Smart TVs have been around for a while now, and the things they offer generally
make a lot of sense for especially people who want to cut the cord, that
is, get rid of their expensive cable TV or satellite subscription and only watch
the cheaper or sometimes even free content that's available online. And
while this functionality won't seem like anything groundbreaking to Windows Media
Center or XBMC afficionados, not everyone wants a full-blown PC clunking
up their living room. So, smart TVs, great underlying concept. So, why
exactly is it that commercial smart TVs never caught on on their own and
manufacturers ended up cramming them down our throats by eventually phasing
out dumb TVs altogether? Well, if you've
ever used one, you probably know. weird remotes and control schemes that never
work. Useless voice recognition, anemic
hardware and software that ranged from halfass to were these games made by a
bunch of kindergarteners in comas. But
there's hope. Google wants to give the smart TV a real boost in popularity with
an OS that they're calling Android TV, which is pretty much exactly what it
sounds like, Android on your television. Whoa, Lionus, bro. Doesn't Google
already have the chcast? How's this new? Well, yes, they do. But while their $30
HDMI dongle that smartens up your TV a
little by using a small Wi-Fi antenna to receive online video content from your
wireless devices and your router was very successful. Android TV builds on it
in a number of ways. The new OS is built
around voice searching and can answer complicated queries from the user. For
example, you can ask your TV to show you all the movies that won an Oscar in 2010
and then pick one from that list seconds later. Android TV also delivers the best
of both worlds in terms of control. You can thankfully use a full-size TV remote
instead of having to fumble around for your smartphone to control it. Like the
chcast, you can download and use Google Play apps directly on the device instead
of having to beam them from a mobile device with the latency that comes along
with that. And there's no need to abandon the ability to flick whatever
you're watching on your tablet or phone to your TV if you so desire. But what
about the folks who aren't content to sit and
watch? Well, Android TV has another big ticket feature, its potential as a
gaming platform. Now, although Android devices can't match the raw power of a
desktop or gaming laptop, they still
have a wide variety of less graphically demanding titles to offer. And the idea
of Android gaming in the living room has gained enough traction that multiplayer
games and the consoles with accompanying premium grade controllers to go with
them are emerging on the platform. Not to mention that some of these devices
can even link up with a gaming PC elsewhere in your house for a low
latency big screen PC gaming experience
using local network streaming. Which leads really well into the next point.
Lionus, I don't care about any of that. I just want to watch Orange is the New Black and all of your awesome videos on
YouTube without chucking out my old dumb TV. Do I really have to go and buy a
brand new TV with Android TV on board to do it? Not at all. With even premium
gaming options like the ones we just showed from companies like Razer and
NVIDIA coming in at $100 to $200, you can bet your crystal balls that more
affordable, almost as good choices will be cheap as chips in the coming years or
even months. And thanks to Android's increasingly unified experience, crummy
apps and interfaces should be pretty much a thing of the past. As long as you
don't mind big brother knowing you spent all of last weekend binge watching
reruns of Vampire Diaries. Speaking of binging, if you're
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general over at CM University. So, I think that pretty much
wraps it up, guys. Thanks for watching. Like this video if you liked it. Dislike
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