Can entertainment become too labor intensive to be, well, entertaining? And who do I talk to about getting that hour of my life back?
It’s long been rumored that celery is so lacking in calories that we consume more energy chewing and digesting it than we get in return. Roku’s Channel Store is an early attempt to broaden the scope of over-the-top video programming, but it begs the question of how much energy television viewers should have to expend in order to watch television.
The current incarnation of the Roku Channel Store is the television equivalent of celery — something that fails to stand on its own and continues to rely heavily on integration with other things. For celery, it’s onions and carrots that join in to make mirepoix a successful foundation for so many dishes. And for Roku, the Channel Store doesn’t yet pull its weight in comparison to premium channel partners such as Netflix and Amazon VoD.
Back Story
I’m not a journalist, and as such, I don’t have an endless supply of free consumer electronics devices. Which means that I — like the rest of consumers — actually have to decide about which devices to buy, to own and to use on a daily basis.
Three years ago, I bought two different Internet radios: a Roku SoundBridge Radio and a Slim Devices (now Logitech) Squeezebox. I spent a couple of weeks assessing the features and concluded that the Roku’s packaging and interface was simpler and easier-to-use on a daily basis. I ultimately put the Roku SoundBridge Radio into my kitchen where it saw daily use (despite a few flaws) until a few months ago when the power supply gave out.
I was sufficiently impressed with Roku’s simplicity (and hadn’t yet experienced the disappointing, out-of-warranty power supply failure for the SoundBridge Radio) to purchase the Roku N1000 which was advertised as the “Netflix Player” at the time. After using this device, I purchased a couple others for family members. Mine sees regular use on a weekly basis.
Beyond Netflix
In the past year, Roku has added features, including Amazon Video on Demand and MLB.com. Roku seemed excited about the MLB.com deal, but I just don’t get into baseball and have already disabled this channel on my device. I have dabbled in Amazon Video on Demand, though the pricing model makes no sense, especially given that many movies are already available for free on Netflix.
Overall, if I could improve the Roku N1000, I’d ask for subtitles and DVD-quality pause and fast-forward capabilities. Beyond that, (a) more programming, and (b) the ability to find programming and add it to the player without going online with a PC.
Anticipating the Channel Store
A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail announcing the Roku Channel Store. This promised to vastly improve the programming available via the player. I was very interested, because I don’t subscribe to Pay TV, and my area lost all four channels of over-the-air programming when we shifted to digital broadcast (because digital is sooo much better. Way to go, FCC!!!!)
The e-mail said that, in order to access the Channel Store, I’d have to update my firmware (a very easy task). I immediately went to my living room and tried to update the firmware, but there was no update available. I kept checking back and finally found the fine print. It turned out that my (old) SD player wouldn’t get the updated software until the middle of December. This happened sometime last week.
Roku Channel Store — Tuning In For the First Time
I finally found some time on a rainy Sunday to sit down with my laptop, which I needed in order to sign into the Channel Store for the first time, to activate my player, and to create accounts for some of the individual channels.
And now that I’ve done that, I’m left with a feeling akin to sitting down to a meal of celery. I don’t want to watch any more television, but I can’t say that I’m satisfied by the meal. Furthermore, the Channel Store isn’t really anything of note. As television, I’m disappointed…and definitely not relaxed. As social media, I’m left trying to click through where the links ought to be. And ultimately, I turn off the TV set and fire up my laptop.
The Channel Store As Television
Let’s keep in mind the fact that most U.S. households consume close to four hours of television a day. This means that — much of the time — the television is turned on in a passive (background) fashion. The Channel Store doesn’t facilitate this core television viewing experience. Instead, it sends you into a set of channels that encompass other groupings of programming. I spent time with Revision3, blip.tv, Mediafly, and FrameChannel.
General Comments
- Formats: Mostly short-form videos less than 10-12 minutes long. The content is primarily web videos adapted to the channel platform, and it’s far from the mark. The viewer must spend a lot of time, even for episodic or podcast content, selecting individual episodes or podcasts. There is no such thing as continuous play, running from one episode to another.
- Advertising & Intros: For the amount of programming, the intros and advertising take up a tremendous amount of time. A :30 ad is way too long for a 4 minute video. And a :15 second intro is way too long for a podcast that takes between :60 and :120.
- Genres: Mostly comedy, some drama, and a lot of factual programming — especially about technology and video games. Way too much talking, not enough other things. I think it was Revision3 that has a comedy channel called ROFL, which is effectively a sub-par attempt to recreate stand-up comedy clips as popularized on Comedy Central. Except, the comedians aren’t funny, and there isn’t enough comedy. Too bad. Give me Hulu!!!
- Programming Types: TV for the web doesn’t transition back to the television set. If you have a low-enough standard, perhaps you’ll be fine with blip.tv, but I just can’t stomach it. By the same token, podcasts (the staple programming) just don’t translate to television — they’re too short (3 minutes or less + buffering time), and they don’t string together into a cohesive viewing experience.
I was ready to call the Channel Store Don’t Bother TV, and then I found Mediafly. Where the other programers (Revision3 and blip.tv specifically) fail to deliver, Mediafly provides a simulacrum of real television, albeit with the limitation that much of the programming is a teaser for longer shows not available on Mediafly — a 3 minute preview for an episode of HBO’s Real Sports, a one-minute teaser for E’s The Soup, a 3-minute clip from PBS’s Nature, an ad for Speed’s Victory By Design and so on and so forth.
If you look on Mediafly, you will find the longer-form (20+ minutes) news programming, such as PBS’s Nightly Business Report, CNN’s AC360 Podcast, CBS’s Face The Nation and so on and so forth. It’s not a lot of programming, and it takes work to find something to watch, but this is professionally-produced television.
Mediafly takes some work, and I can’t say that it’s the best interface. It’s best said that there’s plenty of room for improvement.
The Channel Store For Social Media
I’ve done quite a bit of research into the social aspects of television, so I thought that (maybe), the social/multimedia aspects of the Channel Store would be compelling. As a social media platform, the television just isn’t the device.
Caveat: I say this as someone who’s hit a saturation point with social media — I just don’t care whether my neighbor is going shopping for a Christmas tree or if my cousin is sitting at the longest stoplight in D.C. And after spending my day thinking about technology, I don’t find it relaxing to think about it in the evening.
Which is why I really don’t want to watch a show about the latest technology, or a podcast about video games. Nor do I want my Twitter feed on my television set.
There are also photo albums from Flikr and Facebook photos. This is a slow, serialized experience that fails to compare to the speed and navigability of the PC/online platform. I’ll gladly use this feature for the next time I’m sitting in my living room going through vacation photos with my friends who haven’t seen those same photos (already) online and on their own time.
In other words, why am I using my television set for social media when I already have two other screens that work far better? Both the PC and mobile telephone are more personalized and interactive, and both of these screens give me far better control.
In Frame Channel, there are options to add content such as images from Getty Images and National Geographic and headlines from the New York Times. The images are, at times, beautiful — but there’s little control over what you see and can filter out. For some, the photos from football games might be nice, but I just don’t care. Meanwhile, the NYT headlines don’t exactly provide the right kind of experience, because there’s no link upon which to click and no way to get more than a few words describing the article. I ultimately find myself pulling out my laptop to read the online newspaper.
For social media, the Channel Store is bested by the laptop. If you want a social media experience, don’t bother with the television set.
The Channel Store For Music
Pandora is one of the channels available. I already subscribe to Pandora so that I can access it via my Squeezebox player, and I had few problems connecting my account to the Roku N1000 and Channel Store. This is a wonderful feature, but I now realize how crappy the speakers are on my television. I guess it’s time to hook up a stereo.
Conclusion
The Roku Channel Store is like celery for television. There may be some promise for Mediafly, but it’s not there yet, and the other channels are just not worth the energy for the amount of entertainment you get. If you want television, pony up for Netflix, Amazon VoD or (better yet) Pay TV. If you want social media, use your PC and mobile device. And if you want music, hook up your stereo.