig says. "When I first got into the business and was doing a lot of vinyl disc cutting, one producer after another just wanted to have his 45 sound louder than the next guy's so that when the program director at the Top 40 radio station was going through his stack of 45s to decide which two or three he was going to add that week, that the record would kind of jump out to the program director, aurally at least."
That's still a motivation for some producers. If their record jumps out of your iPod compared with the song that preceded it, then they've accomplished their goal.
Bob Ludwig thinks that's an unfortunate development.
"People talk about downloads hurting record sales," Ludwig says. "I and some other people would submit that another thing that is hurting record sales these days is the fact that they are so compressed that the ear just gets tired of it. When you're through listening to a whole album of this highly compressed music, your ear is fatigued. You may have enjoyed the music but you don't really feel like going back and listening to it again."
Ludwig's final assessment of the decade in music?
"It's been really rough, folks," he says. "But it can get better and I think it will get better. I'm glad it's going to be over."
Digital Compression
Digital compression is the process that allows a song to go from being a very big sound file in its natural state to a very small file in your iPod — so you can carry your entire record library in your pocket. But at what cost?
Dr. Andrew Oxenham is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Minnesota. His specialty is auditory perception — how our brains and ears interact. He also started out as a recording engineer.
Robert Siegel asked him to explain digital compression.
"Really, the challenge is to maintain the quality of a CD, but to stuff it into a much smaller space," Oxenham says. "Let's think about how digital recording works. You start out with a very smooth sound wave and we're trying to store that in digital form. So we're really trying to reproduce a smooth curve [with] these square blocks, which are the digital numbers [the 1s and 0s that are used to encode sound digitally].
"Now, the only way you can make square blocks look like a smooth curve is by using very, very small blocks so it ends up looking as if it's smooth. Now using lots and lots of blocks means lots of storage, so we end up using [fewer] bigger blocks. Which means we end up not representing that curve very smoothly at all."
Lost? Go back and re-read it — you'll get it.
"The difference between the smooth curve and the rough edges you end up with in the digital recording, you can think of as noise because that is perceived as noise," Oxenham says. "It's perceived as an error, something that wasn't there in the original recording. The trick is to take the noise — which is the loss of fidelity — and just make it so you can't hear it anymore."
In Hiding
It's called "masking." Think of it this way: You're having a conversation in a quiet room, and you can hear every word, every mouth noise, every stomach rumble. But if you were having that same conversation outside on a busy street, you'd get the gist of what was said, but you'd probably miss a few words. The traffic noise would mask them.
So let's say you're listening to a Brahms symphony.
"[The loud parts of the music are] giving the coding system a lot of leeway to code things not quite as accurately as it would have to," Oxenham says, "because the ear is being stimulated so much by the loud sound it won't pick up very small variations produced by the coding errors."
In other words, the loud parts of a recording are used to "mask," or hide that noise produced by the rough-edged squares of those digital 1s and 0s.
But are we missing something?
"There are really different levels of MP3 coding," Oxenham says. "You can go from much less data — which people can hear the difference — to higher levels of coding which take up more space on your MP3 player but sound better and are basically indistinguishable from a CD. And I would argue that under proper listening conditions — if it's really indistinguishable from the CD as far as your ear is concerned — then you really haven't lost anything perceptually."
Oxenham likes the convenience of portable MP3 players. But ultimately, he says, he prefers going to concerts.
Listen to all 14 videos. It's fascinating if you believe in this type of thing.
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