What is YouView+?
Lbear1
Member Posts: 741 ✭
Keen eyed readers of the main site may have noticed that a new designation of "YouView +" has been quietly slipped in.
You may notice the first slide on the front page now states "With a YouView + box you can ... pause, record, rewind" and similarly the "features" page now states:
I believe I know why this change was introduced (to comply with the ASA?) but where are the specifications for it? Yet again, a consumer is left in the dark about what a YouView - or "YouView +" should have as features although as most of you know some of the features in the published "Base Specification" have yet to appear on any box but the BS has not been altered at least as far as an available document is concerned (I have not checked this yet).
This secrecy is part of the reason why retail sales of YouView boxes have been so dismal (running under 10% of the numbers supplied via BT or TT). YV seem to think that consumers are completely disinterested in "what's under the lid". I would counter that nobody buys a television just on the basis that it "has a 40 inch screen and receives TV". Even "Mrs Smith on the 17th floor" is at least vaguely aware about the advantages of more memory and a faster processor in technology products like phones and computers. To pretend mainstream consumers are not interested in such product details can be countered by pointing to the Argos site which is hardly one for "geeks" and "first adopters". Come to that, if it were the case, how come Humax market their PVRs with two sizes of hard drive? How can a retailer differentiate a Humax T1000, T1010 and the "G4"? Again the Argos site illustrates this problem with their page on the G4 where it alludes to the higher spec:
Come on YouView, how about finally telling us in detail what a YouView box should and cannot do without us having to winkle it out?
You may notice the first slide on the front page now states "With a YouView + box you can ... pause, record, rewind" and similarly the "features" page now states:
Now that function was I presume what most on here consider a "YouView" box to be so I must assume the "without +" designation has been reserved for the TalkTalk Huawei DN360 which does not have a hard drive.
Record, pause, rewind TV Two of your favourite programmes on at the same time? With a YouView+ box you can record one show while watching another, or two while you're watching a third from the on demand library or MyView
I believe I know why this change was introduced (to comply with the ASA?) but where are the specifications for it? Yet again, a consumer is left in the dark about what a YouView - or "YouView +" should have as features although as most of you know some of the features in the published "Base Specification" have yet to appear on any box but the BS has not been altered at least as far as an available document is concerned (I have not checked this yet).
This secrecy is part of the reason why retail sales of YouView boxes have been so dismal (running under 10% of the numbers supplied via BT or TT). YV seem to think that consumers are completely disinterested in "what's under the lid". I would counter that nobody buys a television just on the basis that it "has a 40 inch screen and receives TV". Even "Mrs Smith on the 17th floor" is at least vaguely aware about the advantages of more memory and a faster processor in technology products like phones and computers. To pretend mainstream consumers are not interested in such product details can be countered by pointing to the Argos site which is hardly one for "geeks" and "first adopters". Come to that, if it were the case, how come Humax market their PVRs with two sizes of hard drive? How can a retailer differentiate a Humax T1000, T1010 and the "G4"? Again the Argos site illustrates this problem with their page on the G4 where it alludes to the higher spec:
BT's new Youview+ Box is sleeker and more compact than ever and operates even faster for a more responsive TV experience with no noisy fan to distract your viewingIncidentally - the inference of that is that the T1010 and BT T1000 they also sell has a noisy fan that distracts you, not really in line with the old retail mantra "sell the best but don't knock the rest".
Come on YouView, how about finally telling us in detail what a YouView box should and cannot do without us having to winkle it out?
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Comments
Argos and John Lewis describe it incorrectly as a Freeview+, not a YouView+ recorder. JL use "YouView" as an additional description and Argos "with YouView". Currys describe the T1010 as a "YouView HD recorder" as do Richer Sounds for the BT badged T1000 and simply "YouView 500Gb hard drive PVR" for the T1010.
The only companies currently using the designation are YouView and, not surprisingly, TalkTalk. It is actually welcome as it should help customers decide between their various packages.
I know the "G4" designation is an internal BT reference but it is a convenient shorthand since the actual model number has not been announced (despite it being available via Argos) and we are presuming from the reports it is Humax made. What do you think the quotation marks are for in the original post? Unless you can confirm the correct designation, I will continue to use "G4".
The remainder is a question of letting consumers know what they are buying and the "unique selling point" of a particular model. Up to now it has simply been a choice of a black case or silver one and whether you get a bigger hard drive in the silver one. With the introduction of the "G4", how is it different from a T1010 apart from the case and lack of display? That's the problem that retailers have on the shop floor (and I have worked there albeit several years ago) especially when the "look and feel" of the different products is deliberately so similar.
YouView was not intended to be only a way for ISPs to compete with Sky and Virgin in providing a TV service. With recent Freeview HD boxes and televisions now able to access catchup (and a lot more other on line services than YouView currently), the YV "USP" is no longer enough to sell the boxes. Just as an example, I have several friends from the MENA area who would likely be interested in the Arabic language channels available on Freeview HD's MHEG-IC portals. YouView is obviously not for them but would they know it by questioning the average shop worker in Argos or Currys? Even those retailers with staff who have generally excellent product knowledge like John Lewis and Richer Sounds would probably be pushed.