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Thread: Streaming devices.

  1. #21
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    So... it's an Ouya with a remote control and no touchpad... ?

  2. #22
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    Hardware wise, basically. Partner-support wise, no.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  3. #23
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    I'm not sure I follow... it looks like it's just an Android device with the Google Play store for loading services... did I miss something?

  4. #24
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    I thought the Ouya didn't have Google Play store access, am I misremembering?
    Get that weak shit off my track

  5. #25
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    It doesn't come with the app, but you can install it (or any other apk) in a couple minutes.

    Selling this device with the "play Android games!" sounds good, but as the Ouya people know and/or found out, cell phone games take a lot of work to translate to the big-screen and a controller instead of a touchscreen... which is why Ouya versions tend to be better to play than "native" cell versions in the environment. In the same vein, playing cell phone Netflix or Hulu on the big screen tends to suck, as resolutions aren't optimized for 1080p, whereas when you're using dedicated apps on a specific device you get properly scaled content.

    Seems like the Nexus Player is not unlike the FireTV - a device that occupies the no man's land between Android Gaming Device (Ouya) and Black Box Media Player (Roku or AppleTV). You'll get a much better gaming experience or a much better video experience making a choice between them. If gaming is even part of the discussion, I'd go Ouya any day. Granted, getting an apk onto a device is decidedly more technical than selecting the Play icon, but you win a totally open system and lose only the few minutes it takes to install dropbox, etc.

    That's just my opinion, though.

  6. #26
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    Actually I just think of it as a black box media player and don't really take the gaming very seriously.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  7. #27
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    Actually, with so much stuff being handled by Play Services nowadays, is it still easy/reliable to just side load stuff that would have been on the Play Store? I mean, if you're going to go full on custom ROM/root whatever, but as a consumer friendly device is the Ouya anything more than an emulator+ROMs box?

  8. #28
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    I'm not sure I understand what you wrote, but assuming I do that right there is the reason to do Ouya IMHO... Most of the consumer Android devices obfuscate or eliminate the Android-ness of themselves and sort of become black box devices. That's an issue with the FireTV, for example - it's somewhere between difficult and impossible to mod and do anything other than what Amazon wants you to do. Since the Ouya only comes in one flavor, half the UI is for users and the other half is for developers so it still fully supports and encourages side-loading. So you can side-load Play and do all the Play Services stuff without impacting the core device or its capabilities - which is a pretty sizeable library of games both specifically written for and "ported" to Ouya. It also means you can throw on XBMC or Plex and gain access to those ecologies, which is not something you can do with any black box media device right now. Of course its flexibility comes with a price of complexity, and that certainly isn't for everyone.

    But -IMHO - if you're going to buy a set top box and all you care about is media, I just can't see any reason to do anything other than Roku or AppleTV. Those two have got to have some huge portion of the market between them and they - especially Roku - are incentivized to deliver the best media experience possible. Seems like a small box running generic Android and turning you loose on Play is going to result in an entirely sub-optimal experience - just like it is on Ouya.

    This is a subject that I (unfortunately) extremely passionate about right now, as I have an army of professional dinosaurs here just discovering streaming services. I field a lot of questions and install/instruct on a lot devices & services. When people realize they can pause Breaking Bad in their Lake Tahoe cabin and then resume in their San Francisco condo they lose their minds.

  9. #29
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    I did not know that you could get Play Services and the Play Store (two separate things, Play Services handles a lot of login and syncing for apps that use your Google account) up and running on the OUYA. If you can, and it doesn't get some weird blocks based on the device, then that erases an issue I had with it.

    My experience with AppleTV is limited (watching my uncle use it and having discussions with Jason), and it seems like the obvious choice if you're in the iTunes/iOS ecosystem, but I know almost nothing about Roku. How/why is it better/different than Chromecast and what the Nexus Player is currently presented as? If you don't mind summarizing, that is, I assume you would be more succinct than if I Googled reviews of the different models.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  10. #30
    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    It's very similar to the Nexus Player (well...the other way around) in function. The Nexus does some things that the Roku doesn't, like sync across devices and the chromecast casting stuff.

    Given that CBS doesn't stream their stuff through any of the services currently on the Roku, I'm going to keep an eye on the Nexus. Mapper needs her NCIS fix.
    Whoomah!

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