In what seems to be another chapter in an ongoing war for dominance of your entertainment center, there is literally a sea of media players developing from which you can choose and about the only thing that is certain about this market is the fact that it will change.
Apple is offering its Apple TV player,
while Google TV is being offered by a number of media players such as tuners offered by Logitech, and then there's D-Link's Boxee Box, and then there are the complete video services offered by Roku's LT.
Given the variety of tuners to think about it can be confusing, however, if you read on a bit, you will, hopefully find some clarity, starting with Apple. The strongest thing about the Apple offering, Apple TV, is that it probably has the nicest-looking box of the bunch. It is a nice black with the Apple logo prominently featured as just about the whole cover.
And, there's only one wire really needed for this device, so it does have that going for it, if you just happen to have an Apple-compatible system that not only uses Apple's high-speed proprietary connection and a subscription to Apple's AirPlay. If you have these conditions, then you are all set to deal with the apps that Apple offers under iOS and its proprietary browser, Sahara, which is nice, but slow, at best. Meantime, you also have another problem and that is that if you want to access anything but services offered by Apple, then you are locked into Apple's universe and you can't access anything that you may be available through Android or through other major services such as NetFlix or YouTube (a Google-based service).
The Boxee, on the other hand, gives you access to the many apps offered by Android, but - and it's a big but - the results are uneven. Yes, you can have access to all of Google's content, including anything you have stored or played on Google TV. The issue here is that the content of the apps written for Google, unless they are written by Google's programming staff itself, are uneven - some are very, very good, while others are not quite as good.
Still, the Boxee does offer you the world of the Android and Google TV which is pretty good, but, then again, you are locking yourself into another proprietary network, Google. Now, granted this one is far open, after all, it is Google, but still it is a network and while it does encourage additions to its Android library of applications, a network is still a network.
Which brings us to the services offered by Roku. Yes, you do need more interface cables to tie everything together so that it works correctly, but you also have access to native HD (1080p) for high-definition TV and services such as NetFlix, YouTube, Facebook and others.
