Advanced Driving Hub

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:TBH we very rarely record anything. We have an old-fashioned HD recorder but it can't record anything other than the channel you're watching because it has no other inputs, so fairly pointless, plus Virgin have pretty good catch-up TV so we don't really miss anything.

Our recorder failed and we dumped it. We decided not to bother buying another but got a NowTV box for £9.99. (No subscription) If it's Not on catch up we don't bother. I'm even reading more books now... Back to less clutter...

Ian

Well, interestingly, JonT, ITV removes the ads from their catchup programmes. Not all channels do though. I've never tried FF'ing but most of what we watch is on BBC anyway.

Will investigate NowTV.

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Well, interestingly, JonT, ITV removes the ads from their catchup programmes. Not all channels do though. I've never tried FF'ing but most of what we watch is on BBC anyway.

Will investigate NowTV.

Very rarely watch ITV other than the sort of junk films like BttF which are often on ITV2 (but not available on demand anyway).

gannet wrote:NowTV is a sky subsidised ROKU player...

Explaining jargon with more jargon - that'll help!

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:

gannet wrote:NowTV is a sky subsidised ROKU player...

Explaining jargon with more jargon - that'll help!

Roku

Now TV

ROKU is more flexible, NOW TV is a platform for sky to push its on demand TV shows (for a charge of course). the NOW TV box is however about 10% of the cost of the ROKU. You can also get the sky channels on the ROKU.

There are people who say you can flash the NOW TV box with the ROKU software, thus getting the ROKU for the much cheaper price, but I haven't gone that route.

these are all similar/competing devices to the Apple TV or what it is those rip off merchants are calling it these days...

I did look at their sites (before you posted the links, btw, but thank you). It wasn't all that clear, but what I gleaned was:

- they offer streaming TV over broadband (so you need some kind of broadband provision first).
- they sell you a box (not sure if that gives you anything at all in its vanilla state), then you have to buy a channel package of some kind.
- I _think_ I gathered that they only offer catch-up TV, nothing live, but I could be wrong there.

80% of what we watch is BBC terrestrial channels, the other 20% is a few odds and ends and some Sky Sports (which is obviously expensive, but after many years I decided I really wanted to be able to watch cricket again, so took the plunge). I'm sure there are cheaper ways of achieving this than VM, but I'm a bit naive when it comes to what the options are. We have a FreeView TV upstairs hooked up to an old loft aerial, which works quite well, but of course that wouldn't allow me to get the Sky stuff. One thing I'm sure of is that I will never sign up to Sky as my main provider.

you gleaned mostly correct, however most of the 'channels' on the ROKU box are free. The only ones you need to pay for are the ones from sky... and a few other really obscure ones.

the ROKU does provide catchup services for all the usual channels, I mean there is a 'channel' for iPlayer, ITV Player, All4 and Demand5... which most TV's dont have - many just having iPlayer.

This of course is all changing to with the introduction of Freeview Play to compete with youview - both of which work in the same way as my current PVR box but add the catchup services builtin to the guide so you can easily scroll back through 7 days (I believe) worth of programs...

don't remember seeing any of that in the back to the future films

So, being thick, and apologies to others for the thread hijack (I can split it if anyone objects), a few more questions:

Can I actually watch any channels live, or is it restricted to catch-up services?
What is quality likely to be like - will there be lots of drop-outs like there are if I try and watch stuff on iPlayer (despite having 30MB broadband, or something of that order)?
Now you've introduced two more - is there an infinity of such offerings? Any resources for comparing them that you recommend?
Would you really ditch a "real" TV service (cable / dish / aerial) in favour of this?

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Can I actually watch any channels live, or is it restricted to catch-up services??

It is primarily catch up services, but if the 'channel' you install offers you a live service then it can be live. There are thousands of channels available for the ROKU, but we just basically have it for the ITV, All4 and demand5 channels.

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:What is quality likely to be like - will there be lots of drop-outs like there are if I try and watch stuff on iPlayer (despite having 30MB broadband, or something of that order)?

Which broadband you got? 30MB virgin should be fine depending on how many people try and use it at the same time. We have the upto 100mb virgin and its fine. Are you going over a wireless network or wired, a that could have a bigger impact than broadband stream if for instance wireless a fair way away from the router... we took the opportunity to lay cat5 cables everywhere when we moved in 10 years ago and needed to re-wire. Mrs gannet was what do you want to do that for... now so glad we did.

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Now you've introduced two more - is there an infinity of such offerings? Any resources for comparing them that you recommend?

Freeview Play has only just been released so there is little out there in terms of reviews, but Youview has been around for a few years with the Humax youview recorders taking most gongs what hifi review. But these are more expensive than the ROKU type plays

More info on Freeview Play and links to some reviews etc...

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Would you really ditch a "real" TV service (cable / dish / aerial) in favour of this

I haven't, it supplements it (aerial in our case) in the case where we forget to set the PVR to record a show, or for watching in places other than the lounge.

We have a Humax youview box - takes an aerial feed for live stuff and broadband for catchup. 1TB HDD for recordings with 2 encoders (so you can record 2 things simultaneously or record 1, watch 1 live feed, or I think record 2 and watch 1 recorded feed).

We now have 36MBit FTTC BB rather than virgin, being in the sticks. Normal quality is fine, HD can stutter a bit so I generally don't bother trying.

Refurb store was suggested and where we got ours from:
http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/refurbished.html