I do get annoyed by people commenting that as YouView is effectively free of charge after the one off payment that we should expect an inferior service to other boxes such as Sky which are subscription based.
I have said before, and no doubt again, that the BT Vision Classic box was much faster - the guide appearing instantly having clearly been cached. That box is several years old and is on the same subscription and functional model as my BT YouView. If they can do it why not YV?
I have no idea how YouView works for its guide but I do understand software, databases and holding a local cache which YV doesn't appear to do. Poor design can't be excused on the basis that Sky had more money in my opinion.
As someone who bought retail box I agree the idea that it'd be fine for YouView to be inferior to Sky or Virgin Media would be daft.
Where we might disagree is that I don't think it IS inferior to Sky or Virgin Media, both of which I've used. I ditched Sky for YouView having ditched Virgin Media's TiVo the year before because it was a crock of guff.
Unlike the VM TiVo, YouView is simple to use, works reliably and has a lightweight, modern user interface.
It also benefits from being a platform designed specifically for the UK, the VM TiVo lacked red button and reminders for more than a year because these weren't features the US has and had to be shoehorned into the code.
At launch it couldn't even search VM's own Music on Demand content. Pretty poor all round IMO and it seems VM have far less control and flexibility over features than YouView or Sky do as they're only buying into a platform and not in total control over it.
I also think YouView is more modern and expandable than Sky and that this will become more obvious in 2013 and that many more people will realise they can get a premium TV experience without the mandatory subscription.
Yeah but it's no good just repeating the marketing catch phrase. It doesn't make it any better. Look, youview is great for what it is but really it's just a free view PVR that's connected to the net for online content. Our LG TV does everything youview does and with a much better iPlayer interface and picture quality. The only thing it doesn't do is record.
As for Sky, yes it is expensive, although we never have movies or sport so that lessens the dent in the wallet by quite some margin. However it does have a lot more HD content....and let's face it, what is the point of having a large screen HD TV if your only going to stick to SD content? Also your paying for the content, not the box, although I agree the box is useless as a PVR without the subscription.
YouView is "ok' but it's not great and certainly not as seamless and fluid an experience as the advertising blurb would have you believe. Also picture quality is not the best. We often get sections of broken picture on recordings which we never had with the Sky box.
Anyway we are in a 18 month contract with BT right now so perhaps It will grow on me. At least BT's broadband is excellent so that's something :-)
Your LG TV does NOT do everything the YouView box does.
It doesn't have backwards EPG, can't search all content regardless of the provider, doesn't record (which you mention), and doesn't link the EPG to both recordings & catch-up content.
It also isn't guaranteed to offer streamed IPTV channels next year, allowing you to watch more than just Freeview, and I suspect LG hasn't committed itself to 4 major software updates per year to keep your box in line with all the major features.
The backwards EPG is useless. As mentioned before, for all the catch up services it needs to launch it's own app and I can do that on the tv and browse backwards. It only "looks" like it's better because it lists the programs however as I also mentioned, the picture quality and actual interface for the various catch up services is far better on the tv than the YouView box. We have Freeview HD on the tv...sames as on the YouView box. The only thing we don't have is the recording. That is on the next model up from ours. Why would I want to stream IPTV channels? Doesn't that defeat the whole usp of the YouView box? Might as well stick to Sky if I am going to pay for channels. LG is constantly putting out software updates. Have had three in the last year and we will be replacing the set next year so will have yet more features.
If YouView had managed to make the whole process seamless it would be a much more enjoyable experience. Having to launch proprietary apps to watch the various catch up services is no different than me doing the same thing on the TV or PS3. In fact it's quicker to launch iPlayer on the tv and browse for what I want than to do it on the YouView box. We actually hardly ever watch anything on the other catch up services as it's mostly complete dross anyway, but on occasions I have done so it's been clunky and slow so it puts me off right away.
Now, IF, we were able to instantly go back in the EPG and catch something we had just missed which was on earlier and that happened instantly just the same as choosing a channel that was currently broadcasting, that would indeed be something special. It doesn't do that though.
All YouView have done is taken a Freeview pvr and added the internet based catch up tv services. It would be a great idea if it were all tightly integrated so instead of launching an app you just choose what you want to watch from the epg and it goes to the program without any other visible links in the chain. Of course there would be a slight delay, depending on your internet connection speed but it would be, more or less seamless and THAT, is what I thought I was getting.
Had it not been for the fact we were switching our internet to BT and they had the free YouView box offer going then we probably would not have bothered.
Whilst to me and my family the backwards EPG for catch-up is more user-friendly - meaning we now use catchup regularly whereas I rarely used it before Youview - I do agree with your comment about the lack of instant catch-up.
Almost every time we try to catchup it's the same evening, and it's not available on the Youview EPG - we have to wait until the next day which usually we forget. The backward EPG, the main reason for my getting Youview does not fulfill it's advertising blurb and potential. If the missing programmes could be scheduled to download once available that would help.
I no longer have any serious concerns about the speed of the EPG though - whilst I haven't compared side by side with Sky, it feels just as quick and easy to navigate (though the same cannot be said about the MyView recordings interface).
If companies want people to stick with Youview and therefore ultimately buy content the interface does need to be improved, as overall in numerous ways it falls behind Sky and my freesat PVR; and as stated above, the big selling point, backward EPG catchup - is failing to fulfill the advertising blurb.
I'll stay with Youview, because I think it will improve over time and has amazing potential - but if money were no object, I'd go back to Sky for a better more user-friendly interface, despite all the bells and whistles that Youview offer over and above the Sky EPG.
The EPG on my Humax feels slow and laggy and compared with my Topfield which by contrast is lightning quick. In the YV EPG if I quickly move up more than a few rows or along more than a few columns or back/forward days there is a noticeable delay before the EPG is populated. Surely all info is stored in ram and should be displayed instantly?
Navigating the EPG on the YV box feels like a chore and is not made any easier by those bl**dy clicky buttons. It would be helpful there were buttons assigned for page up/down/left/right instead of only moving one column/row at a time.
If you have the humax box, I have had a similar experience every time I do a channel re-scan, so you may be seeing this from an initial channel scan. Normal speed returned after this (standard) procedure (which is documented in a few places):
Press and hold the front panel standby button for 8 seconds to soft reset the device
Tried this a number of times and it is a consistent action. After this reset, everything appears OK ie all new channels/update working fine.
Thank you Steve, this worked for me! You are a diamond! :O)
In all seriousness the guide for youview even on the Humax is not exactly quick. It would be nice for some optimisation work being done, although its probably wishful thinking at this point. BT's answer is just to release better hardware. LOL
In all seriousness the guide for youview even on the Humax is not exactly quick. It would be nice for some optimisation work being done, although its probably wishful thinking at this point. BT's answer is just to release better hardware. LOL
In all seriousness the guide for youview even on the Humax is not exactly quick. It would be nice for some optimisation work being done, although its probably wishful thinking at this point. BT's answer is just to release better hardware. LOL
The G4
‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ Wm Morris
In all seriousness the guide for youview even on the Humax is not exactly quick. It would be nice for some optimisation work being done, although its probably wishful thinking at this point. BT's answer is just to release better hardware. LOL
Comments
I have said before, and no doubt again, that the BT Vision Classic box was much faster - the guide appearing instantly having clearly been cached. That box is several years old and is on the same subscription and functional model as my BT YouView. If they can do it why not YV?
I have no idea how YouView works for its guide but I do understand software, databases and holding a local cache which YV doesn't appear to do. Poor design can't be excused on the basis that Sky had more money in my opinion.
As someone who bought retail box I agree the idea that it'd be fine for YouView to be inferior to Sky or Virgin Media would be daft.
Where we might disagree is that I don't think it IS inferior to Sky or Virgin Media, both of which I've used. I ditched Sky for YouView having ditched Virgin Media's TiVo the year before because it was a crock of guff.
Unlike the VM TiVo, YouView is simple to use, works reliably and has a lightweight, modern user interface.
It also benefits from being a platform designed specifically for the UK, the VM TiVo lacked red button and reminders for more than a year because these weren't features the US has and had to be shoehorned into the code.
At launch it couldn't even search VM's own Music on Demand content. Pretty poor all round IMO and it seems VM have far less control and flexibility over features than YouView or Sky do as they're only buying into a platform and not in total control over it.
I also think YouView is more modern and expandable than Sky and that this will become more obvious in 2013 and that many more people will realise they can get a premium TV experience without the mandatory subscription.
As for Sky, yes it is expensive, although we never have movies or sport so that lessens the dent in the wallet by quite some margin. However it does have a lot more HD content....and let's face it, what is the point of having a large screen HD TV if your only going to stick to SD content? Also your paying for the content, not the box, although I agree the box is useless as a PVR without the subscription.
YouView is "ok' but it's not great and certainly not as seamless and fluid an experience as the advertising blurb would have you believe. Also picture quality is not the best. We often get sections of broken picture on recordings which we never had with the Sky box.
Anyway we are in a 18 month contract with BT right now so perhaps It will grow on me. At least BT's broadband is excellent so that's something :-)
It doesn't have backwards EPG, can't search all content regardless of the provider, doesn't record (which you mention), and doesn't link the EPG to both recordings & catch-up content.
It also isn't guaranteed to offer streamed IPTV channels next year, allowing you to watch more than just Freeview, and I suspect LG hasn't committed itself to 4 major software updates per year to keep your box in line with all the major features.
If YouView had managed to make the whole process seamless it would be a much more enjoyable experience. Having to launch proprietary apps to watch the various catch up services is no different than me doing the same thing on the TV or PS3. In fact it's quicker to launch iPlayer on the tv and browse for what I want than to do it on the YouView box. We actually hardly ever watch anything on the other catch up services as it's mostly complete dross anyway, but on occasions I have done so it's been clunky and slow so it puts me off right away.
Now, IF, we were able to instantly go back in the EPG and catch something we had just missed which was on earlier and that happened instantly just the same as choosing a channel that was currently broadcasting, that would indeed be something special. It doesn't do that though.
All YouView have done is taken a Freeview pvr and added the internet based catch up tv services. It would be a great idea if it were all tightly integrated so instead of launching an app you just choose what you want to watch from the epg and it goes to the program without any other visible links in the chain. Of course there would be a slight delay, depending on your internet connection speed but it would be, more or less seamless and THAT, is what I thought I was getting.
Had it not been for the fact we were switching our internet to BT and they had the free YouView box offer going then we probably would not have bothered.
Whilst to me and my family the backwards EPG for catch-up is more user-friendly - meaning we now use catchup regularly whereas I rarely used it before Youview - I do agree with your comment about the lack of instant catch-up.
Almost every time we try to catchup it's the same evening, and it's not available on the Youview EPG - we have to wait until the next day which usually we forget. The backward EPG, the main reason for my getting Youview does not fulfill it's advertising blurb and potential. If the missing programmes could be scheduled to download once available that would help.
I no longer have any serious concerns about the speed of the EPG though - whilst I haven't compared side by side with Sky, it feels just as quick and easy to navigate (though the same cannot be said about the MyView recordings interface).
If companies want people to stick with Youview and therefore ultimately buy content the interface does need to be improved, as overall in numerous ways it falls behind Sky and my freesat PVR; and as stated above, the big selling point, backward EPG catchup - is failing to fulfill the advertising blurb.
I'll stay with Youview, because I think it will improve over time and has amazing potential - but if money were no object, I'd go back to Sky for a better more user-friendly interface, despite all the bells and whistles that Youview offer over and above the Sky EPG.
Navigating the EPG on the YV box feels like a chore and is not made any easier by those bl**dy clicky buttons. It would be helpful there were buttons assigned for page up/down/left/right instead of only moving one column/row at a time.
Mine's so slow after the TT Huawei update to 70.30.09 I'm thinking of switching to the Radio Times!