I remember when my Dad got our Betamax player. It was amazing. We were going to have movies that we could watch anytime we wanted. We could record live TV and watch it later AND fast forward through commercials. The ‘80's were officially the future.

But then I remember the days that my Dad then took vacation time to spend hours in front of that thing to duplicate videos. He had to rent a VCR and copy a bunch of movies so we could have something to watch. The Betamax lost the battle for the living room standard.

Luckily I didn’t end up losing in the HD DVD/Blu Ray war. I learned a valuable lesson from my Father. Technology moves quickly and it’s not bad to wait for the winner to rise to the top.

With all of the media center and internet TV devices that have come out over the last few years, I watched and waited. Apple TV is nice, but I’m not a fan of Apple stuff and I’ve never used or purchased media through iTunes, so that didn’t make much sense for me. The Roku devices are nice, but there was something I still felt was missing.

But then I heard Google was working on a solution. I had to have it. This was going to be it. Yes, I’m BIG Google fan. I use Gmail and any Google service I can try. I really like their view on moving technology forward and harnessing information to allow technology to make our lives better.

As soon as the Google TV (Logitech Revue) was announced I bought it. That’s right I paid $350 for one of these devices. In the market of a $99 Apple TV and Roku device I opted to spend more than 3 times as much for something from Google. I knew it was going to rock the world!

It didn’t. There was a lot of promise with a “full” browser on the TV and the Google Play Store (Android Market at the time with only apps, no TV and Movies or Music). There was so much hope for apps on the TV. Gaming was going to be huge. You could use the power of Google search to find any movie, any episode, anything right on your TV.

There were many things that bombed the Google TV. Under performing hardware, TV stations blocking the browser (because a 40" TV is totally different from a 40" monitor), lack of games developing for the platform, and let’s face it, no one wants to use a browser from 10 feet away.

I bought a Betamax. But the thing is, so has everyone else who has gone for this type of device or a smart TV. There is no clear winner yet. The tech companies and consumer can’t seem to decide if we need/want a smart TV or a dumb TV with smart box or dongle.

It seems like everyone wants to take over the TV, but I think the biggest hurdle is that the TV is a shared device. Not just a mulitple user device, but a simultaneous multi-user device. Which makes it often just a single use device.

I believe the device that will “win” in this arena will not do so because it’s the latest most advanced technology or because it created the best UI. It will be the first company that can strike a deal across all content providers to finally offer an all access service for TV and Movies. Anything I want to watch any time. If Netflix can do it with almost current media for $8 a month, someone should be able to convince the distributors that opening up the entire collection for $50-100 a month is the future.

I’m fine with buying “Betamax” devices, though, and you should be to0. It spurs on the innovation and drives interest in the ecosystem.