YouView

[Exit Stage Left]

Our PVR broke down, so I had to get a new one. The latest thing is YouView. The box is overpriced at £285, and I had to get Power socket converters to connect it to the router, as it is upstairs. The idea is that all the various I Players and the like appear on the programme guide. So you can go back a week and watch anything on the main channels.
We don't watch much television, and at odd times. Heather doesn't do techy stuff, so this is an intuitive solution. I shall report on progress once we've watched the Olympics closing ceremony tonight. I'm running it through our 32 inch JVC CRT, the box is HD, but has a SCART output.

[rafletcher]

Interesting - I see you have a CRT TV so I can see the benefits there - but when that goes pop and you end up with a new LED one it'll likely be a "smart" TV that links to your router (ours is wirelessly connected) and will, by then, have all the "catch-up" sites enabled (I think our TV only has iPlayer on it at the moment).  TBH with the PVR we record what we want to watch and play it back when we decide to see it - we rarely watch live TV - and so I can't see the value in a "catch-up" PVR (ok, we miss recording the very occasional thing but series link has reduce that to a minimal amount - but if it's REALLY important to see it then we can use the laptop to watch it.

[Tim Hall]

(slight thread drift) The APs have just bought a "smart" TV and a wireless dongle so it can hook up to their wifi.  The TV has a web browser built in and various apps, such as BBC I player and ITV player. It doesn't have 4 on demand nor the channel 5 offering. As far as I can tell these aren't likely to be coming any time soon. The browser doesn't appear to handle the correct version of Flash to allow you to go directly to the Channel 4 website and click on the 4od link.

So I think the message is not all Smart TVs are as smart as all that.  Theirs is a Samsung.


Me, I'm waiting for my raspberry Pi and xbmc.

[rafletcher]

Samsung do a range of "smart" TV's, with different levels of "smartness". None AFAIK yet have a decent browser (ours has none at all but does have the iPlayer and ITV player offering but as you say no 4OD etc)) but I'm sure it will come - probably when the manyfacturers decide 3D is a waste of time.

[andyoxon]

We've just got a Youview TV box through TalkTalk (with them for BB/phone) - cost £25 install + £30 for powerline adaptors.  Seems great.  Can now get HD freeview too...  The box has 350MB HDD and two freeview receivers - pause live TV etc .  Talktalk do TV boosts, and discovered that one can subscribe to SKY SPORTS for one month (as and when) for £30 (thinks of Cricket/Tennis/Rugby world cup); so while I wouldn't go for SKY at £500+/yr, maybe tempted on an ad hoc basis.  Probably won't tell miniao that the 'TVgift' section has american boxsets for free including Friends....