Well, I finally got my Aereo service in operation.
It was a long time coming, it seems. Only two month ago, I called DirecTV and cancelled my service, expecting to get the Aereo service running on or shortly after April 15, the date they were planning to pre-release their service to the Boston (and may to others, but I don’t live there) market. I like the idea of the Aereo service design a lot and am willing to pay NetFlix prices ($8/mo) in order to receive a comparable and complementary service – convenient and quality. Netflix for old shows, and Aereo for current, real-time offerings.
The Aereo service initiation process was difficult because I pre-registered for service and then tried to login to the service, which only showed New York City. Naturally, they wanted me to prove that I was a NYC resident with a NYC serving area zip code, which I couldn’t, yet their server kept reminding me that I had not yet finished my signing up of service. Arghh…
Well, after an email service interaction which was quite timely prompt, I was advised to try it again. Try what again? I recommended that they should specify the URL and be clear with what they actually did. Because, I did try it again and did get to NYC’s signup page and did… arghh…
… despite my own incompetence, I did get the service running on my iPad and tested several configurations: iPad, MacBookPro, iPhone, iPad with AirPlay onto AppleTV and 1080p television, MacBookPro with AirPlay onto AppleTV and 1080p television. The most convenient was the iPad on AppleTV. The iPad can control the volume too!
However, you can choose the quality in the quicktime viewing window which was also a useful feature.
Channel surfing hurts and is not instantaneous as it is on a cable/satellite/broadcast service. That’s because those services are set up so you get all the channels, all the time and channel surfing happens instantly. With packet-based TV services, the sessions take a moment to initiate and then the streaming buffers have to build up content. I fully expect, as this class of service improves, they will replicate the surfing experience, in much the same way that wireless service providers, or cell phone equipment manufacturers or even VoIP service providers and VoIP equipment providers ultimately over time, replicated the quality and features of the public telephone network.
We watched the Boston Bruins wallop the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals. Great game (Boston won 3-0), but it was great technology. I am happy to being in on it at such an early juncture and look forward to technical and marketing improvements as they expand their services and improve their technologies. Sadly, I won’t be able to watch the service outside the Boston broadcast serving area. I’m in Campbell CA right now and would love to watch some Boston TV, but sadly, won’t be able to. This will change too.
