May 06, 2006
Yahoo! Go TV Review
I installed and tried Yahoo! Go TV today. Just days after acquiring Meedio, Yahoo released their re-branded media center/PVR software.
Pros
1) Great looking candy user interface and nice Tivo-like bloop sounds
2) Lots of potential with links to movie trailers, popular videos, news, and Yahoo Photos
3) Can get past the wife factor for easy of use and prettiness
Cons
1) Flickr connectivity to my personal pictures does not work. Only Yahoo Photos at the moment.
2) No USB-IRT support, which means I can't use my Tivo Remote
3) No plug-in support that Meedio used to have (I guess this may come in time). I doubt they will let people rip DVDs and do another cutting edge things however. Things like weather plug-ins are no brainers.
4) Can't use the keyboard to type in TV titles (hello?)
5) Doesn't like they enabled commercial skip (critical feature)
All-in-all it looks like its still a beta version. Not having USB-IRT support and commercial skip are critical negatives for me. I'm going back to GB-PVR. Yahoo better not kow-tow to the media networks (I suspect they will) and take out critical features from Meedio. The CEO is a ex-Warner Brothers executive, so I foresee a neutered PVR. I guess we can't complain too much because it is free, but GB-PVR is free also and has all the extra features. [Discuss]
