Using Logitech Revue Without Cable or Satellite

When the Digital Home Team created Logitech Revue, it was to take full advantage of cable and satellite programming – not replace it. But as someone who gave up cable a few years ago and someone who was excited about Revue, I couldn’t resist getting one anyway.

Since there have been a lot of questions about how it works if you don’t have cable or satellite, and even though Logitech doesn’t officially recommend it, here’s how it’s worked for me.
Getting it ready:

• Since there’s no cable box to plug in, I just plugged it into Ethernet, into my TV’s HDMI port and into a power strip.
• Turning on my TV and Revue, I went through the setup and entered the model number of my TV for set up and chose “skip” for the other components. Super simple.
• Under the left navigation bar, I clicked Edit and removed “What’s On”. Won’t be needing that.
• Under Applications ->Settings -> Search, I selected Amazon VOD as searchable items, since that’s where most of my content is going to come from, but it doesn’t get searched by default.
• With my laptop on my lap, I opened the NetFlix app and activated my device. I can’t live without my Instant Queue, but the activation code needs to be confirmed on my computer before it knows my Revue is legit.

And then, I was good to go.

Now, my family takes turns showing each other YouTube videos (“Harry Potter Puppet Pals” is a big hit), watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with my vampire-loving daughter (every episode is on NetFlix Watch It Now), or watching the latest episode of “The Vampire Diaries” on The CW’s website, I’ve got a living room that’s whole lot more social.

And that’s not even including video calling my family in the Midwest on their computer webcams right from the couch – which is also social and entertaining.

The amazing, seamless entertainment search (which I think is the truly killer app) isn’t nearly as impressive when you don’t have 1000s of channels. But it’s still transformed our living room. Perhaps I’ll add DISH once my daughter’s old enough for “True Blood.”