Questions about the new WebOs TV

[MrNorth]

Hi!

 

New member from Sweden here, long time .NET developer and HTPC/WIndows Media Center buff...

 

 

I tested this new TV at a friend of mine, and I was fairly impressed with the new design and concept of these new "smart tvs". However, the experience did raise a few questions, that I am hoping someone can answer before I actually purchase one for our family.

 

1) How do I record an entire series of a tv show? In WMC (WIndows Media Center) I just select the program in the epg and either press the rec button fast twice or press info->Record series. A must have for our family, since we watch a lot of DVB-T TV. Streaming services are not that evolved here in sweden.

 

2) After scheduled a recording, the TV wakes itself up and perform the record in the "background" even if no one is using it? What happens if the TV is in use at the time of the scheduled recording? Does the TV ask the user to confirm channel change?

 

3) Any way to get to the guide fast (rather by a single remote press) from anywhere by using the magic remote?

 

4) Does the browser support flash/html5? Most online content in Sweden from the major networks use flash and none have apps for the webos tv. Watching in the browser could work if it supports flash?

 

5) Any way to pin bookmarks on the start menu? (I know this has been asked before but no answer)

 

6) WITFM? In the IT world, we often use the phrase "read the f-cking manual" (RTFM) but in this case I ask "where is the f-cking manual"? The printed stuff and the electronic manual are both extremly basic. The LG website contains only lots of marketing bla bla... is there ANY kind of user manual out there?

 

7) Is it possible to know the expected lifetime for  a2014 TV with webos? If I buy a smartphone (Like an IPhone or Windows Phone) they release updates and feature packs at a regular basis, how is this done with the LG web os TV? Is there  a developer blog or something where the users get info on version x.x of the web-os? As of now, there seems to be lots of confusion even about what the firmware updates contain... Not much transparency from LG?

 

8) What about missing features and stuff like that? Any way to know what LG has in mind for the LG web os in the upcoming months or year? It feels there are lots of essential features missing, would be good to know what is in the pipeline... Even big companies like Microsoft can communicate with their "fans" through twitter and blogs, I am sure that LG can too...

 

9) Are there any other magic remotes than this one? I feel it lack some "must have" keys, and I would LOVE to get rid of the 3D button that someone figured was important enough to earn a place on the remote...

 

 

cheers!

Henrik

[majorusa]

1. Yes. The TV has two options in recording: once and recurring. It will not recognize the show but will record every day same time slot. 

2. The recording is performed in the background. The TV appears off but it is recording. When watching a channel and you have a scheduled recording the TV does not ask for permission. It changes the channel and starts recording. 

3. There are two ways to get to the guide: one is to press the wheel and then point the pointer on the top side of the screen where info about the content displayed is shown and press the wheem again. A detailed info will open on the bottom of the screen and you may navigate further in time on the same channel or down to see on other channels. Second method is to press home button on the remote and go to TV Guide. There you have the current channel in a small windows on the left and the 7 days guide for all the channels. 

4. The browser supports HTML 5 full. No flash. 

5. I could not find the method. There is not a desktop on the TV WebOS. Only a ribbon of applications. But you have on your browser possibility to add favorites like in Chrome. 

6. The TV has a comprehensive e-manual inside. 

7. This is a gamble. LG announced that will implement WebOS on its entire line of TVs in the years to come. 

8. Nope. LG is not showing anywhere the change log for the TV. I called LG Services to ask about an app and they refused to give me any info.

9. This is a research for you to make. I do not mind the 3D button on the remote.

 

I hope it helps. Cheers.  

[MrNorth]

Yes, extremly helpful, thanks!

 

ABout the epg stuff I guess it depends on the provider. For Media Center, it fetches the epg from a provider as xml, and then media center keeps a small sqlite db with info on all shows, scheduled recordings etc which it grooms on a regular basis. Stuff like if an episode is a rerun or new episode is very sketchy and works sometimes, much dependant on the epg provider. I guess, if you only have to rely on in-band guide data then you simply can't build the more "advanced" features" like the "record only new episodes".

 

What surprises me a little is why webOs ONLY schedule episodes by the time, which is kind of dangerous when it comes to series, that might be moved to another timeslot for reasons unknown. It also makes me wonder how webos handles partial recordings (like if there was a power out in the middle of the recording). WMC keeps track of this and records the rerun (if exists) if there was a partial recording of the original scheduled recording. The database, showid tracking is much more reliably, you will seldom miss an episode of your favorite show.

 

It feels like WMC and TivO are more advanced when it comes to PVR than the webOS (or maybe LG has not implemented all features yet, or maybe they feel that PVR is yesterdays technology, and streaming is the future (which it most certainly is).

 

Too bad LG won't embrace an "open door policy" when it comes to future development of their TV platform. Maybe it will change as they will release their TVs to additional markets (hell, here in Sweden we don't even have the app store yet), but has a tech geek, I really like the way we can interact with members of the xbox team for example by twitter and fb and blogs. And MSFT is not a small company, so that is not an excuse on LGs behalf. But I guess MS is more tech oriented by nature...

 

This platform show lots of promise definetly, and it is evident that the focus for LG is not the traditional way of watching TV, but rather the online social network streaming way.

 

I will hold off my purchase until the app store is opened and we hear word from the most popular on demand service providers, when they plan to release apps for this new platform.

 

/H 

[MrNorth]

Out of curiosity, is there any way to share recordings if I have more than 1 webos TV? Something like the "homegroups" in win7? If I record something with TV#1, I can see that recording in TV#2? Ditto for other content such as pictures, movies. Will I be able to browse it from a PC anyhow?

 

Is it also possible to use the TV as a NAS, if an USB disc is connected?

 

/S

[majorusa]

No. One show recorded on one WebOS TV is not recognized nor playable on a second WebOS tv. I did this with two 47LB730v. No NAS either. You want to much from your TV

[MrNorth]

No. One show recorded on one WebOS TV is not recognized nor playable on a second WebOS tv. I did this with two 47LB730v. No NAS either. You want to much from your TV

 

 

Thanks for the info. Well, I am kind of "probing" if an LG webos TV might be a viable alternative to our existing Windows Media Center setup, which is one of the most powerful PVR solutions today. And from what I can tell by the webos tv it doesn't even try to be a powerful PVR, but rather a multi platform where live-tv is just one of the many ingredients. That is not necessarily a bad thing since live-tv is definitely loosing market shares to streamed content.

 

Also, all existing "smart" tvs have been rather "stupid" in my mind compared to a real PVR solution like WMC and Tivo. I was kind of hoping, LG has done something completely different here

 

After some brainstorming, I came up with even more questions (homefully others can benefit from this as well):

 

1) How do I easily transfer movie files from PC to TV? 

 

2) I have read somewhere that the tv has full support for srt subtitles, both as file and embedded in a container? True or false? Does it also have support for CC (closed captions) in a DVB-T stream for example? How do I select/turn subtitles on/off with the magic remote?

 

3) Does the tv support full passthrough of audio through optical to an amplifier? Like if I watch HD-tv with AC3 sound or play an mkv file with DTS sound? 

 

4) Is there a tile for "recorded tv"? I noticed tiles for live-tv and guide. How do I access recorded tv shows?

 

5) Does it play real .rm and .rmbv files? What about .mov?

 

6) How can I "share" content (pictures mostly) stored on the UBS disk to other devices such as ipad, windows 8?

[majorusa]

Here are the answers as I experienced them. 

 

1. Portable HDD, USB Stick or using Smart Share app and streaming from Plex, Serviio or another media server on your PC. 

 

2. The answer is true with some caveat: I managed to use Plex for embedded subtitles and Serviio for external subtitles. I could find a rule why both servers are sometimes showing the subtitles and sometimes not. 

 

3. I do not know. I do not have amplifier. I do not need it. The TV has a pretty good sound. 

 

4. Yes but is not a tile. If you press ok on the remote, on right side of the screen you will see LIVE MENU. Click there and you have Programmes and Recorded. In recorded you have all recorded shows from the HDD. 

 

5. I do not know. But Plex is able to convert them on the fly if it does not. 

 

6. With Smart Share on USB. For the Ipad I did not test. But I will. I have an Apple TV but I will test also pictures directly to the TV. 

[majorusa]

I tested with the iPad. You cannot share pictures directly. There is no Miracast on iPad. But I found four solutions to this problem:

1. Use an Apple TV. Duh, this is obvious.

2. Use LG Cloud app from Apple AppStore. Upload the pictures. Use the LG Cloud app of the TV to view the pictures. Complicated and slow.

3. Use MediaConnect app from the Apple AppStore to transform your I device into a media server. Unse SmartShare app of LG Tv to access your pictures from the phone. Better than the previous ones.

4. Use TV Assist app from Apple AppStore. Open the picture in this app. It will automatically open SmartShare on the LG and your picture is on the screen. The best solution!

[MrNorth]

Hi!

 

I really appreciate taking the time to looked into this stuff, there is really not much info out there, neither on LGs useless product pages or on various reviews,

 

Are you sure it has to be this complicated to put some pictures on the HDD connected to the webos? I was hoping it was just a matter of in windows 7 click the device in the file explorer, browse to a folder of my liking, or create a new one and then copy/paste the photos to that folder, and then go to the LG tv, select pictures and watch the photos there. That of course requires that the tv supports smb or some kind of file sharing protocol, and you say it doesn't? That I have to use some kind of streaming service to share stuff? That sounds almost as useless as the xbox one is now, require any content to be on onedrive, HDDs not even supported on that one.

 

It feels really strange to have to go through plex or other 3rd party apps to do this simple stuff? Supporting the Apple eco system is not that big of a priority for us, since we are mostly using Microsoft software at home.

 

It also really feels strange not having the simple play, pause, stop, ff, rwd, rec on the magic remote... all this pointing and clicking stuff feels rather "gimmicking"...

 

/H

[majorusa]

I am saying that I did not find a method to do what you want. Why transfer pictures on HDD when you can stream directly on TV?  But if you use Windows Media Center SmartShare on the LG will be able to see your folders. Therefore your pictures will be visible on your TV. 

[majorusa]

I tested the Screen Share option with Windows 8.1. It works great. I mirrored the screen of my Windows tablet without any problem.  

[MrNorth]

Interesting, it seems like there are lots of options to stream content, but from what I understand, there is no easy way to copy content from a PC to the webos tv and then simply forget about the PC... that is the primary way we do stuff at home, we "process" it on our laptops, then copy it to the media center pc which has an attached USB drive. When viewing content we browse only from the media center pc, and I was hoping it would work the same with the webos, given that it is possible to attach a UBS disk to it. We rarely keep our other PCs on during other times but when we actually use them to do some work. Hence the "streaming" solution work rather poor for us. And onedrive and other cloud solutions is not an option since family movies, pictures etc is roughly 20 GB at the moment...

 

Thanks for looking into it...!

 

/H

[majorusa]

Well, you can copy all your pictures directly on one HDD and attach it to the tv. You have three usb ports. When a new batch of pictures, take out the HDD and copy again and reatach. You may use Smart Share to view all your pictures and videos. This is one solution.

Second solution. Buy a NAS. Synology, Netgear have preety good network disks enclosures. Chose one with at least 2 disks in order to create raid 1 back-up for you precious memories. Copy through the network your pictures on the NAS and use Smart Share on the TV to view the pictures.

The LG tv is a rendering device.

[MrNorth]

Well, you can copy all your pictures directly on one HDD and attach it to the tv. You have three usb ports. When a new batch of pictures, take out the HDD and copy again and reatach. You may use Smart Share to view all your pictures and videos. This is one solution.

Second solution. Buy a NAS. Synology, Netgear have preety good network disks enclosures. Chose one with at least 2 disks in order to create raid 1 back-up for you precious memories. Copy through the network your pictures on the NAS and use Smart Share on the TV to view the pictures.

The LG tv is a rendering device.

 

Ouch, doesn't sound like an option and feels rather backwards since we have a gigabit LAN at home. Running around with disks and sticks feels very ancient

 

Sounds almost like the XBox One concept, to have the device as a rendering device only :/  If only the USB disk attached to the TV could be shared on the network, it would be an other story entirely. Maybe I have to buy a NAS and store all images there, and hope that the TV can render images from that NAS. And use the attached disk only for recorded tv...

 

A question about the magic remote, do you never feel limited by the fact there is no pause/play/ff/rwd buttons on it? I tend to use those buttons a LOT when browsing through recorded tv and netflix streaming content.

 

/H 

[majorusa]

The TV is able to render pictures from NAS. I tested with my Zyxel NSA 325 NAS. I am also playing movies and music from my NAS. It is also a back-up storage for all the precious files in my network.

Concerning the Magic Remote, the answer is mixed. It is a mouse. So you have on screen controls. But sometimes these dissapear rather fast and you may miss your play spot when ff. alternative solution is the second remote which has hard play stop ff rw controls.

[MrNorth]

The TV is able to render pictures from NAS. I tested with my Zyxel NSA 325 NAS. I am also playing movies and music from my NAS. It is also a back-up storage for all the precious files in my network.

Concerning the Magic Remote, the answer is mixed. It is a mouse. So you have on screen controls. But sometimes these dissapear rather fast and you may miss your play spot when ff. alternative solution is the second remote which has hard play stop ff rw controls.

 

I would love an enhanced magic remote but with the mandatory play/stop/rec/skip/ff/rwd buttons... I definitely agree with the concept of pointing at stuff as compared to the "old" way of using the arrow buttons to step through all controls on the screen, but I'd hate to switch remote too often... and pointing and clicking while lying down in the tv sofa half asleep "zapping" through content is something that is exercised very often here at home Maybe LG will release a modified magic remote, or maybe any 3rd party vendors release one...

 

/S

[billigmeister]

lots fo good q and a's on here

 

i am not as techy savie as yourselves and don't play about with the file sharing stuff that you guys have and can't comment.

 

The magic remote is decent though and when using you can simply press the centre/scroll button twice and it will pause what you are watching and easily then fast forward etc then on screen.

 

the main remote is probably a bit better for using in this context but the magic remote is good still. I find the pointing at stuff a little bit easier and more natural. it is a very basic remote that is made for the onscreen interaction and does that pretty good.

 

although it is strange that the colour buttons are on there and pretty much redundant and not used.

 

btw mr north - the tile for recorded stuff is call "time machine" if connected to a hard drive.

 

i use it to record from DVB-s and DVB-t sources and it does this adequately. For me it is really handy as it means i can record stuff from a different country/sat feed and have it all under one roof/remote so to speak.

 

In the uk the dvb-t freeview epg does ok at recording things properly and does series link etc but the dvb-s is more old school and basic for recording

 

I have a proper pvr plugged into it as well for more important things that i don't want to get messed up. but it has done a good job of not missing recordings so far

[MrNorth]

Hi!

 

Another few questions just bubbled up

 

* Is there a way to see how much space there is available on the HDD?

 

* What is the standard timeskip buffer set to? in Wiindows Media Center, it is set to 60 minutes

 

* What is the default way to scroll through video (live tv, recorde tv etc) Is it by step (like 3 minutes forward and 1.5 minutes back) or is it by 2x, 4x, 16x ff or rwd, like the old VCR players?

 

* Any way to see which tv shows are sceduled to be recorded?

 

* How do I cancel a series recording, and how do I cancel just one occurence of a series recording?

 

 

regards

Henrik

[billigmeister]

Henrik

Answers

1 - yes it says how many mb is left and the total amount

2 - buffer is 90 mins

3- it is the 2x 4x 8x 16x method

4- yes - there is a scheduled recordings section

5 - yes - you can deleted only certain episodes and not whole series

It does seem to deal with clashes well when they arise on the scheduler and let you know a problem will happen giving you a choice how to deal with it.

Just to let you know we have 2 different feeds and they have different time zones and it seems to deal with those different epgs and recordings well.

It has a separate section for series recordings so they have a folder as such for each series

[majorusa]

@ billigmeister. 

 

The Series thing must be cable operator related. On my TV I did not see the series prompt though on the DVR cable-box from UPC I have it. 

 

What fw is your TV?

[billigmeister]

I think you are right. Using antenna/freeview in the uk it has series record but using satellite/German feed it only allows repeat recordings.

Sw is 03.23.24