Families hate Xbox 360, other streaming devices in TV Cord-Cutting Experiment @ Gaming Target

Written by Matt Swider on January 28, 2011

News: Ditch cable? Not likely for the average family.

The average family isn't ready to eliminate cable television, despite the advancements of streaming devices including Xbox 360. Boston-based advertising agency Hill Holiday gave five local families new hardware, Xbox 360, Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee Box and Netflix's Roku player, replacing their existing cable boxes with the new technology. The result? Confusion, frustration and a desire for costly cable television.

"Is cable worth $1,200 a year?" asked an an experimenter for the advertising agency.

"Yeah," admitted a female participant. She correctly pointed out the hassle of having to involve multiple forms of technology to get the streaming process to function. "You can do everything else on the Xbox. I don't understand why you can't sign up for your free trial of Netflix through your Xbox."

In addition to being forced to use a PC to complete the setup process of some of these "PC free" devices, participants noted their dissatisfaction with the lack of appropriate content offered by devices.

"I just rented Knight and Day [editor's note: his first mistake] from Google On Demand and I had just noticed it is 'Coming Soon in HD to your Google TV'," one male participant complained. "So I was a little surprised that is wasn't already in HD."

He's actually referring to Amazon Video On Demand through Google TV, not Google On Demand (I would've accepted Amazon Unbox as a correct answer, though). But, he's absolutely correct, as streaming devices such as TiVo HD don't stream content in high definition. That's reserved viewing Amazon Video On Demand on the PC and Mac, not exactly the place you want to watch theater-quality movies and television.

Another female participant complained that accessing apps such as Vudu Movies, readily available on the Boxee Box dashboard, resulted in an error message: "Stay Tuned - Vudu will be available on the Boxee Box soon!" Yes, that exclamation point makes it all better after offering people an app and basically telling them "Just kidding."

Almost everything participants pointed out is reasonable:

You're sometimes forced to use a PC to complete a setup process for a PC-free device.
HD content is lacking on devices conected to HDTVs, but available on the PC and Mac (which doesn't make any sense).
Devices offer apps that aren't ready for prime time.
There's a lack of live content.
- "It was funny because it said you could watch live TV, but it was like the BBC, through France, Al-Jazeera, all these random networks."
- "I typed in 'Dora' and it came back with 'Dora the Murder', which is inappropriate. It was all these weird YouTube clips."
- "Even CNN, which, if you go to top news stories, is a slideshow as opposed to video clips"

"It's so small" and "[this] looks fun" were the only positive things people had to say about the technology, and that occurred upon receiving the tech - before they booted up any of the devices.

"I'm glad we tried it. I'm glad we got to see what technology is out there. But at this point, for my household, I still need cable."

source: CrunchGear