Be Excellent To Each Other

That process doesn't sound too dissimilar to what you lot all do for downloading films and TV, what with codec and NAS problems, etc. You could just watch it on TV with ads or rent from Lovefilm, etc?

Once past initial setup, I haven't had to investigate a problem with a non-playing video file in over a year. Grim...'s just shit at technology, is all.

Either he's not talking about me, or he's rather wrong. I can't remember the last time I met a codec issue, and I've never had problems with my NAS box

You coulsn't be more wrong. My entire manual process for watching, say last week's episode of Breaking Bad:

1) select Boxee on my remote
2) select TV | Breaking Bad | 5x07
3) watch

You have to watch your TV shows? That's like a baby's toy.

OMG Old School.

"Xbox play video 'pearl harbour'"

Only works for live-transcoded files then, as opposed to "everything on this SMB share". And the Xbox is offensively loud.

I can see that - and I'm not even sure that would work

I just play everything through the TV's built-in media player.

Ok, serious question; isn't it just as easy to have a Lovefilm/Netflix sub and just stream Breaking Bad that way, meaning that you pay for it as well. Or is it vastly inferior?

It's just as easy, but the range available is typically shite.

And, indeed, if Netflix/Lovefilm could offer me all the programs on all the networks, at the same time that they're shown in the the states, I'd be shoving my money at them so hard they'd be shitting £50 notes for a month.

To me, the selling point of a service like this is two-fold:

• Being able to play games on a machine that wouldn't actually be able to play the game 'properly' and;
• Being able to instantly play games on any machine without having to carry install media around with you or download massive files (i.e. Steam).

Both of those are factors that piracy, and the traditional sale model, just can't touch. I'm not sure though how many people's circumstances really require that set up though. I don't spend enough time moving between inferior machines to care about this kind of thing, especially when you factor in the need for an always-on net connection with a certain level of speed/stability for the service to function at all.

I'm talking about game streaming service here by the way rather than film stuff, the discussion had moved on while I was typing!

This! This times a fucking million!

Vastly inferior (occasional stutters, rarely very good HD, sometimes not surround sound, hugely inferior selection of titles). Paying for the episodes via iTunes isn't a bad option, but again, the selection is still nowhere near there (hence all the wailing about Game of Thrones).

Same for me except replace Boxee with XBMC, i maybe get 2-3 problem episodes a year, it takes minutes to get another one.

Fair enough. I was genuinely interested as I don't really have as much interest in films & TV as you guys seem to do.

i) If I were to have the time, I think I'd quite enjoy playing games over the interenet that I couldn't be able to play otherwise.

ii) I think netflix is pretty good for however much money it costs a month (Household division of the budget, not my responsibility). There's bunches of stuff on there, although I am about 4 years behind television and film.

The region release times are still a pain in the arse

The stuff you can get from Apple in the US is much better than the UK

http://www.apple.com/appletv/whats-on/

That's not really an Apple problem though to be fair, that's across the board with all services. Indeed there must be stuff that gets released in the UK before it's available in the US (albeit much less I'm sure).

Yes, and usefully, this isn't geo-restricted at all; it's only tied to the iTunes account. So our AppleTV is connected to my wife's US iTunes account and we pay (smaller) US prices and get a full amount of US content.

For some reason this doesn't bother me as much. Could I set up a US account pretty easily and do this myself?

Indeed. Exactly as I have done. Gotten US vouchers off of eBay.

Even in the US the Dictator costs $14.99 so around £10.

Play.com have it in pre order DVD for £9.99, you have to wait until 24th September though.

It should be cheaper when you buy a digital download.

Are digital downloads cheaper than DVDs?

Debatable. It shouldn't be more, though.

Around the same price in this case

Hmm. Interesting. Ta.

Just tried the Square service and it won't work with a 64 bit version of IE

Yes. You need a fake billing address and, as Dimrill says, to buy US iTunes credit vouchers off eBay. I think that's a faff, myself, though.

Yes, just a bit.

Agreed.



Well, I went through my thoughts on this with AE a fair bit back. Your market is basically

1) PC gamers who want to get out of the hardware/drivers upgrade rat race (not huge)
2) Console gamers who want better graphics than what they've got, and instant-on gaming rather than having to buy from a shop or the console vendor's download store (larger, I think). Also, no need to buy new console hardware.

Broadband connections are getting faster, constantly. Particularly in metropolitan areas, which is where the majority of people live.

I've just tried to try OnLive on both my work computer (Firewall blocked it) and on my mobile (Network blocked it).

Fuck that shit.

Something I was just pondering is that we have Netflix and I regularly download films that I only half care about as soon as I can, also use the iPlayer and other catch up thingies. But if I got up one day and it was all gone then I honestly don't think I would really give much of a toss. But I guess that's why the only thing I actually pay for is £6 a month for Netflix. So for me it wouldn't matter what they did as I doubt I would pay any more even if the option of illegal downloads wasn't available. There's simply nothing that good to watch, I can think of perhaps a dozen shows in the last decade that were worth seeing beyond being a way to pass some time and of those only one or two haven't been shown on terrestrial. MALAISE DIMLIE

I’m not sure how ITunes works for TV as I don’t use it, but it strikes me as quite expensive. Take Person of Interest, they want £34.99 for the season which is box set price, or they are charging £2.49 per episode so if you were daft enough to buy them like this it would cost you £57.00.

You look to be charged more to buy a couple of episodes to see if you like the show, also even if you buy the whole season you appear to still be restricted with episodes being released on a schedule

I don't know if it's the same for TV shows, but certainly for music, iTunes has an ‘Album complete’ feature. So you download a couple of tracks separately, then decide to buy the whole thing. You're only charged the difference between what you've spent and the price for the complete album, instead of the full whack.

This is a perfectly sensible reaction because, of course, the worth of a gaming service should be judged on whether it'll work on your phone or your employer allows it on their network.

You haven't known me long enough, man.

There aren't enough screws in the world to keep that head on. It was always a losing battle.

I works on my phone

Which network are y'on?

I works on my laptop. Screen's too small on my phone.

T-mobile.

Son of a bitch. And it works through the network?

Hang on.

Yup - it's jerky but it runs (surprisingly well, actually).

I wonder what you have on yours that's not on mine. I have unlimited data, damnit!

Had a bash on the revo htpc and it works great. This is the best thing, ever!

Ooooh.... I have a Revo under my telly.

My interent connection is a bit pony though

A lot of flannel from OnLive in this interview, but nothing that convinces me much has really changed.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... o-go-right

Another six months until it drops on its arse again, maybe nine.

Every time someone posts to this thread I'm inspired to try and get Gaikai going on my work PC and every time it looks like it's going to run...and then falls at the last hurdle. I keep convincing myself that there's a combination of browser/Java/proxy settings that would get me in and I'll stumble across it if I fiddle around enough. It strikes me that I'm actually being Charlie Brown and Lucy at the same time; I really am a fucking idiot.