'Smart' new LG tele - why no live WIFI programmes?

[slope]

No aerial (no point cos no reception in this valley) + no satellite dish (cos I'm too scared to climb ladder perched on the corner of Snowdon Towers and rewire new cable)

Said 'smart' LG tele happily receives ITV4 Hub 'catch up' Le Tour broadcasts, via me WIFI

So why can't I get it to stream the live ITV4 Le Tour broadcasts?

Happily get live ITV4 Le Tour on me iPad connected to the very same WIFI + on me iMac too

Any ideas why the 'smart' TV is only playing ball with catch up/on demand service?

[rr]

All 4 on LG doesn't do live, unlike BBC, or the phone aps,  quality is not as good as BBC either.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

[grams]

Because they haven't implemented that feature in the software, and probably feel no need to?

If it's a new enough LG you may be able to Airplay to it from your iPad or Mac.

[Feanor]

We have several 'smart' TVs dotted around the place, including a reasonably recent LG.

As you have found, Smart TVs are not usually that smart, and what smarts they start with will deteriorate with age.
This is because the content providers will change their streaming services frequently, requiring the receiving software to be updated.
You'll be lucky if any domestic TV is getting software updates after a few months.

Usual solution is to add something like an Amazon Firestick or similar streaming receiver into one of the HDMI ports.
The software for these is better maintained.

[slope]

Brill all you responders, many thanks 

I was thinking it was me being twp and not figuring out how to 'use' the very confusing  and irrational (to me) 'smart' TV 'menus'

Shall investigate Mac's Airplay

[ian]

Our LG is a couple of years old, but doesn't have Airplay. For the few occasions when we need to send video to it from another device, we use a Chromecast.

Most TV catch-up services seem to outsource their app development for the various TV platforms, so it's a bit hit and miss.

[Kim]

TBH, it's best to regard any 'smart' features on a TV to be a free bonus that will be functionally limited and cease working within a year or so of purchase.

In the absence of open standards (which the broadcasters will resist in order to continue being able to advertise at you) these things require constant whack-a-mole maintenance, and the manufacturer simply doesn't care.  They've sold the telly, job done.  If it were a smartphone it wouldn't be such a problem, as you'd have dropped it down the loo or upgraded to a newer model by then, but TVs tend to hang around a bit longer...

[Tim Hall]

My Samsung Smart TV still has working smartness. It's almost three years old.  I presumbably owe this good fortune to treating the first one like a mobile phone and smashing it as I dropped it out of of the box on the day of purchase. The present model was purchased one day later.

[pcolbeck]

TBH, it's best to regard any 'smart' features on a TV to be a free bonus that will be functionally limited and cease working within a year or so of purchase.

^This. Just assume that you are going to need an Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Apple TV, Now TV  or whatever (choose your poison dependant on what you already have or which provides the services you want cheapest) hooked up to it within a year or so of buying it. I would probably do it straight away. The TV companies are selling hardware not access to services so really cant be bothered with updates to the Smart TV bit whereas Amazon, Google etc's whole thing is selling services and the hardware is either a loss leader or a break even thing and they have to keep the software updated for a reasonable length of time. Even if your device eventually gets too old to get updates its in the order of £50 to replace rather than £300 - £3000 for a decent TV. My 10 year old Sony keeps going fine, the picture is still great but the Smart bit is completely useless now but it's kept in service by the Amazon Fire TV box which is bang up to date (software wise, hardware wise its probably about three years old).

[mrcharly-YHT]

My Samsung Smart TV still has working smartness. It's almost three years old.  I presumbably owe this good fortune to treating the first one like a mobile phone and smashing it as I dropped it out of of the box on the day of purchase. The present model was purchased one day later.

Ditto our Samsung, about 5 years old. Gets software updates, runs anything asked of it.

[rafletcher]

My Samsung Smart TV still has working smartness. It's almost three years old.  I presumbably owe this good fortune to treating the first one like a mobile phone and smashing it as I dropped it out of of the box on the day of purchase. The present model was purchased one day later.

Ditto our Samsung, about 5 years old. Gets software updates, runs anything asked of it.

And yet ours, only 2 years old and despite getting software updates, will no longer accept Airplay - tho' that's possibly an Apple thing - nor play the Channel 5 catch-up (there was one thing we wanted to see, otherwise I'd never have known).

[ian]

Airplay is likely a hardware issue, it takes some omph to run Airplay 2.

[rafletcher]

It worked ok when we first got the TV, but when I tried recently (after a break of around 8 months, iPad and Macbook) it failed. Hey ho, I can manage without, it's only for the occasional chance I get to watch the Australian V8 supercar racing.

[ian]

It worked ok when we first got the TV, but when I tried recently (after a break of around 8 months, iPad and Macbook) it failed. Hey ho, I can manage without, it's only for the occasional chance I get to watch the Australian V8 supercar racing.

Probably Apple released Airplay 2. Airplay 1 was a pretty basic device-to-device 'casting protocol, Airplay 2 brought all the funky multi-device sharing etc. Not all hardware vendors implemented it as it takes more omph (or possibly they couldn't be bothered and that's the excuse).

[grams]

AFAIK Airplay 1 never supported third party devices for video mirroring. Smart TVs with Airplay would have been Airplay 2 from day one.

[rafletcher]

It is indeed Airplay 2. And it needs MacOS 10.14.5 and IOS 12.2.  Both of which I exceed.  I shall have to have a play when I get an idle moment and try and get it sorted, probably by resetting the TV and starting again from scratch.

[ian]

If it had it once, then it's probably squirrelled away in the TV's menu UX (these tend to be uniformly terrible).

As far as I can tell, our LG supports something called MiraCast, which of course Apple don't support and good luck finding how to activate it in Windows (after 20 minutes trying to MiraCast the kiwi exercise bombast of Les Mills from her work Window's laptop we gave up). Even including delivery time, it was quicker to set up a Chromecast.

[simonp]

Our LG TV has the same issue - I assumed it was ITV but the Apple TV version of the app supports live streaming. A bit of a nuisance if you don't have a suitable device to do it.