Steven --
I think (although I'm not entirely certain) that this partly addresses your question. I finally got my WinTV board today (I had to have it shipped over from a CompUSA in Spokane) and I've been fiddling with it in my free moments. I got it installed fine and got the TV broadcast and WaveDirect running just fine. I was expecting to find WaveTop as part of the set-up, but it didn't install at all as part of basic WinTV installation procedure. The WinTV Installation and Reference Manual talks about setting up "Intel Intercast," which allows you among other things to "view eweb pages received over the airwaves." I haven't actualy found this Intercast software anywhere in the software Hauppage provides. I don't think that it's there. However, in poking around on the CD I found a WaveTop directory from which I could intsall the WAVO software. This also wasn't part of the basic set up scheme and if I hadn't gone snooping I wouldn't have known it was there. I've tried to get it running but it won't recognize my local PBS station, even though WinTV picks it up just fine. So for the moment I'm stuck there. I'm not sure what that means or whether it actually addresses your questions. I also don't know if my experience with this matches anyone elses.
I haven't had much time to try out WaveDirect, beyond setting up my account. Looks pretty smooth, basically. More straightforward than the Hauppage stuff, for sure. I have some small gripes, but they're more about style than substance and I'll save those to e-mail to the company. More than anything, I sure as hell wish they'd get the on-line store up and running. It's probably a good thing that most of the people using the system right now are company supporters who have some patience about these things.
24601's points are well taken about this being a test run for the Wave back office. That's certainly part of what's happening here. On the other hand, it was the company who emphasized how carefully titles were being chosen for this launch. I think that monitoring user patterns will in fact turn out to be an important part of this launch, and I suspect that Wave will make some changes based on what they find, in terms of packaging, pricing options (I know, that's up to the vendor but the feedback Wave gives them should be informative) and teasers. The software needs better teasers to lure people in.
All right, I managed to get some griping in. Basically, I'm just so thrilled to see my Wavemeter (yes, the chip still has the old name on it), #9172351, sitting inside my computer and to have Wave's software sitting on my desktop. After all this time, it's really quite a rush. |
