[snaithg]

Other than Humax, does anyone know which other manufacturers are planning to release YouView boxes?


Graham.

[swedish cook]

Originally Posted by snaithg

Other than Humax, does anyone know which other manufacturers are planning to release YouView boxes?


Graham.

I believe only Humax being trialled currently but that the final TalkTalk unit will be by Huawei. Other sites on web reporting full list as Humax, Huawei, Pace, Manhattan, Vestel and Cisco.

[snaithg]

Thanks Swedish Cook,

I'm surprised that some of the more familiar high street brands do not seem to be present (Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Grundig et etc).

Or is it going to be like SKY boxes where a very limited number of box manufacturers are licensed to manufacture effectively identical boxes?


Graham

[davedrizen]

Am I right in thinking unlike freeview boxes, what ever manufacture Youview box you have the firmware will be exactly the same. So just like a sky or virgin box whether it's humax or Panasonic the remote control and menus will look the same

[snaithg]

Originally Posted by davedrizen

Am I right in thinking unlike freeview boxes, what ever manufacture Youview box you have the firmware will be exactly the same. So just like a sky or virgin box whether it's humax or Panasonic the remote control and menus will look the same

That is what I am hoping, but I rather expect that we are going to end up with a horrible mix of different boxes with different specs and capabilities just like Freeview.


Graham.

[lbear]

Originally Posted by snaithg

Thanks Swedish Cook,

I'm surprised that some of the more familiar high street brands do not seem to be present (Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Grundig et etc).

Or is it going to be like SKY boxes where a very limited number of box manufacturers are licensed to manufacture effectively identical boxes?


Graham

Phillips no longer make set top boxes for the UK market. Their last ones were made under licence by Pace but with rubbish software from the French Philips/Thomson team that extinguished the worth of the brand. Pace are believed to have a supply deal with one of the ISPs so may market the same box to the general public with the Philips branding.

The Grundig brand name has reverted to Koc Industries (Beko) in Turkey after Harvard lost the use of it. Some of the boxes branded by Harvard may still be available but they appear to have also also dropped the Goodmans name in favour of their new View21 brand.

Remember that there were a similar number of different FreeviewHD box makers. 13 different "brands" simply badged Vestel T8300 boxes. The Manhatten FVHD box (and freesat boxes) now appear to be made by Hylab in China but are a different model from the Technika STBHDIS2010 also made by them. (I would not be surprised if Tesco marketed a Technika Youview recorder with Blinkbox access)

Also, a number of formely independent "well know brand names" like Bush, Alba and Murphy have been sold to big retail chains to use as own brands.

[Colin London]

Originally Posted by snaithg

Thanks Swedish Cook,

I'm surprised that some of the more familiar high street brands do not seem to be present (Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Grundig et etc).

Or is it going to be like SKY boxes where a very limited number of box manufacturers are licensed to manufacture effectively identical boxes?

Graham

The major TV manufacturers are not Youview fans!

They are making it quite clear that they support the pan-European Hbb TV standard which is understandable, as they want a single standard for the whole trading area to reduce their costs.

Youview is bespoke to the UK so I fear it will only be available on niche equipment, so prices will be slow to fall even if Youview takes off.

[Clem_Dye]

The fact that Humax has entered the market is a good sign I think. I have a TVonics PVR that has decided to 'play-up' now that the company has gone into admisitration (and with 9+ months of what should have been warranty cover gone, as I purchased direct -- grrr) so I'm in the market for a new PVR. I fancy the new Panasonic models, but the fact that the new Humax box is the same price AND includes Youview is tempting, although I suspect 'early adopter' pain if I go the the Humax/Freeview route. What I can't make out from the Youview specs. or the Humax website is whether you can select an archived programme from the iPlayer list (for example) and record it to disc for later viewing. If Youview is solely watch-only then a standalone 'watch only' receiver is probably a better bet I suppose.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, anyone?


Clem

[davedrizen]

I don't think the iplayer spec allows you to record full stop, on any type box.

[Clem_Dye]

Originally Posted by davedrizen

I don't think the iplayer spec allows you to record full stop, on any type box.

Yes, I thought that that was the case -- probably the same for 4OD et al too. On that basis, Youview is now significantly less attractive to me. I can't see why this functionality was not included but the recordings made locked to the hardware -- that would have been fine for me.

The main attraction is iPlayer and 4OD access -- I can't recall the last time I watched something on ITV and I very rarely watch anything on C5. My TV already does iPlayer so for the occasional 4OD viewing I could use my Mac. On that basis I'll probably steer clear of Youview and go for a standard Freeview HD PVR -- no point paying for something that doesn't do the job for me. Pity.


Clem

[lbear]

Originally Posted by Colin London

The major TV manufacturers are not Youview fans!

They are making it quite clear that they support the pan-European Hbb TV standard which is understandable, as they want a single standard for the whole trading area to reduce their costs.

Youview is bespoke to the UK so I fear it will only be available on niche equipment, so prices will be slow to fall even if Youview takes off.

Instead of endlessly puffing Hbb/tv, can you provide any evidence from the "major TV manufacturers" that they favour it over MHEG-IC which Youview is basically a super-implementation of?

[lbear]

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

What I can't make out from the Youview specs. or the Humax website is whether you can select an archived programme from the iPlayer list (for example) and record it to disc for later viewing. If Youview is solely watch-only then a standalone 'watch only' receiver is probably a better bet I suppose.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, anyone?


Clem

Although you can launch iPlayer separately, the typical user would scroll back through the EPG or use the Youview search function.

[Clem_Dye]

I suppose that being able to search iPlayer/4OD et al via an EPG will be easier than interactively, which is the case at present. Ultimately, it depends on exactly how much a STB will cost. For something without any recording capabilities anything topping GBP90-ish would be too expensive to my mind. Still, I'm happy to wait for the manufacturers to actually offer something for sale -- speculation isn't that helpful.


Clem

[lbear]

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

I suppose that being able to search iPlayer/4OD et al via an EPG will be easier than interactively, which is the case at present. Ultimately, it depends on exactly how much a STB will cost. For something without any recording capabilities anything topping GBP90-ish would be too expensive to my mind. Still, I'm happy to wait for the manufacturers to actually offer something for sale -- speculation isn't that helpful.


Clem

The Humax box has a 500Gb hard drive for recordings and the minimum is 320Gb for full Youview compliance.

[davedrizen]

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

I suppose that being able to search iPlayer/4OD et al via an EPG will be easier than interactively, which is the case at present. Ultimately, it depends on exactly how much a STB will cost. For something without any recording capabilities anything topping GBP90-ish would be too expensive to my mind. Still, I'm happy to wait for the manufacturers to actually offer something for sale -- speculation isn't that helpful.

Clem

I not sure what is meant by " recording capabilities "?its a PVR and therefore you can record programming like any other PVR.

[Clem_Dye]

I was under the impression that there would be receiver only type boxes released in addition to PVRs for Youview. I see no value in buying a PVR (which I already have) if I can't actually record any Youview material. Far better to have just a Youview STB. Being 'forced' to buy a PVR just to get Youview features is just plain wrong in my book.


Clem

[swedish cook]

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

I was under the impression that there would be receiver only type boxes released in addition to PVRs for Youview. I see no value in buying a PVR (which I already have) if I can't actually record any Youview material. Far better to have just a Youview STB. Being 'forced' to buy a PVR just to get Youview features is just plain wrong in my book.


Clem

Youview material ? What is Youview material ? Youview issues a spec for what a pvr needs to do to be branded Youview, if you check the features tab of their website you'll see that a core feature is "record, pause, rewind,live tv".

Assuming by this post you want to record iplayer etc to the youviewbox ... why ? You can play it anytime you like anyway, and from a rights perspective they wouldn't want you keeping a permanent copy.

Noone is forcing you to buy it either.

[amjl2000]

to try and put what may be referred to as the issue with youview as it is into different words is:

freeview in itself is great for watching telly that is planned in advance, you look at the epg and schedule a recording for what you want. That recording is then available for as long as you like to watch as many times as you like.

The youview element, or let's just say the internet catch-up facility of it, is a retrospective viewing of something you missed - but in the case of bbc (at least), there is only programmes available for the last 7 days... so you are time limited in when you can catch up, and it limits the possibility of watching again and again. So that's the current 'bind' that some would say detract from the potential of youview.
I can't say I 've done it for a while, but on the computer, I was able to download iplayer content and then watch later (much later if i stripped the DRM ), so some would argue why youview could not have included that in their spec. Why is stuff that you didn't record yesterday restricted, but the stuff you schedule to record today unrestricted (copy it to PC, put on dvd, whatever)?

Anyhoo, I'm in a quandary of whether to save up to buy youview, or just spend less on plain 'ole freeview. Our 9200 is getting a bit long in the tooth now. If I can get my raspberry pi doing the internet catch-up thing well, then it's a no-brainer for me. Unless comet offer some kind of discount (as I can get 10% of them through work anyway, so any additional discount would make youview more attractive).

I would guess (and this along the lines of Clem's comment) that at some point Youview (the catch-up element thereof) will be avilable as a software plugin of some sort to enable it to run on computers, consoles et al, but first they have to sell some hardware to recoup the development costs.

[Clem_Dye]

Originally Posted by swedish cook

Youview material ? What is Youview material ? Youview issues a spec for what a pvr needs to do to be branded Youview, if you check the features tab of their website you'll see that a core feature is "record, pause, rewind,live tv".

Assuming by this post you want to record iplayer etc to the youviewbox ... why ? You can play it anytime you like anyway, and from a rights perspective they wouldn't want you keeping a permanent copy.

Noone is forcing you to buy it either.

By 'Youview material' I meant the ondemand offerings via iPlayer et al. My comments about there being an STB in addition to any PVR was made because I recall reading somewhere that that was in scope at some point -- obviously things have changed. As for being able to play anything at any time -- tosh. If you can only go back 7 days that's not any time, that's just 7 days, which is why I was querying whether it was possible to schedule the downloading of 7-day archive material to the device's HDD so that you didn't miss anything.

If you view (no pun intended) Youview as a nice to have when you're in the market for a new PVR then I rate that as a good thing. If however, you already have a PVR and you can't record any archive stuff to the HDD then the box looks expensive, especially as most modern TVs include iPlayer now.

Youview certainly still has an attraction for me but I think that expecting people to stump-up ~GBP300 for a box is too much, especially if you want to gain critical mass.

I guess that I'll have to wait and see .....


Clem

[swedish cook]

I wholeheartedly agree it needs more than just an EPG that goes back 7 days to justify you (and I) stumping up 300£, for me that would be films priced like blockbuster and individual sport events, we're seeing some promise of that with Now TV.

For the box to succeed they'll need to be very hot on rights managment, so your hopes of "recording" on-demand content from bbc etc are highly unlikely to be realised.... until someone hacks into it, fingers crossed !

[mikerobertson]

Thats what i would like to be able to record the on demand stuff that i missed say overnight so i could watch later.

[Mark One]

I do find it strange that is okay to record a forthcoming show, but not one that you inadvertently forgot to record six days ago.

[Clem_Dye]

Yes, that's the bit that I can't work out. On iPlayer for example, if a series has been running for several weeks it's possible to catch-up so that you're at the latest episode when it's next broadcast. My wife and I did that with the excellent Danish/Swedish series the Bridge on BBC4 recently. I dithered about recording it to begin with, then having let four episodes go by over two weeks jumped on iPlayer and caught-up on the last fortnight's episodes over two nights, then watched/recorded 'live', as it were for the remainder of the series. It's the first time that I'd used iPlayer on my Sony TV and I was really impressed with the performance -- broadcast-like quality and no glitches at all.

Having the ability to download archive episodes overnight to PVR ready for viewing is a missed opportunity in my book. The waters have been a little more muddied too by the start-up of C4's 4seven channel. I've used that to catch-up on a programme I missed last week.

To be honest, if going back just seven days is all that Youview is going to offer for the 'big four', then I'm tempted to order a Raspberry Pi computer and add a few bits and connect that to my TV and the Internet to get access to 4OD and so forth. It will work out considerably cheaper than a Youview box, especially if there's no 'stb' version of a box up for grabs. Not as elegant perhaps, but for infrequent catch-ups possibly a viable solution.

I just wish that there was kit available so that we could all get a better idea ....


Clem

[lbear]

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

Yes, that's the bit that I can't work out. On iPlayer for example, if a series has been running for several weeks it's possible to catch-up so that you're at the latest episode when it's next broadcast. My wife and I did that with the excellent Danish/Swedish series the Bridge on BBC4 recently. I dithered about recording it to begin with, then having let four episodes go by over two weeks jumped on iPlayer and caught-up on the last fortnight's episodes over two nights, then watched/recorded 'live', as it were for the remainder of the series. It's the first time that I'd used iPlayer on my Sony TV and I was really impressed with the performance -- broadcast-like quality and no glitches at all.

Having the ability to download archive episodes overnight to PVR ready for viewing is a missed opportunity in my book. The waters have been a little more muddied too by the start-up of C4's 4seven channel. I've used that to catch-up on a programme I missed last week.

To be honest, if going back just seven days is all that Youview is going to offer for the 'big four', then I'm tempted to order a Raspberry Pi computer and add a few bits and connect that to my TV and the Internet to get access to 4OD and so forth. It will work out considerably cheaper than a Youview box, especially if there's no 'stb' version of a box up for grabs. Not as elegant perhaps, but for infrequent catch-ups possibly a viable solution.

I just wish that there was kit available so that we could all get a better idea ....


Clem

The handbook shows that there are standard on-line versions of the various players available so series would be accessible.

Also later this year, the BBC are making their "back catalogue" available on line so I would expect this to be available too.

[amjl2000]

I have an RPi for this very reason. Haven't had a chance to have a good play with it (plus there's a significant update coming soon out of Raspbmc that I might wait for). If it's good, then I won't bother with youview. Initial thought was that the interface was a little sluggish, but actual conent playback was very good (iplayer tested only)

Though I'd hope that youview might be something that will evolve over time... perhaps one day it will store iplayer content.

Originally Posted by Clem_Dye

Having the ability to download archive episodes overnight to PVR ready for viewing is a missed opportunity in my book. The waters have been a little more muddied too by the start-up of C4's 4seven channel. I've used that to catch-up on a programme I missed last week.

To be honest, if going back just seven days is all that Youview is going to offer for the 'big four', then I'm tempted to order a Raspberry Pi computer and add a few bits and connect that to my TV and the Internet to get access to 4OD and so forth. It will work out considerably cheaper than a Youview box, especially if there's no 'stb' version of a box up for grabs. Not as elegant perhaps, but for infrequent catch-ups possibly a viable solution.

[snaithg]

Received from Humax this evening:


Dear Humax user,

YouView 500GB DTR now in stock
Humax are pleased to announce the very first YouView enabled PVR in the UK is now in stock and available for immediate delivery.

YouView is the new subscription free, easy to use, TV service with over 70 digital channels and seven day catch up service on BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5. Further details of this ground breaking TV service are available here. For further details of the Humax DTR-T1000 500GB YouView DTR please click here.

Please feel free to contact us by email at uksupport@humax-digital.co.uk or by phone on 0844 669 8800 for further information.

I will be back to you again as soon as I have confirmation of the next set of developments and updates.
Best regards,

Graham North
Commercial Director
Humax Electronics Co. Ltd.


Graham

[grahamlthompson]

Anyone contemplating buying the DTR-T1000 should Google this.

DTR - T1000 faq

[snaithg]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

Anyone contemplating buying the DTR-T1000 should Google this.

DTR - T1000 faq

Graham,

Google returns a number of articles, was it the "Expert Reviews" Review that you were highlighting?


Graham

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by snaithg

Graham,

Google returns a number of articles, was it the "Expert Reviews" Review that you were highlighting?


Graham

Look at the faq's on MY Humax. It's quite an eye opener

Barry is one of the beta testers who is now free to post some details.

[Fightclub]

Just noticed you can't record on demand programs, but is that a restriction for all PVR devices?