On Sat, 14 Dec 2013 17:22:16 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per micky:

The smart DVD with Wif sounded like just what I needed*** until I read
descriptions, reviews, and thought about it some more. Now I have big
doubts.

You're on the right track with the big doubts.

I bought a high-end LG for somebody a few months back.

Sounds impressive at first: WiFi, web browser, reads every format you
can think of...and so-on.

Then one gets to the remote.... sheesh!... it's just begging for a
keyboard what with the web browser... but it doesn't even have a
dedicated skip button... and it's operation is totally unlike any other
DVD player's remote. Gotta wonder what the people who sent something
like that to market were thinking of.

I couldn't learn to much from the web, so I went to Best Buys. I
hate to waste their time, because it will, I know, be months before I
buy anything, and I might buy from the web anyhow. I wasn't going to
use any time of the clerks but I couldn't even find the smart dvds.
That took her 10 seconds to point me, and a total of 3 or 4 minutes
from 2 other guys.

The first guy said even a smart DVD won't do what i want (go to any
place on the web) and he uttered the word Roku, but when we got to
that aisle he didn't actually look at the Roku. It seemed to be a
choice between the Sony Internet Player with Google TV and the Vizio
Costar.

One used the term full screen browser. What I want is a full browser,
I don't much care if it's full screen. But it seems,- although I
don't guuarantee it -- that one can go to any webpage, if you can get
the remote to work for you. Places like NBC.com won't work but that
is because of NBC's rule, not the device's limitation.

So I'm trying to decide which I would prefer. There are 500+ reviews
on Amazon for each of them , and I might just read them all. Different
people want different things,

The second guy said, Oh no. There are DVD recorders with web brosers,
but the only one he pointed to was.... get this, and expensive LG, 200
marked down to 110 called clearance. That's probably the one you
bought, or close to it. The remote isn't there, but there is a
picture of it on the plastic imitation device, and it has hardly any
buttons, far fewer than the Costar. Plus I already have a DVD
writer connected to the tv now, so it's back to the Internet Players.

I'm going to try to find the manuals online and read them. For me
that is always the best way short of buying one to know if something I
want.

One review seemed to say that Hulu wont' work with Costar. Even
reading the owne4rs manyal won't give me a list of every site that
won't work. Right now hulu is not high on my list. Actually I'm
overwhelmed with tv to watch now, mostly from MeTV. And I haven't
even tried to find out if I can take the output of these new things
and put them through my own dvd recorder with hard drive. Do you
know? That's pretty important because I keep getting sleepy and
would like to record what I haven't yet watched.

Anyhow, Just wanted to report a what little I learned. Despite the
one mistake the one clerk seems to have made, maybe it wasn't a
mistake. Maybe even though LG claims to do internet browsing, he
knows it doesn't do it well, becaues of the remote? Even if not,
there's a lot for those guys to learn and they seemed to know quite a
bit. I think 2005 was the last time I'll understand everything I
need to know.