The Day of the Triffids

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure this is going to be much of a review. Mainly because this isn't much of a film. I found it all rather underwhelming. But anyway, here goes.

So I'm sure you're all aware of the story. There have been many films and tv series' about the mysterious plants and their craving for human flesh. This particular film hails from 1963 and stars Howard Keel (yeah, that guy from Dallas). The film opens with a voice over giving us a brief explanation of carnivorous plants, presumably for anyone who has been living under a rock and who doesn't believe that such things actually exist. Then the voice over informs us about a new species of carnivorous plant that came to earth on meteorites during "The Day of the Triffids". Cue overly dramatic music and opening credits that go on for three bloody minutes.

After the agonisingly long credits, the voice over goes on to tell us that cities all over the world are witnessing unprecedented numbers of meteor showers. Thankfully these meteors all burn up in the earth's atmosphere before hitting the earth. We then cut to the "Royal Botanic Gardens" (we know this because the sign tells us so). It's night time, and as the meteors light up the sky above, the security guard for the gardens is doing his rounds. He returns to his little office, and as he's having a sandwich and a cuppa a triffid comes along and decides to have him as a midnight snack.

Meanwhile we see Howard Keel in a hospital bed with his eyes bandaged. He's pretty keen to have the bandages removed, but the doctor and nurse tell him that he must wait until 8 o'clock the next morning. He asks the nurse if she's really as pretty as people say she is. But of course she doesn't fall for it. She tells him that by this time tomorrow he'll be back on board his ship in Southampton and ready for duty. So now at least we learn that Howard is in the merchant navy. We're not told so, but presumably he suffered an eye injury while at work.

We're then shown an exterior shot of a lighthouse, again as meteors light up the sky above. There's a couple living in the lighthouse. We learn that the couple are both marine biologists doing research there. We also lean that although it was the guy's idea to go there in the first place, he is now thoroughly sick of life there and wants to get back to civilisation.

The next morning Howard is in his hospital bed. He counts the bongs from Big Ben and oh dear, it's 9 o'clock. He calls for the nurse, then tries to reach someone on the phone, but to no avail. He decides to remove his bandages and take a walk to try and find someone. The hospital looks a complete mess, with upturned chairs and tables everywhere, but no one to be seen. Eventually Howard finds his doctor. The doctor asks Howard to lead him to his office. It's quite clear that the doctor has become blind. He asks Howard to shine a torch into his eyes. The doctor concludes that his optic nerves are gone, which must've been as a result of the glare from the meteor shower last night. He tells Howard that he must be one of the very few people left in London who can still see. The doctor also says that he doesn't envy Howard being able to see the things that he's likely to see. (Wow, the doc got depressed really quickly. He should really see a doctor about that). The doctor asks Howard to go and get his medical bag from the other room. As Howard is looking in the other room he hears a crash and returns to find that the doc has killed himself by jumping out of the window. Bummer.

Back at the lighthouse the expected supply ship is late. The couple listen to the radio, and an emergency message says that the entire population of England appears to have been afflicted with blindness after watching the meteor shower from the previous night. The message goes on to say that they are trying to set up a rescue centre, and that all those who can still see are urged to report to Devonport dockyard. Oh yeah, and watch out for flesh eating plants that can uproot themselves and wander about too. The couple realise that they're a bit stranded.

Back in London Howard's got his navy gear on and decides to go for a wander. The streets of London are quiet, apart from the odd crashed car and blind people stumbling about all over the place. Howard decides to go to the train station. A train, presumably driven by a blinded driver, ploughs straight into the buffers at full speed. As blinded passengers stagger out of the train, Howard sees a school girl who can clearly still see. He rescues her from the crowd and they leave the station. Howard asks the girl, Susan, how she escaped being blinded. She tells him she's running away from her boarding school and was hiding in the luggage car of the train. They find an abandoned car and head out of London. They have an encounter with a triffid but they're able to make their escape. They head to the dockyard where Howard's ship is currently docked. They go to the bridge and pick up several distress calls in various languages from ships whose crews have been stricken blind. There's also a distress call from a passenger plane that's running out of fuel. Sadly there's nothing that can be done and the plane crashes and explodes close by. Howard and Susan then set sail in a small boat, leaving the burning dock behind them.

Back at the lighthouse the woman is convinced that she just saw a triffid outside. The couple go outside to investigate but find nothing. They come back inside, lock the door, and rather predictably the triffid is standing right behind them. The woman stands there screaming while it attacks the guy. Eventually he manages to kill it with a harpoon. Then they hear a message over the radio from Paris to say that basically everything there has gone tits up. The message says that everyone is blind and that this is their last message.

Next we see Howard and Susan driving through France. Didn't they hear the radio message? France is screwed. Eventually they run into a French woman who can still see. They drive to her chateau. The woman says she's currently taking care of about 40 blind people there. At dinner the French woman tries to convince Howard to stay and help her, but Howard is of the opinion that they should move on, leaving the blind behind so that those with sight stand a better chance of survival.

At the lighthouse the couple are busy dissecting the triffid that the guy killed. Although being marine biologists rather than botanists they're not entirely sure what they're doing. The couple then try and get some rest. Upon waking they discover the the triffid wasn't dead at all and has in fact bogged off outside somewhere. They decide to board up the windows and doors.

Back at the chateau a plane flies overhead and crashes nearby. Howard and the butler from the chateau go and investigate. They arrive at the crash scene to find a small plane with a dying pilot. The pilot says something about a rescue centre at a military base near Versailles and then expires. Howard and the butler guy find themselves surrounded by triffids. Howard manages to escape but the triffids have the butler guy for dinner. Howard later returns to the chateau to find a scene of drunkenness and debauchery. A group of sighted escaped convicts has broken in and are partying and having their wicked way with the blind women. Susan has managed to hide. She runs down the stairs and tells Howard what has happened. Howard manages to rescue the French woman chateau owner and the three of them escape in the convicts van. As they drive away we see the chateau overrun with triffids. They make their way to the base near Versailles but they find it destroyed. Howard says there's another naval base in Spain, so they decide to try and go there instead.

While driving through Spain they come across an ice cream van and decide to use that instead of the convicts van. Quite why they decide to do this I have no idea. They eventually reach a house belonging to a blind couple. The woman is about to give birth so they decide to stay and help. Howard manages to electrify the fence that surrounds the house, hoping that this will help keep the triffids away. It does a good job, but the numbers of triffids are so great that Howard is worried they'll eventually break through. Rather conveniently there's a tanker truck full of fuel in the grounds, so Howard uses it to torch all the triffids. At some point during all this the woman gives birth, to a baby. Howard and Susan figure out that the remaining triffids are attracted to the sound of the electric generator. Howard rather ridiculously lures the triffids away like the Pied Piper by using the the ice cream van. He tells Susan and his French bird to drive to the naval base and that he'll meet up with them there, which he indeed does and they're all successfully picked up by the rescue operation.

Back at the lighthouse they're still no further forward in determining how to kill the triffids. The triffids finally manage to break through the door. The couple are pushed back further and further up the stairs of the lighthouse until they're nearly at the top. In a last ditch attempt to fend off the triffids, the guy grabs a fire hose that's supplied by sea water. He sprays the triffids with sea water and would you believe it... sea water dissolves them. A voice over tells us that the simple solution of using sea water destroyed the triffids and that mankind survived. Hooray. The end.

Is it over now? Thank fuck for that. This is one of the most tedious films I've ever had the misfortune to sit through. How could they take the story of killer plants coming to earth on meteors and make it so mind numbingly boring. Literally NOTHING HAPPENS in this film, EVER. If this film were on a paint chart it would be magnolia. There's no tension, drama, excitement, fear, elation, sadness... just... nothing. This film has such a slow, meandering pace too. And I don't think it's because of the era in which it was made. I've seen sci-fi from this period that is much better paced, and able to trigger some sort of emotional response within the viewer too.

This film is of course based upon a book. Unfortunately I haven't read the book, so I'm unable to comment upon how good or bad it may be. But from what I'm led to believe this film doesn't adhere very closely to the story. If they weren't concerned with following the story that faithfully, maybe a bit more artistic license could've been used to add some of the excitement and tension that is so needed. I've only seen Howard Keel in two things; this and Dallas. But I don't think he's much of an actor to be honest. Having said that in this film he's way better than anyone else, with the exception of Susan. The girl who plays Susan does a pretty decent job. She reminded me of a slightly younger Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children. I suppose it's good that your two central characters are your strongest actors, but I just felt that the couple in the lighthouse weren't even trying. Their acting seemed a bit on the hammy side to me. Their scenes just felt a bit out of place with the rest of the film. And the woman's screaming seriously got on my tits.

There are no real special effects in this film to speak of, so there wasn't really anything for them to screw up. And to be honest it would be pretty hard to fuck up plants. In terms of the plot, there are two things for me that just don't make sense. The first is concerned with the number of people rendered blind by the meteor showers. It just doesn't make any sense that such a large percentage of the world's population would be blinded. We're told that everyone was blinded because they were watching the meteor showers. But surely there would be some who didn't. Surely some would be in bed asleep, or at least indoors and not looking up at the sky. And what about the side of the earth where it was daytime? They'd have had enough advanced warning to know that they had to stay indoors and not look up at the sky. Yes, there would be a percentage of the population who were blinded, but I don't think the scenario of civilisation as we know it grinding to a halt would happen. The other thing that makes no sense to me is the triffids being dissolved by salt water. The lighthouse is perched on a tiny island of rocks. Rocks which are presumably constantly battered by waves. How would the triffids have even managed to establish themselves there? And I would think if you're in a lighthouse surrounded by the sea, salt water is one of the first things you'd expose a triffid to. Why didn't they think to try that? It just makes no sense to me.

So the plot has huge holes in it and overall it's a rather dull film. I vaguely remember the 1981 BBC mini series of the same name, but sadly not well enough to comment on whether it was any good or not. Although on IMDb it scores 7.4 out of 10, so maybe that would be one worth watching if I can find it. There was also a 2009 mini series, but sadly again I haven't watched it. As for this particular film, it scores 6.1 out of 10 on IMDb. That seems a little high to me. Personally I'd rate it at around 4. I can't really recommend watching this, unless you're a huge Howard Keel fan, or you like your sci-fi with a huge dose of boredom. If you want plants eating meat action get yourself a Venus fly trap. It'll be far more entertaining than this.

Missile to the Moon

It's the present day. Well present day 1958 anyway. This film begins with a policeman on the hunt for two escaped convicts. This seems a bit unusual given the film's title. What's this? Mystery, intrigue and excitement? This bodes well. (Spoiler: it doesn't). We then cut to three guys in an office. There's a military guy, a scientist guy that looks like Vincent Price and another guy in a suit. The scientist guy and the military guy are arguing. Apparently the scientist guy has pretty much single-handedly built a rocket ship capable of flying to the moon. Why? Just for fun I guess. It's what scientists do. The military guy argues that space travel is government business, so said government is stepping in to run the project from now on. The scientist guy and suit guy aren't too happy about this as the rocket is their baby. I don't think it's said, but I think the guy in the suit has provided the funding for the project thus far.

At this point their meeting is interrupted by the sheriff who is out looking for the two escaped convicts. The sheriff asks if he can look around the premises, including where the rocket ship is located just outside. The scientist guy takes the sheriff to the electrified fence that surrounds the rocket. But what's this? The electrified fence has been turned off! I must point out here that the switch for the electrified fence is located on the outside of said fence. That doesn't seem like the most secure set up to me. Why not have the power switch located back in the office? But what do I know? Nothing, clearly.

While the scientist guy and the sheriff are outside the suit guy and the military guy continue their discussion inside. The suit guy pulls back a curtain above an instrument panel and we see the rocket ship through the window. A very poorly crafted rocket ship it must be said. It looks like someone has cut a rocket shape out of a piece of plywood and then painted it grey. It looks like that because that's what it is. And we're supposed to believe that this rocket ship is huge but is some distance away. But unfortunately it looks like what it is, namely a small model placed just the other side of the window. At this point a woman walks into the office. Apparently this is suit guy's fiancé.

We then finally meet our two escaped convict friends. And yes, they have taken refuge inside the rocket, or the lower half of the rocket to be precise. There's a ladder that leads to an upper section and we're given the impression that the two men are inside a cylindrical shaped room. They even managed to add an echo to their voices, so partial credit for that. Scientist guy starts to climb the ladder at the base of the rocket so the two convicts climb into the upper section. Scientist guy climbs up and opens the hatch to the upper section. Upon seeing the two men he shouts down to the sheriff that there's no one inside. He then shuts the hatch and climbs back down. The convicts attempt to open the hatch, but scientist guy has locked it from the other side.

Scientist guy returns later with food. And a gun. He proposes that he and the two convicts pilot the rocket to the moon, or he shoots them. The convicts, not having much of a choice, agree to his plan. So basically they attempt a take off immediately. Scientist guy starts to power up the rocket. Back in the office suit guy notices the control panel going apeshit, so he comes outside to investigate along with his fiancé. They board the bottom section of the rocket. The rocket has many switches and levers that need to be operated to execute a successful take off. None of your two levers for everything shit here. So after much lever pulling all five of them lift off into space. Here we see the obligatory footage of a V-2 missile taking off.

After take off everyone is united in the upper section of the rocket.  Gary, one of the convicts, takes a shine to suit guy's fiancé. The other convict, Lon, has Rick Astley's hair. Presumably he was convicted of stealing it. I think Gary was convicted of being an unlikable git. Gary waits until he is alone with suit guy's fiancé, which is no mean feat in a rocket, and then he throws himself at her. Predictably she's not that impressed. They then encounter a meteor shower. Scientist guy gets hit on the head by something big and heavy. As he lies bleeding he says the ship is pre-programmed to land at a particular spot on the moon and that it's imperative they land there. He hands suit guy a medallion and says that he'll need it. He then says something about public outdoor swimming pools? And then he dies. Suit guy says "He's dead" just so that we're not left in any doubt.

So eventually they successfully land on the moon, after the obligatory footage of a V-2 taking off, played backwards. They all put on space suits and venture out onto the surface of the "moon". Clearly they just shot the moon sections in a desert somewhere. In daylight. Yes, there's beautiful blue sky on the moon. And earth-like gravity too. Handy. They encounter these idiotic looking rock monsters. They're obviously just people dressed in foam rubber "rocks". And they're finding it incredibly difficult to move by the looks of it. So these foam rubber things shuffle along like old men while our friends pretend to be scared and act as if they're in some sort of imminent danger. They end up surrounded and so they decide to run into a cave (yeah, that'll work).

So anyway they fuck off into the cave and soon discover that it's full of breathable air and so remove their helmets. Suddenly they're all overcome by gas of some sort and pass out. When they come to they find themselves in a palace of some kind. A blue skinned woman appears and says "I am Lido, high ruler of our humble domain". Seriously, did the writers not know that a Lido is the name given to a public outdoor swimming pool in the UK? Obviously not. But this is a US production, so maybe they should be forgiven for that. The Lido woman is clearly blind. She says that our friends should rest and enjoy the hospitality. Suddenly a load more blue skinned young women appear carrying food and drink. One of the women offers suit guy a drink, but then she immediately runs over to the Lido when she sees the medallion around suit guy's neck. So suit guy is shown into another room to have a private conversation with the Lido.

The Lido, thinking that she is talking to scientist guy, says it's good that he has returned and he must tell her all about earth. Okay, so here's the story. Scientist guy was in fact one of the aliens, sent to earth a long time ago to discover if it would make a suitable home planet for their species. None of the others sent ever returned. The Lido woman explains that since scientist guy left for earth a lot has changed on the moon, and that they now have very little breathable atmosphere or food left. Suit guy decides to play along and give the impression that he's scientist guy. The Lido doesn't know any different because she's blind, and all the younger women were only small children when scientist guy left for earth. The Lido says that apparently Alpha, one of the young women, was betrothed to scientist guy before he left. So it looks as though suit guy's going to marry a young alien woman. I bet his fiancé will be delighted.

Meanwhile Gary has wasted no time in chatting up a young woman of his own. He sees that she's wearing diamonds and asks her about them. She says diamonds aren't rare or valuable at all on the moon and that she knows a place where there's loads of them. So that's Gary sorted and out of the way for a while. Good. He was starting to get on my tits by this point anyway. Lon has his own encounter with one of the young alien women, but this is of a far more subtle and romantic nature.

Suit guy finishes his chat with the Lido and comes to explain the situation to his fiancé. She's not best pleased when he mentions the marriage bit. Then his alien bride to be, Alpha appears. She says it's time for their marriage ceremony and then kisses him. Suit guy's fiancé sees red and tells Alpha who he really is, and then twats her one. So the two ladies then have a bit of a cat fight. Then Alpha goes to see the Lido. Alpha tells the Lido that all our friends apart from suit guy should die. She will still accept suit guy as her husband. The Lido says our friends shouldn't be killed. Alpha says the Lido has become old and weak and challenges her position as leader. Her challenge fails and so the Lido tells her to stop being such a bitch and do as she's told.

Two of the alien girls come and inform Alpha that our friends are trying to escape through the passages in the caves. Alpha decides that they should release the "dark creatures". The dark creatures turn out to be giant ass spiders of rather questionable quality. Okay, I did actually laugh out loud when I saw them (and when I saw the rock monsters too now I think about it). They have these googly eyes on the front, but they have just TWO googly eyes which makes them look ridiculous. They're also clearly just suspended on wires from above. Our friends elude these terrifying creatures but sadly they are quickly re-captured. Alpha puts suit guy under some sort of hypnotic mind control and tells him that all his earth friends should die. The Lido catches Alpha doing this and demands she speak to her alone. Alpha grabs her chance and kills the Lido by stabbing her in the back. As the new Lido she tells the other girls to prepare for an execution and a wedding too.

Alpha and suit guy are about to be married, but Alpha says suit guy's fiace won't see the ceremony as she is sentenced to die immediately. She is taken into the tunnels where the giant ass spiders live and tied to a stake. The marriage ceremony begins, and as seems to be customary in all alien ceremonies there is some weird dancing first. Lon's alien girl allows Lon and Gary to escape while the dancing is taking place. Lon and Gary find suit guy's fiancé and untie her. Lon's alien girl manages to break the mind control that Alpha has over suit guy. Suit guy then makes a run for it to join the others. Lon's alien girl decides that her race is too fucked up to survive so she sets off a bomb. This destroys the palace and the precious atmosphere, killing all of the alien women.

Our friends venture back outside and manage to dodge the rock monsters. They see Gary in the distance loaded down with diamonds. The sun is about to rise and they shout to Gary to drop the diamonds and run into the shade. But of course Gary ignores this advice and gets turned into barbecue. Lon, suit guy and his fiancé successfully make it back to the ship and blast off for home. The end.

I'll be honest, I don't know quite what to make of this film. I'm a bit torn. There are elements that are fairly competently done, such as the interior of the rocket ship for example. But then you have the awful too, like the ship's exterior, and the fact that it's broad daylight on the moon. And then there's the downright laughable, such as the rock monsters and spiders. I know it's only makeup, but credit should go to actually giving the alien women a different coloured skin, that's a nice touch. But then how did scientist guy end up looking human? And what happened to all the other men? It's all a bit of a mystery really. Still, this is probably one of those films where you shouldn't think to deeply about stuff, it's probably more enjoyable that way.

The acting is okay I guess, but I did find Gary and suit guy's fiancé to both be particularly annoying. I think the major problem with this film is quite simply the plot. It was pretty unbelievable from the outset and it just got even more so as the film went on. A more competently made film could maybe carry off a wacky plot like this, but sadly this film wasn't up to the job.

The similarities to Cat Women of the Moon can't be ignored either. A species of attractive alien women on the moon, mind control, giant ass spiders, the lure of wealth that leads to death, awful dancing, and ultimately all the alien women die. I tried to decide which was the better film, but I couldn't. However looking at IMDb I see that both films have a score of 3.5 out of 10. That's fair I think. Both films are equally awful. Bottom line is, if you've seen one of these films then you've seen them both. My advice; watch neither.

Chromecast Review

Following the recent arrival of Google's Chromecast in the UK, I decided to pick one up and see what it's like.

What is it?

Putting it simply, a Chromecast is a thing you plug into your telly that enables you to watch stuff from sites like YouTube, Netflix and BBC iPlayer on said telly. It looks like a USB memory stick and plugs directly into an HDMI socket on your tv. You then plug the supplied USB cable into the Chromecast and the other end plugs into the supplied power adaptor. Or alternatively, if your tv has a USB socket somewhere on it then you can plug into that and your Chromecast will have power. My tv has both HDMI and USB sockets on the back so I used those. This looks very neat as the Chromecast and its cable are then completely hidden. And no, you don't need to worry about the Chromecast not being able to see the remote control, because there isn't one.

How easy is it to set up?

The answer is very. So once you've plugged your Chromecast in, you switch on your tv, select the correct HDMI source and then you'll see a welcome screen instructing you to visit the Chromecast website to continue setup. You can go to the web address on your netbook or laptop, or alternatively you can download the Chromecast setup app for your smartphone. I had my netbook handy so I used that. Plus I thought there might be typing involved, which is always easier on a proper keyboard. You then download and run a small program which guides you through the setup process. It's extremely easy and your Chromecast needs very little information from you to get up and running. You basically select your wireless network, give it the password for said network, give your Chromecast a name (mine's called Colin) and you're done. Here are a series of screenshots taken from my tv and my netbook that show just how easy it is to set this thing up. Honestly, I think I was done in under two minutes:

(TV) Just visit the address given to begin setup

(PC) Download and run the small setup program

(PC) Chromecast found... just click Continue

(PC) Enter your wi-fi details and name your Chromecast

(TV) Your Chromecast will make sure it's up to date

(TV) That's it!  You're ready to cast

How easy is it to use?

Again the answer is very. There are quite a few apps and websites that support the Chromecast and the list is growing all the time. The first thing I did was fire up the BBC iPlayer app on my phone. Now in the app there's the addition of a little Chromecast icon in the top right corner. Choose something to watch, tap on the little icon and the name of your Chromecast appears. Tap on the name of your Chromecast and hey presto, you're watching iPlayer on your tv. I assume it shows the name of your Chromecast so that if you have more than one you can choose which one you want to cast to. Now I've seen quite a few reviews that have mistakenly said that your smartphone, tablet or laptop 'beams' the content to your Chromecast, but that's not how it works. Your smartphone, tablet or netbook just acts as an interface to the Chromecast.  Just think of it like a remote control. So using iPlayer and my phone as an example, I select what programme I want to watch on my phone, tell my phone I want to watch it on my Chromecast, then the Chromecast springs into life and streams that programme using my internet connection. I can continue to use my phone completely as normal. I can use the phone at any time to pause, play, adjust the volume etc. of the programme being streamed, but the stream itself is handled by the Chromecast. I hope that kind of makes sense because it's an important distinction to make. And it seems that some people who should know better appear to misunderstand the process.

Is it any good?

I think the picture and sound quality is excellent. I watched an entire episode of Top Gear with no buffering, no weird picture glitches, no drops in sound (or the sound getting out of sync with the picture).  It worked flawlessly. And it's far better quality than anything my cable box can produce. I'd go as far as to say that the quality is better than what my Roku can produce too. (By the way, I stopped using the BBC iPlayer service on my cable box years ago as the interface seems to have been designed by a monkey. And not a very smart monkey either). I tried the Netflix app next and the results were equally impressive, as were those from the YouTube app. Whatever I threw at the Chromecast, it played it without fault. I know the Chromecast is basically only a dongle, but I think the build quality is good too. It feels solid and well put together. And I love that it can sit behind my tv with no wires showing.

What about streaming movies and videos from my computer?

Yes there's a wealth of content out there on t'internet, but what if you just want to watch videos stored on your computer on your tv? Happily this is possible with the Chromecast too. I downloaded an extension for the Chrome browser called Videostream. It only supports .mp3 and .mp4 files at the moment, but I'm sure more file types will be supported soon. I just selected an Ellie Goulding (don't judge me) .mp4 video that I have saved on my netbook and voila, it started playing on my tv. Again the quality was excellent. And yes, this process actually does involve 'beaming' the content to the Chromecast because you're playing something that's saved on your computer. Because of this I thought my very low end netbook would struggle at sending the content to the Chromecast, but again it performed perfectly. Okay I thought, that's just a music video, but can it handle a whole film-length video? Happily again the answer was yes. I selected the film Blade Runner that I have saved as an .mp4 on my netbook, and again it streamed the film without any issues at all. I was seriously impressed as I hadn't expected this process to be very successful at all, certainly not with my lowly netbook. There are other apps and extensions for Chrome that will stream local content, such as Plex for example. Just go to the extensions section in Chrome, search for Chromecast and you'll find all the compatible extensions. By the way, I haven't tried the Plex web app yet as it required me to sign up for a free account and I haven't got around to doing that yet. But it's definitely on my list of things to try.
      

(PC) Using Videostream, select a .mp3 or .mp4 file to play

(TV) Quality is excellent.  Yes this is a photo of my tv screen

Is it better than a Roku?

I'm not quite sure how to answer this one. People keep comparing them, but personally I think they do slightly different things. The Roku feels a bit more like the traditional tv experience. You have a box with a remote, you have 'channels' and you have an interface on the tv. On the Chromecast there is absolutely no interface on the tv, it just shows you the content, and some very pretty pictures when it's not streaming it has to be said. With the Chromecast your mobile device is the interface. The Roku may have many more channels than the Chromecast has supported apps, but the number of apps is increasing all the time. And this is a Google product after all, so I don't think it's going away any time soon. Also the quality of some of the channels on the Roku is just dire. And I'm talking about the quality of the content here, not how good it looks. A lot of the Roku channels seem to be American-centric, religious, or American-centric religious. And to be honest that sort of content doesn't interest me in the slightest. I think in summary what I'm saying here is that the Chromecast does quality over quantity. Another plus for the Chromecast is of course the official YouTube channel, which despite promises and assurances has yet to appear on anything other than the Roku 3.

Is it worth the money?

On balance I think it is. It's 30 quid at the moment and I think that's a fair price.  It's quite a bit less than what I paid for my Roku LT at the time. Of course the Chromecast is cheaper in the US, but then their technology always is. It's 35 dollars over there, which Google tells me equates to 21 quid here. But I certainly don't begrudge paying 30 quid for my Chromecast. I think Google have probably got the price just about right. And I'm sure you'd be able to get it cheaper if you hunt around.

So you're happy then?

Yes. I've only been using the Chromecast for about a week now, but I'm pretty impressed by what it does. I have my Roku connected to my tv in the bedroom and the Chromecast is connected to the tv in the living room. So now in either room I have the option of watching online content. And to be honest that's pretty much all I do these days. Mainstream tv is so appalling that I gave up watching it quite some time ago. The only thing I switch my cable box on for these days is to watch the news and the weather before leaving for work in the mornings. It never goes on apart from that. And now I have the ability to watch Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and the like without having to switch on my PC. It's so nice to watch stuff without the continual whirr of a PC fan in the background. So yep, I'm pretty happy. There is the chance my opinion could change over time, but I'd have to say at this stage that if my Roku LT ever gives up the ghost, I'll be buying a Chromecast to replace it.