This is Google

Oh great. Google playing ball with anti Russia fearmongering. This can only end well

They directly interfered with our elections, and both of those outlets are government propaganda. Itā€™s pretty justified.

http://www.joemygod.com/2017/12/06/google-block-youtube-amazon-devices

I have a feeling that Google is a bit justified in their pissing contest with Amazon. I can kind of get that Amazon doesnā€™t want to list things like Chromecast, Google Home, etc. But unlisting the Nest products is really a dick move. That combined with Amazon dragging their heels with their android apps, and not allowing you to stream Amazon Video to Chromecasts is just more ways that Amazon has shown that they donā€™t want to play ball.
So Google is taking their ball home.

Fuck all those useless devices and plug a god damn real full-on PC into your TV already! How many times do I have to say this? One box that does absolutely everything that is possible. Fuck all tiny boxes that do less than everything.

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My frustration when I encounter a video streaming device at someone elseā€™s home that isnā€™t an HTPC is immense.

You can never watch exactly what you want to watch, and you are arbitrarily limited in surprising ways.

Remember: lots of youtube videos only show up on ā€œPCsā€ but not these devices.

I like our Roku.

Have fun playing Jackbox on there.

Oh wait.

We also have a computer.

Then WTF do you need a Roku for? Get rid of it. Save the space and hassle of having many boxes under the TV.

I should mention this all assumes a situation where there is just one TV. Suburban people with multiple TVs probably donā€™t need a full HTPC on every single one. Thatā€™s also rather expensive. A Roku/AppleTV on a bedroom TV is probably sufficient.

Itā€™s hardly taking up any space and Chris likes it. She watches the TV the most so I feel no need to enforce my technology will. The HTPC just sits there most of the time and hosts our minecraft server.

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I like my chromecast. It was $35, aka cheap, and does exactly what I want it to.

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A major benefit of Chromecasts is that anyone in the room can control it from their phone, rather than having to find and fiddle with a wireless mouse and keyboard while the screenā€™s ten feet away. This is particularly useful for Youtube parties.

Amazonā€™s refusal to work on compatibility with Chromecasts and Apple TVs is anticompetitive BS and I hope their products fail.

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Yep. And I use the videostream app to streamā€¦ ahemā€¦ videos backed up on my computer.

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Lots of people canā€™t figure out a computer with a monitor much less am HTPC on their TV. That sounds complicated to them. They would need a keyboard and programs. ā€œHow does that work on a couch?ā€ they wonder.

The market for HTPC is insignificant compared to the plug-and-play power of the smart home device.

Oh yeah, most people are far too ignorant of basic computer usage to have an HTPC. They are simply stuck indefinitely with a mostly inferior experience and no way to ever make it better.

Non-PC media devices are to varying degrees walled gardens that limit the content you can consume or interact with. The people who are capable of using them more generically are the same people who could also use an HTPC.

The real problem is that computer-illiterate people will have access to a much more limited and controlled set of media.

Iā€™m not talking about the masses. They can use all their sticks and cable boxes or whatever. Iā€™m talking about people I know who I directly tell to do this. There is no reason to not do HTPC if you are a nerd who knows better.

If you canā€™t afford an HTPC, because itā€™s an entire extra computer, run an HDMI cable from the computer you already have. Problem solved. An HDMI cable is even cheaper than a Roku.

Iā€™ve never had trouble using the wireless keyboard and mouse from the couch. You also donā€™t need to. There are always other software interfaces you can use to minimize the need for keyboard and mouse, such as Steam big picture mode.

If you want to have a YouTube party and control it from your couch, you can do this! Go to https://youtube.com/tv/ and be amazed!

Remember there is nothing. Absolutely nothing that one of these useless sticks can do that an actual honest to god PC can not do. Meanwhile, the number of things that an HTPC can do that no proprietary box ever created can do are countless.

FWIW, at the ScoJo Laura party, we constantly had issues with the non-HTPC media device. We couldnā€™t easily search for videos, couldnā€™t see some videos at all, and couldnā€™t play Towerfall without crippling lag.

We have an extra TV in the bedroom with a Roku we acquired. It is mostly for falling asleep watching Netflix or being sick in bed. We actually donā€™t use it much so the Roku is a quick fix to get media there when we do use it.