recently purchased a smart TV, a 42" LED TV by LG. I'm paying £50 a month for sky TV, for HD and two boxes, with the exception of Fast N Loud I'm not watching anything else that's keeping me on murdochs payroll.
I've had a browse through the apps on the TV and it has Now TV, Live TV (free view type thing I think) and some paid movie apps. We don't watch movies or sport, we're both building our own businesses and it's there's just not enough time in the day at the moment.
So, anyone know of what essential apps I need to enable ITV inlayer thingy?? There's a BBC one on there but her indoors occasionally likes a bit of Rovers Return stuff....
we dont pay anything at all in tv packages, just use freeview and the smart apps. you should be able to download them all to your tv for free.
so you should be able to get the bbc iplayer, itv player, 4ondemand, 5whateveritis, netflix etc all for nowt. coronation st will obviously be on the itvplayer app.
hope thats what you were asking.
ours (samsung) came with all that stuff on & ready - plugged in the ethernet and off we went
Rupert's in for a (admittedly small) shock from us soon enough. Cost of a freesat PVR is equivalent to only about 3-4 months of sky, too
We ditched our Sky Box (basic Sky package without HD) and went to FreeSat as we are also too busy to watch much live TV and could do without the Sky channels. No regrets so far apart from the constant phone calls, emails and letters from Sky begging us to return.
I left Sky (for Virgin) last October and have barely heard a thing from them since, just the odd mailer.
I've sadly been a Sky customer for about 15 years but am happy to say that the end is in sight. Mrs SB and I basically only watch Freeview stuff and the girls only watch one program that's only on Sky + E4, C4 etc.
I've just started using a Humax Freeview PVR with custon firmware and it's really good and can certainly replace the Sky box.
I'm going to monitor our TV habits over the next 6 months and decide just when I can ditch Sky.
I'm not a fan of 'smart' TV's and would much rather leave the smart stuff to other appliances (i.e. our Humax box, Apple TV & Raspberry Pi).
What does it do that the std doesn't ??custom firmware
Loads of stuff.... [url= http://hummy.tv/forum/threads/quick-start-guide.1301/ ]this will get you started[/url]
Just a couple of cool bits are turning the humax box into a dnla server so you can watch recorded programs on almost any device on your network and the brilliant Remote Scheduling which automatically searches the EPG every day and creates records based on keyword criteria you supply.
ah, Cheers. I was thinking of freesat here as our aerial signal is shit
This is all new to me, I hadn't realised you could get TV's with internet connections so you don't have to bother with plugging a PC in! We don't watch much TV at all, but like having the player options and playing films through the computer, does this mean that with a bit of network jugglefudgery we could have the computer in a separate room and still watch film off the erm... dvd drive in the computer?
If you have a Sky dish you can get FreeSat channels via that and as above you want the various apps like BBC iPlayer, ITV and 4oD (I hear channel 4 are re-organizing their stuff under) and then you have Netflix and Red Bull TV. I watch a lot of stuff from Vimeo and YouTube too (eg midweek mini movies) and you can link your login to the TV app.
@grahamg - have a look at Google Chromecast, for £20 it turns your tv into a smart tv and allows your computer to send stuff to the TV wirelessly. I use Apple TV to send movies/dvd's to the tv but you can do the same with a Chromecast. Note I tend to rip/copy the DVD to the computer first overnight and compress it as it means I can watch it easily anytime and load it onto portable devices.
ah, Cheers. I was thinking of freesat here as our aerial signal is shit
Well Humax also do a Freesat version that takes custom firmware - basically the same but not quite as many bells (i.e. no remote scheduling I think).
We have one of these also (Foxsat HD PVR) and it's very good. [url= http://hummy.tv/forum/forums/foxsat-hdr-freesat-recorder.14/ ]Linky to good forum[/url]
I paid not more than £60-70 for each box.
I have an LG tv and it has all the standard channels (iPlayer, ITV, 4OD, 5) and popular apps (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify) loaded as standard. Found I can also watch Redbull.tv through the internet browser on the TV (redbull app on the TV doesn't have live stuff for some reason).
Other apps I've added are Eurosport which was a doddle.
With freeview HD as well there's no need to pay for anything else IMO.
does this mean that with a bit of network jugglefudgery we could have the computer in a separate room and still watch film off the erm... dvd drive in the computer
Well yes..... but personally I think having a PC on all the time just to serve video is a bit pants/wastefull. Unless it's a Raspberry Pi in which case it's fine as they use almost no power at all (less than 2w)
🙂
have an old Panasonic and a new Philips. the panny is stuck with custom smart services, but the philips lets you add apps.
tbh, the most use of the smart stuff that I've done was checking out the youtube app. which was useless on the panny except for brouwsing the top viewed stuff. on the philips (and i guess most modern smart TVs) you can youtube on your android slate and transfer the viewing of it to the TV. haven't pressed the smart button in months.
might have to check out a redbull.tv app if there is one. could be handy when the next uci world cup starts next year.
The only thing that's been holding me to Sky over recent years is the Sky+ live pause and recording functionailiy. However alot of smart TV's also come with recording capabiltiy too. All you need is a USB external HDD and you effectively get the Sky+ live pause and recording functionality. The only limitation is that you can't watch something on another channel while you're recording something else - though my Panasonic TV's come with both Freeview and Freesat tuners so if you're recording on Freesat you can watch something else on Freeview, or visa versa. I'm going to give this a go and ditch Sky I think. The £30 or so a month i'd be saving will easily fund a Broadband upgrade and Netflix subscription with plenty left over.
The only thing that's been holding me to Sky over recent years is the Sky+ live pause and recording functionailiy. However alot of smart TV's also come with recording capabiltiy too
Just swap the Sky Box for a Humax Freesat, its does all that for nothing (apart from the £250 to buy it in the first place)
andytherocketeer - Member
might have to check out a redbull.tv app if there is one. could be handy when the next uci world cup starts next year.
There is, but doesn't (currently) have live stuff on it. I watch live stuff on redbull.tv through the internet browser on my TV.
Freesat/Humax - me too. Just wish I could work out how to stop subtitles appearing everytime I restart paused or re-wound programs.
There is, but doesn't (currently) have live stuff on it...
ah. I have plenty of other ways to get it on to a TV. Actually have a media centre sitting there doing nothing. actually that'd help with iplayer too from outside uk shores.
Also contemplating a chromecast.
Freesat/Humax - me too. Just wish I could work out how to stop subtitles appearing everytime I restart paused or re-wound programs.
It is a bug, that hasn't been fixed as the official firmware hasn't been updated for some time ( they are still excellent boxes though, especially with the modified firmware from Raydon )
jambalaya - [quick, cheap method explanation]
Thanks for the tip, will look in to that.
[url= http://hummy.tv/forum/threads/subtitles-appear-when-i-resume-play-after-pause.301/#post-3534 ]Glad to be of help[/url]Just wish I could work out how to stop subtitles appearing everytime I restart paused or re-wound programs.
Our Foxsat doesn't do that so presumably the custom firmware fixes it.
However alot of smart TV's also come with recording capabiltiy too. All you need is a USB external HDD and you effectively get the Sky+ live pause and recording functionality.
Tried that on our Panasonic..... meh. Humax system waay better - on our Freeview box you can actually rewind live TV up to 2 hours as long as the channel hasn't been changed.
Thanks sharkbait - I found the foxsat option for custom ROM shortly after posting up there. Have now ordered one, plus a giant HDD and am looking at ROM info 😳