From the outside, the QPlay appears to be similar to the AppleTV and Roku and Chromecast in that the output of the QPlay device (a box about the size of a deck of playing cards) plugs into one of your TV's spare HDMI ports (in my case, the last of my 4 HDMI ports). Power comes from a conventional plug-in power cube, just like Roku and Chromecast.
What aroused my curiosity was that the QPlay was developed by the two guys who invented TiVo, the first and arguably best digital video recorder (DVR). It was the TiVo that changed my viewing experience by introducing me to TV on Demand -- watching programs when I wanted to watch them instead of when they were on.
The catch with the QPlay is that you must use it with an Apple iPad. It has no remote of its own. The "magic" of what QPlay does is done online. You use the the QPlay app for iPad to create what QPlay calls "Qs" -- queues of programs you want to watch when you're ready to watch them. The technical term for this is "content aggregation."
If you already own an iPad, the idea of "building" an evening's (or weekend's) lineup of shows you've been waiting to watch sounds appealing. The only problem, right now, is that the list of available sources is quite limited -- mostly programs you can already watch on AppleTV and Roku without having to borrow or buy an iPad.
What prevents me from boxing up my QPlay and sending it back is the knowledge that Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton, co-founders of TiVo, have proven themselves to be real visionaries and -- get this-- they expect content aggregation (a-la QPlay) to include the MAJOR NETWORKS before long.
I'm not holding my breath, waiting for QPlay to embrace NBC, CBS, PBS, ABC, CNN and others. But if it does, I'll be ready to cut the cord to my DirecTV satellite service and you might be tempted to toss your Comcast cable box. Except for one thing...
(To be continued...)
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