THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, COMMUNITY, AND VALUES
Site (and Technology) Review
By Jeffrey Barlow
This site review is a bit of a deception in that it is really about a piece of technology and we usually leave such reviews to those who truly understand the technology in question. The virtue of this review is that if I can use this technology, then rest assured that you can, too.
The technology, Verisimo's "Vunow," looks like a conventional modem and truly does nothing new; it just does it far more conveniently than the geekier alternatives. Essentially, it brings a variety of programs available for free on the Internet into one convenient menu via its box. You don't even need a computer; its modem box serves as a computer as well as your channel selector. You get Internet TV with little fuss and do not have to tie up a computer.
I first saw the Vunow operating in Pacific University's dazzling new "CLIC" facility (The Center for Language and International Collaboration) where it brings in international Internet TV channels for the use of our World Languages Department. These channels, seen on a huge, wall-mounted, high-definition display, were truly impressive and I checked it out and found it affordable.
Programming includes a dazzling variety of satellite channels delivered to Vunow's servers and thence to your box, which is controlled with the familiar hand-held remote. These include eighty to one hundred news channels from all over the world, some in multiple languages. We watch two Chinese channels regularly, one in crisp English and one in Chinese, when we want the news before it is digested for foreign audiences. BBC is there, of course, also Al-Jazeera (out of Washington D.C. to my surprise) and many more. Christian broadcasting is well-represented, as are specialized channels, some fairly...unusual, including a Yogi who broadcasts from the former Soviet Bloc in English to crowds of rapt Eastern European twenty-somethings in huge theaters. Each continent, all of the world's major languages and a surprising number of minor ones are represented.
In addition to the satellite news you get a variety of movie channels, mostly oldies but goodies; also Youtube, Internet Radio, Hulu, and Netflix in streaming downloads. You can also browse the Internet at will, though using a cursor to type URLS and to search will probably send you back to your computer for that.
Installing the device is a cinch. You simply take an Internet line out of your Internet connect ion—a router connected via a cable modem in my case—plug it into the Vunow box, then plug the usual array of cables into your set. It is much easier, I think, than setting up a DVD player.
A possible alternative to a direct link is operating wirelessly. The Vunow box does so with its simple menu, but our wireless, at least, is just too slow, even at supposed "N speeds". The small delays as programming buffers (brief pauses while incoming signals in effect build up before resuming a natural flow) were annoying so I opted for a direct connection.
In my case, the simple connection from router to Vunow was not very simple because my "media room" is as far away from my computers as is possible in our home. I had to run a hundred-foot long Internet cable through the study floor into the basement, drill through the foundation, crawl under the porch and then take the cable up the outside of the house to the second floor; hopefully most readers have built their computer system more thoughtfully than I have. And in fairness, I learned a great deal about opossum nests while doing this, though I could have gotten a more comfortable view from the wildlife channel.
Even with a direct link, some of the channels will periodically experience brief buffering, but most do not: English language Chinese TV buffers (CCTV 9) for example, but Chinese language programming rarely does. Films, in our experience, do not.
Our usual evening finds me working on the computer and Christine prowling world news in English, French, or Chinese or searching out documentaries for her classes on the Vunow Internet, and watching more than a few films. While Christine is not actually proud of her very limited ability with computers, she does tell with some relish the story of sitting down in the school lab beside a fellow teacher whose unattended machine crashed the moment Chris sat down. She has become very proficient with the Vunow menu and finds it intuitive and easy to program.
Rarely, while we are each in our separate digital worlds, I experience some brief issues in using the Internet, but these seem not to affect the Vunow programming. I may have set my system up a good deal less than optimally, and someone who really knows what they are doing may not have similar experiences.
The Vunow is available in three versions from 129.00 to 179.00—depending on the definitions and speeds desired. This is a one-time charge, though, at least for now, there are no monthly access charges whatsoever. The variety of cables and devices included with the kit make it seem like a good deal; the HDMI cable (for connecting to a High-def display) alone was close to fifty dollars in discount stores when I checked. The on-line ordering process was simple and delivery took less than a week.
You do not, of course, have access to regular broadcast channels, cable TV or pay-per-view. Another limitation is your bandwidth. Dial up modems are not going to work and you will want cable modem speeds. See their web site for particulars, all carefully delineated.
We killed our cable TV some time ago, but missed the news and films. Vunow has us back in the broadcast media consumption game, but with much more choice than earlier, and at much less cost.
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