3. Annoying Sounds And Crippled Remotes

Yahoo put together (bought) a very quick and responsive interface (excluding channel changing). You can fly through the interface much more quickly running on a slower computer than in GBPVR or Windows MCE. My main complaint is the annoying transition sounds the program makes. I'm okay with a sound sequence when the program is opened or the occasional ping when you confirm an option on a menu. But opening almost every other screen produces a very annoying loud transition sound.

The sounds were so loud that my roommate asked me if I could disable them, because they were preventing him from concentrating on his finals. I just renamed the "sound" folder (found in the My Programs install folder) and that quickly took care of the problem (because the program could no longer find the sound files). Still, the user should be able to adjust or mute the volume of these sounds without having to resort to renaming folders.

Yahoo did not supply a list of compatible remotes, nor a manner to configure them, but you can get by with any remote that can send the up, down, left, right, enter and exit commands. As mentioned earlier, though, you need the pause button on the keyboard to pause live TV, and the insert key to reach the menu so you can change the volume. The F1-F7 keys send you to various places in the program.

The pause and insert keys may prove difficult to program for some remotes. My SnapStream Firefly could be easily programmed for Yahoo Go for TV, however, I never bothered since the program is still a beta and the keyboard shortcuts may change. I was really pissed to find out that Yahoo completely cut out channel changing support for all the IR blasters (channel changers) that must be used if you want to use digital cable or satellite TV.

I went to the Settings menu with some hope of custom configuration, but the only options there involve various ways to link Yahoo Go for TV to my Yahoo account. All this lets you to do is get your pictures linked with an account, as well as your local movie theaters and so on. Note that there are no options to launch from a secondary monitor. The switch screen functions of the latest Nvidia drivers do not let you switch the screen with a hot key, so you either have to clone or forget it if you're looking to run this on a second monitor.

Settings screen

Another thing that is missing is folder configuration: you should be able to change what folders you use for video, music, and photos, but it appears that this is not possible without editing the configuration file or reinstalling the program. The only other thing present is a FAQ that is not detailed enough to be of any use, and Yahoo's Privacy Policy. I have still yet to see a keyboard listing for how to control this program. I hope that I am not missing important features because of a lack of information.