7. Community

When Yahoo first bought out Meedio, the majority of Meedio users were very angry, and I don't really blame them. They spent time setting up the program and its plug-ins, and then learned that there will be no more updates or support. At first, everyone in the forum was confused, but slowly people began to talk and spread information on how to fix issues such as the inability to use a Hauppauge remote. (The fix is available here.) Most of the people who experienced problems simply did not realize that they needed an MPEG II decoder, or that their decoder did a poor job.

People often complain that their particular piece of hardware is incompatible or that this feature or that feature should be added, and they are usually right. The thing is that no developer even talks to them or explains the intricacies so that they can make their own plug-ins. I'm starting to wonder if they even read them. I have been using this beta for two weeks now, with no word of what Yahoo is adding to the next version. I'm hoping that the user community can create plug-ins and skins that make customization possible.

Yahoo has plenty of bugs to fix, and I never will understand why none of their developers talk in the forums. There are plenty of smart people willing to help them fix their bugs or at least point out what causes them. They could at least give us a keyboard control listing! If Yahoo does fix its bugs, I believe the future of this program lies in giving users the ability to customize the program to their needs.

Final Thoughts

I do not understand the limitation of one folder for videos, one for photos, one for music, which seems unnecessarily inflexible Most of my content is spread out among multiple folders to keep my sanity when I'm trying to find things. I also don't understand why the entire Meedio compatibility list seen here is not supported. Yahoo supports only the ATI TV Wonder Elite, ATI HDTV Wonder, AverMedia UltraTV 1500 MCE, Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 and NVIDIA DualTV MCE. There is also no IR blaster support of any kind. I believe Yahoo should have added its features to Meedio and not stripped it of its abilities and turned it into the incompatible 9.5 MB application that it is now. I understand that this is a beta and might be improved, but Meedio already worked - why break it?

As I started to review this product, I tried to stay as unbiased as possible, but with the odd things Yahoo did to this program, that became impossible. If you are all set up in your HTPC ways I see no reason to even try this product. If you are just starting to explore HTPCs and need something free and easy to set up, you are good to go as long as you're satisfied with the limited features and occasional instability. Don't get me wrong, the Internet supplied trailers, video, and music are great, but its like putting icing on a mud pie - you're still not going to eat it.

It will be interesting to see what this product develops into a few months down the road. Will digital cable find a home in Yahoo Go? Will Meedio fans file a lawsuit for a complete abandonment of support? The future is very unclear. Yahoo could easily squash this product through either apathy or advertising overload, but I hope that the company can provide shelter for the abandoned Meedio crowd, which is so far very angry about the beta.

Finally, Yahoo should provide the plug-in writers with their own section in the forum, as well as a place to store their plug-ins and installation information. They should also have Yahoo developers handling questions in the forums. If they don't, I believe that many Meedio users will move on to other products, since there are many other better choices out there.

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