Now thinking like a network administrator
I have two of the new devices. I want them to act identically between the living room and the bedroom.
I log into them and set them up and I click on various things to allow installing the various services.
There is the paid for services such as prime and Netflix and Disney plus and Hulu etc. each of these requires some type of login interaction or triggering the registration via the application interface on my phone and then it works on the TV.
But then there are the freebies. There is Plex and Tubi and Google TV and I don't know what's next. Each of these requires an email login or a Google ID handle.
All of the services that have live streaming of channels get integrated into a master channel list. As you scroll through the channel list, you can click on one of the current running shows.
It will launch you into that sub application interface presenting the show. Sometimes it will force a welcome screen choosing of ID, but once it's done it usually remembers and the next time you choose something from that service you jump right into the show.
Here's where it gets strange. If you hit the back button at that moment, you may or may not go back into the master channel list. You may also go "back" into the previous menu in the sub application that is actually running the show you are watching. That means you could step back into Tubi, step back into Netflix, step back into Plex, etc. Though you didn't come from there.
That's okay. I've learned to explore in those as well. There is also a difference in the actual video player. Depending on which applications you've launched. There might actually be differences in the video player within an application. It seems to depend on what type of show you are in. Sometimes you will see a master bottom, scroll bar and sometimes you won't.
I've learned that by using my phone as a touchpad and a keyboard I can zip around really fast and I rarely use the remote for that type of stuff.
One big happy surprise is it shares the choices and saved items between the devices. Obviously it saves it back up at my Google account, but when I add a saved item or a started watching show on one device it automatically shows up on the other device. That was a serious: Yay!
Another happy discovery was the fact that the vast majority of the free/commercial services only force you to watch a very short commercial at the beginning of a 2-hour show. There are no commercials in the middle, so there is never one of those moments where there's a high stress buildup in a show and then it cuts to commercial. So I'm perfectly willing to go exploring when in the past I would totally ignore those hundreds of channels.
Usually when I get a new device with a new remote, M is very unhappy for a while. Sometimes she's unhappy forever depending on the device. In this case, each time there's a hint of unhappiness, I point out another benefit and she gets happy again. This is all "like it" when you start and "love it" as you learn each piece. Go slowly.
There is actually a difference between the two devices. I ran a jailbroke process on one of them and now have full access to the Play store rather than the limited access I initially had. So I'll experiment with the possibility of bricking it.
I log into them and set them up and I click on various things to allow installing the various services.
There is the paid for services such as prime and Netflix and Disney plus and Hulu etc. each of these requires some type of login interaction or triggering the registration via the application interface on my phone and then it works on the TV.
But then there are the freebies. There is Plex and Tubi and Google TV and I don't know what's next. Each of these requires an email login or a Google ID handle.
All of the services that have live streaming of channels get integrated into a master channel list. As you scroll through the channel list, you can click on one of the current running shows.
It will launch you into that sub application interface presenting the show. Sometimes it will force a welcome screen choosing of ID, but once it's done it usually remembers and the next time you choose something from that service you jump right into the show.
Here's where it gets strange. If you hit the back button at that moment, you may or may not go back into the master channel list. You may also go "back" into the previous menu in the sub application that is actually running the show you are watching. That means you could step back into Tubi, step back into Netflix, step back into Plex, etc. Though you didn't come from there.
That's okay. I've learned to explore in those as well. There is also a difference in the actual video player. Depending on which applications you've launched. There might actually be differences in the video player within an application. It seems to depend on what type of show you are in. Sometimes you will see a master bottom, scroll bar and sometimes you won't.
I've learned that by using my phone as a touchpad and a keyboard I can zip around really fast and I rarely use the remote for that type of stuff.
One big happy surprise is it shares the choices and saved items between the devices. Obviously it saves it back up at my Google account, but when I add a saved item or a started watching show on one device it automatically shows up on the other device. That was a serious: Yay!
Another happy discovery was the fact that the vast majority of the free/commercial services only force you to watch a very short commercial at the beginning of a 2-hour show. There are no commercials in the middle, so there is never one of those moments where there's a high stress buildup in a show and then it cuts to commercial. So I'm perfectly willing to go exploring when in the past I would totally ignore those hundreds of channels.
Usually when I get a new device with a new remote, M is very unhappy for a while. Sometimes she's unhappy forever depending on the device. In this case, each time there's a hint of unhappiness, I point out another benefit and she gets happy again. This is all "like it" when you start and "love it" as you learn each piece. Go slowly.
There is actually a difference between the two devices. I ran a jailbroke process on one of them and now have full access to the Play store rather than the limited access I initially had. So I'll experiment with the possibility of bricking it.