lschopf wrote:
FYI Amazon firestick remotes are known to freeze up & not function.
I saw some reviews about that, but thought it was older (first generation). For $23 USD, I'm going to try it first. I wanted to go with Android/Google/Chrome. But, their products (naming) is confusing. Google doesn't have a history of for-profit, consumer-focused traditional business. Sometimes its offerings look good for a year or two, then disappear (or take a strange turn).
As far as I know, Roku's external streaming devices have good reputations. It's just the Roku TV team that's out of control. If it weren't for Roku's flagrant disregard (if not contempt) for its customers, I'd probably buy one of those. But, it just doesn't feel right. Maybe after I try something else I'll come back to that.
I was wanting to use an external DTV tuner connected to HDMI (leave the tv connected to the internet for streaming). But, my experience with two such tuners has been so-so. The ViewTV AT-300 is essentially broken. They sell other models (the 263?) and it's not clear why one would be purchased instead of the other. The company said the 300 is the latest, so I got that. But, it freezes and reboots. (I've seen reviews saying this is common. So, again, not sure why they're even selling it, or steering people to it. The 263 has good reviews.). The MediaSonic HW-150 is ok. Not too bad. Its interface is the same as the AT-300, almost. The remote's beam is excessively narrow (the AT-300 was better that way). The channel editing/hiding/faving is incredibly tedious. Someone didn't put much thought into that part of the UI. AT-300's seemed a little better there. But, essentially the same. You could hit "2" to hide a channel instead of "0" and "2" on the 150.).
I still have to look at the iView 3500 (planning to do that today.). I like the DVR recording functionality. I'd like to keep one for that, at least. But, if the iView isn't considerably better in the UI department, I think my idea to use an external tuner (instead of Roku's tuner) is a deadend.
I'd like to have direct number-key access to channels. The old voucher-era DTV converters (Zenith & Digital Stream) worked very pleasantly. Whoever wrote the UI had personal pride in their work. I wish someone would create one of those again for just DTV tuning (not conversion to analog). I just want the nice, friendly, easy (not tedious/difficult) UI. The little things, like accelerated channel changing when holding the remote button longer. And hide/fav checkboxes in the channel editing. And, direct number entry to a channel. (And, not tedious about it. If I press "3" and do nothing more, it should go to 3.1 after four seconds of no further button presses. If no signal, or hidden, go there and say so. I can up/down arrow from there. I used to do that a lot with my DTV converter boxes. If I was sitting at 50, and wanted to go to 7.3, I'd just hit a number somewhere around 7. It didn't matter. I just wanted to get close. I might hit enter, or not. I just wanted to get close, then scroll up/down fewer channels to where I wanted to really be. I didn't have to precisely enter the entire channel number. The box helped me. It did what it could, instead of getting in the way. These new DVR tuner boxes are a little more "in the way." Not elegant.).
