My Humax Forum » Miscellaneous » Broadcast, Internet, Media

Name this box

(22 posts)
  1. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    This looks to be similar (and you can buy one).

    http://www.vboxcomm.com/uk-freeview-and-freesat.html

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 16:44:50 #11 |
  2. Barry

    Barry

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    Trusted reviews hands on plus some pics.

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/ee-tv-review

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 16:55:11 #12 |
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    JamesB

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    Thanks for the links, Graham and Barry.

    I agree, these boxes do sound rather similar. They get Free(view|sat) channels, but they don't appear to use the Free(view|sat) EPG. So they've gone a step or three beyond YouView and Freetime - the mobile apps are no longer an add-on, they're driving the box. What will these and similar trends mean for free UK TV, I wonder?

    The V-box is due to launch in the U.S. in 2015, says CNET. It will be interesting to see the response from the cable companies. And NetFlix.

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 18:59:42 #13 |
  4. REPASSAC

    REPASSAC

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    It is basically a standard ISP box, basically 5 or 6 of them here in France (covering 80% population). Gives IP TV (Shortly to be subject to TV licence if I read things correctly) with HD at > 5-6 MBS.

    Now normal to provide this subject to bandwidth.

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 20:44:42 #14 |
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    JamesB

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    It's not the IPTV, it's the slipping away from a unified UK EPG. Freeview has been very good for FTA broadcasting in the UK, and is one of the reasons we have good quality FTA content. There's bound to be an impact on audience share, as the Freeview EPG becomes less dominant. And ultimately, an impact on quality. IMO.

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 21:32:43 #15 |
  6. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    REPASSAC - 38 minutes ago  » 
    It is basically a standard ISP box, basically 5 or 6 of them here in France (covering 80% population). Gives IP TV (Shortly to be subject to TV licence if I read things correctly) with HD at > 5-6 MBS.
    Now normal to provide this subject to bandwidth.

    Confused, in the blurb the most expensive box seems to be able to connect directly to two 28,2 inputs and a UK terrestrial DVB-T/DVB-T2 source and record up to 2 Freeview and 2 Freesat/28.2 sources simultaneously to a local USB connected hard disk. Freesat does seem to indicate a epg recording source (perhaps described incorrectly, or a IP delivered equivalent).

    At the same time make this content available to multiple DLNA clients independently (not sure about live content).

    Bandwidth seems only to be limited to your local network limits to the recording drive and how large the drive can be.

    Have I got this wrong ?

    | Wed 15 Oct 2014 21:39:27 #16 |
  7. REPASSAC

    REPASSAC

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    Graham - I think Netgem spec units to their clients needs (ISP's, etc). The main ISP market here in France combines a ADSL modem (copper or Fiber) with a Linux PVR. TNT (French Freeview) Programmes are live MP4 encoded and retransmitted along with others so a superset of programmes from French and foreign stations is offered using a ISP generated EPG. Some channels require subscriptions.

    My ISP has a two box solution - One Network and Storage unit and the other a media player (Incorporating a blue ray player which can also play applications (Games) - see http://www.free.fr/adsl/ The Television link at the top of the page will show you the channel list. Note that both units are normally sited in different locations and power supplies incorporating home-plugs are supplied to connect the two. The network unit also incorporates a telephone connection which includes a telephone number (Free land-line calls to most countries plus French and US mobiles).

    You are correct the UK vboxcom unit does seem to include both a Freeview and satellite tuners. Seems to be more of an end consumer market unit. (Look at their country list via Products)

    p.s. The ISP TV market has grown a lot and now there are plans to extend the need for a TV license if ISP TV is enabled (Even if you do not have a TV).

    | Thu 16 Oct 2014 7:30:23 #17 |
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    JamesB

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    The EE box is now in the (EE) shops. Worth reading the T&C very carefully if considering this. Salient points include:

    1 Customer does not own the box but must return it if the service is cancelled

    2 Customer is entitled to a replacement if box is faulty, unless EE decide "at our reasonable discretion" that it's the customer's fault, in which case the customer becomes liable for full costs, including the supposed £300 value of the faulty box.

    3 "Replay" feature only applies to SD channels.

    http://ee.co.uk/help/accounts-billing-and-topping-up/terms-and-conditions/ee-terms-and-conditions/home-phone-and-broadband/ee-tv-plans-terms-and-conditions-of-service

    | Fri 7 Nov 2014 10:10:25 #18 |
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    JamesB

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    OFCOM's Infrastructure Report comments on the "Replay" feature:

    6.36 Currently a broadband connection speed in the range of 1-2Mbit/s is needed to deliver an SD video stream, and 6-8Mbit/s to deliver an HD stream using MPEG 4. In practice, higher speeds than these are likely to be needed to provide household access to other broadband services at the same time.
    6.37 The new and more efficient HEVC compression standard (described earlier) will help to reduce the connection speeds needed to deliver broadband TV services. For example, an HD video stream might be delivered in the future using HEVC, requiring a connection speed in the range of 3-5Mbit/s; and a 4K stream using less than 15Mbit/s. However, many ADSL broadband customers’ lines would still be unable to support these speeds; they would need to upgrade to VDSL, fibre or cable to access HD and 4K video services.
    6.38 As we described above, the growth in broadband TV services will also place increased demands on ISP backhaul networks. On managed IPTV networks this can be minimised using multicasting, but this is not currently applicable to OTT services. One option is to use caching: here, on-demand content is stored closer to the user to avoid the need for transmission at peak times, and to reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted over the core network. One particularly attractive future option would be to make use of the increasing storage capacity of consumer set-top boxes and personal video recorders, which now commonly have 1 TB or more. For example, EE’s planned IPTV services will auto-cache up to six TV channels selected by the viewer, enabling catch-up and restarting of programmes at the beginning.

    http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/infrastructure/2014/infrastructure-14.pdf p.118-9

    | Wed 10 Dec 2014 12:52:09 #19 |
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    Pollensa1946

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