No live sport for Now TV?

At the moment SkySports are £20 for 1 & 2. So the cheapest package assuming these were available through YouView would be £66.45 ie
£15.45 line rental
£26.00 broadband & calls/talk weekends
£5.00 TV base package
£20.00 Sky Sports 1 & 2

The inclusion of ESPN in the £12.50 unlimited package does make the offer far more tempting.

It will be interesting to see how BT does package its offering.

Very interesting. Even though it's all guess work currently, at those prices, they'll be struggling to sign people up, especially current non-pay households who don't take it purely because the price is too high.

VisionMan1 · 17-12-2012, 01:43

YouViews target market is the following - the ten million UK users who already have -

1, Digital Freeview television, and -

2, Broadband.

But the important bit here is number 2. As thats broadband from anyone, not just BT or TalkTalk.

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 10:55

Quote:

YouViews target market is the following - the ten million UK users who already have -

1, Digital Freeview television, and -

2, Broadband.

But the important bit here is number 2. As thats broadband from anyone, not just BT or TalkTalk.

And? How many of those homes already have a games console, smart TV, Freesat so are perfectly fine with their service, on demand etc? Will non pay households be tempted when they see the cost of the box and realise the only real difference is a backwards EPG that they can live without?

If a non pay household wanted to get a subsidised box by entering into a phone/BB contract, they would be more likely to look at TalkTalk on price alone because that's the key area in the success of this. How many non pay households will be swayed over is another thing completely because they are non pay for a reason.

Dionbelmont · 17-12-2012, 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dionbelmont

Anyway - Back to topic.##

YouView will make available only the channels the user wants to view. So if you only want Sky Sports 1, or 1 & 2, you will only have to subscribe to Sky Sports 1 & 2. And nothing more. No twenty quid base pack, no twelve month lock-in contract, and no shopping channels either.

And they said that. Not me (but not the shopping channels bit).

I was under the impression that the whole point of this thread back at the start is that the above is actually not possible nor will be possible anytime soon.

Yes if you go with the BT or TalkTalk packages you can have live Sky Sports via Youview.
But if you just have a Youview Box on its own, you will not be able to get live Sky Sports via NOW TV which looks to be the only way to just get Sky Sports.

NOW TV is the only option available to me as I don't have the broadband speed BT and TalkTalk demand for their IPTV Packages, (yet I'm happily watching good quality SD Live Sky Movies currently via NOWTV and a ethernet wired Roku !!!)

Considering the money spent on developing Youview, it seems crazy that they are excluding a significant part of the broadband customer base from getting live IPTV using a Youview box.

1andrew1 · 17-12-2012, 12:18

Quote:

Yes if you go with the BT or TalkTalk packages you can have live Sky Sports via Youview. But if you just have a Youview Box on its own, you will not be able to get live Sky Sports via NOW TV which looks to be the only way to just get Sky Sports.

I expect the vast majority of YouView customers will be with these two providers. Firstly, because they are subsidising the boxes. Secondly, because VM and Sky customers would have little need for the service. And thirdly because the other players in the broadband market have minimal market share.
I do agree with you on all your other points though.

d'@ve · 17-12-2012, 13:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by d'@ve

At the moment SkySports are £20 for 1 & 2. So the cheapest package assuming these were available through YouView would be £66.45 ie
£15.45 line rental
£26.00 broadband & calls/talk weekends
£5.00 TV base package
£20.00 Sky Sports 1 & 2

The inclusion of ESPN in the £12.50 unlimited package does make the offer far more tempting.

It will be interesting to see how BT does package its offering.

However, BT also heavily promote their annual line rental (£10.75/month equivalent) and people looking for Premier League football cheaply mostly won't opt for Unlimited fibre, so that's £18 a month for Infinity 1. That potentially cuts it down by £12- odd a month. and makes the cheapest method much less at BT than the others.

Yes you can perhaps get an annual line rental deal from Sky and VM too, I don't know as they don't push it like BT, but even without that saving BT as listed comes out notionally a lot cheaper for the cheapest package

However, we are all guessing as we may get some unexpected packages on offer from all of them, and football will overall likely cost more than at present for the same amount of content, from all of them.

In 6 to 8 months or so, we shall see. Choices!

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 14:14

Quote:

However, BT also heavily promote their annual line rental (£10.75/month equivalent) and people looking for Premier League football cheaply mostly won't opt for Unlimited fibre, so that's £18 a month for Infinity 1. That potentially cuts it down by £12- odd a month. and makes the cheapest method much less at BT than the others.

Yes you can perhaps get an annual line rental deal from Sky and VM too, I don't know as they don't push it like BT, but even without that saving BT as listed comes out notionally a lot cheaper for the cheapest package

However, we are all guessing as we may get some unexpected packages on offer from all of them, and football will overall likely cost more than at present for the same amount of content, from all of them.

In 6 to 8 months or so, we shall see. Choices!

If customers download or stream a lot of content from Now TV, Lovefilm, Netflix etc and other things that could be added further down the line - possibly in HD too - a capped option will soon see them incurring extra charges each month.

But like you say, we are all just guessing at the moment but it's good fun isn't it

Let's hope that one of them break cover in such a way that the others have their hand forced... Maybe then we'll see some real competition to get our hard earned! We can only hope...

1andrew1 · 17-12-2012, 17:10

I had always thought that VM was quite expensive for Sky Sports until I did the calculations. Interestingly, if you focus on fibre it's the most competitive.
So if there is a move to people comparing fibre broadband prices then it should benefit and I can understand why it's less worried about BT's fibre roll-out than I thought it should be.

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 18:03

Quote:

I had always thought that VM was quite expensive for Sky Sports until I did the calculations. Interestingly, if you focus on fibre it's the most competitive.
So if there is a move to people comparing fibre broadband prices then it should benefit and I can understand why it's less worried about BT's fibre roll-out than I thought it should be.

Interesting post. Overall, when you take in all the available add-ons (along the lines of customer bonus features like Sky Go etc), what provider offers the best all-round deal in your opinion? Who offers the best selection of channels for the money? How many channels do you get in Virgin's basic pack compared to Sky's for the money involved etc.

From a fibre point of view, we can see from your comparisons that Virgin provide the cheapest price out of the 3 providers mentioned but then without fibre they become the most expensive which I find quite interesting. I'd like to hear your opinion on who you think offers the best overall service for the price?

VisionMan1 · 17-12-2012, 19:10

Quote:

If customers download or stream a lot of content from Now TV, Lovefilm, Netflix etc and other things that could be added further down the line - possibly in HD too - a capped option will soon see them incurring extra charges each month.

But like you say, we are all just guessing at the moment but it's good fun isn't it

Let's hope that one of them break cover in such a way that the others have their hand forced... Maybe then we'll see some real competition to get our hard earned! We can only hope...

Actually, if one has either a BT or TT supplied box, the streamed services from YouView don't count against ones internet usage. But I have no idea about retail boxes used with the above ISP's.

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 19:27

Quote:

Actually, if one has either a BT or TT supplied box, the streamed services from YouView don't count against ones internet usage. But I have no idea about retail boxes used with the above ISP's.

Really? I thought that was just for content provided by BT and any 3rd party apps (Now TV etc) weren't included. That's not a bad shout if everything is included in your allowance.

EDIT - The bit on the BT site says "There's no need to worry about your BT Broadband usage allowance. With BT Vision Player Unlimited, all BT Vision and YouView On Demand and catch-up TV is exempt from your usage."

What is YouView on demand deemed to mean? iPlayer etc? Or all 3rd party apps?

1andrew1 · 17-12-2012, 19:30

Quote:

Interesting post. Overall, when you take in all the available add-ons (along the lines of customer bonus features like Sky Go etc), what provider offers the best all-round deal in your opinion? Who offers the best selection of channels for the money? How many channels do you get in Virgin's basic pack compared to Sky's for the money involved etc.

From a fibre point of view, we can see from your comparisons that Virgin provide the cheapest price out of the 3 providers mentioned but then without fibre they become the most expensive which I find quite interesting. I'd like to hear your opinion on who you think offers the best overall service for the price?

Tough call and I would need to do further analysis.

I would sum up the services as:
TalkTalk - cheap access to pay-entertainment channels.
Virgin - best broadband offering, second best TV offering, only covers half the country.
BT - cheapest access to the two key sports channels.
Sky - best TV, market innovator, best customer service.

To answer another question, if I had to go with one provider for life and never change it would be Sky.

Here's a brief Guardian article comparing Sky and YouView, Sky gets 8/10 and YouView 7/10. Since the article, Sky has got iPlayer.

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 19:42

Quote:

Tough call and I would need to do further analysis.

I would sum up the services as:
TalkTalk - cheap access to pay-entertainment channels.
Virgin - best broadband offering, second best TV offering, only covers half the country.
BT - cheapest access to the two key sports channels.
Sky - best TV, market innovator, best customer service.

To answer another question, if I had to go with one provider for life and never change it would be Sky.

Thanks for that. It's good to read other peoples opinion on how they view the available options. Obviously all subjective but still insightful all the same.

The service I was with for the longest was Sky and they provided me with everything I required. I've also tried Virgin (and Telewest before that!) and although the general service was good, if anything did go wrong occasionally, it was the customer service aspect that got me down.

TalkTalk and BT have never had my custom but if BT can come up with the goods regarding live sport next year then I'm very much open to the idea...

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 19:46

Quote:

Here's a brief Guardian article comparing Sky and YouView, Sky gets 8/10 and YouView 7/10. Since the article, Sky has got iPlayer.

I'd have thought a direct comparison would see YouView score lower than 7/10 considering it still has user features to be added. Considering where it's currently at, that's not a bad score at all.

Do you have a YouView box yourself?

1andrew1 · 17-12-2012, 20:02

Quote:

I'd have thought a direct comparison would see YouView score lower than 7/10 considering it still has user features to be added. Considering where it's currently at, that's not a bad score at all.

Do you have a YouView box yourself?

Yes. Good box, content less so, surprised that providers like BlinkBox are not on YouView yet. I would give YouView 6/10 and Sky 9/10.

I agree with the review that the EPG is poor compared to Sky as it is basically Freeview's unstructured EPG but you can delete unwanted channels.
Next year will be interesting for YouView, I think the IPTV channels via Connect TV will be an interesting development as the cost for a broadcaster to use these will be relatively low.

VisionMan1 · 17-12-2012, 20:12

Quote:

Really? I thought that was just for content provided by BT and any 3rd party apps (Now TV etc) weren't included. That's not a bad shout if everything is included in your allowance.

EDIT - The bit on the BT site says "There's no need to worry about your BT Broadband usage allowance. With BT Vision Player Unlimited, all BT Vision and YouView On Demand and catch-up TV is exempt from your usage."

What is YouView on demand deemed to mean? iPlayer etc? Or all 3rd party apps?

This topic has caused much controversy on the BT forums too. Until a Mod intervened -
-------------------------------------
Re: BROADBAND USAGE WITH YOUVIEW??

on ‎30-10-2012 9h50

Hi Sjf9712,

If you have to YouView through BT then no need to worry about your BT Broadband usage allowance - all BT Vision and YouView On Demand and Catch Up TV is exempt from your usage.

Thanks

Paddy
BTCare Community Mod
--------------------------------

And then the thread just dissolved into chaos, with many users just not believing him. As theres a problem with the BT online useage checker ATM, and there has been for a while. But it is true.

http://community.bt.com/t5/YouView-f...EW/td-p/673516

promo-only · 17-12-2012, 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dionbelmont

This topic has caused much controversy on the BT forums too. Until a Mod intervened -
-------------------------------------
Re: BROADBAND USAGE WITH YOUVIEW??

on ‎30-10-2012 9h50

Hi Sjf9712,

If you have to YouView through BT then no need to worry about your BT Broadband usage allowance - all BT Vision and YouView On Demand and Catch Up TV is exempt from your usage.

Thanks

Paddy
BTCare Community Mod
--------------------------------

And then the thread just dissolved into chaos, with many users just not believing him. As theres a problem with the BT online useage checker ATM, and there has been for a while. But it is true.

http://community.bt.com/t5/YouView-f...EW/td-p/673516

Just had a scan through that. Really annoying aspect of that site is when the mods pop up at a random point, leave a comment and then leave the place to descend into madness with conflicting posts and general confusion. The joys of internet forums.

steven cardwell · 18-12-2012, 17:25

Quote:

I was under the impression that the whole point of this thread back at the start is that the above is actually not possible nor will be possible anytime soon.

Yes if you go with the BT or TalkTalk packages you can have live Sky Sports via Youview.
But if you just have a Youview Box on its own, you will not be able to get live Sky Sports via NOW TV which looks to be the only way to just get Sky Sports.

NOW TV is the only option available to me as I don't have the broadband speed BT and TalkTalk demand for their IPTV Packages, (yet I'm happily watching good quality SD Live Sky Movies currently via NOWTV and a ethernet wired Roku !!!)

Considering the money spent on developing Youview, it seems crazy that they are excluding a significant part of the broadband customer base from getting live IPTV using a Youview box.

I signed up for Talk Talk to get You View and the TV Boosts, as the estimated speed they gave was fast enough to get the live TV channels on You View, however after going live their DLM kicked in and i was only getting half of their estimate.

Previously on o2 i got 4.4, TT were saying 5.1, from conversations with both o2 and TT, i was led to believe that it wasn't impossible to achieve TT's estimated speed and from TT sales, the tv channels would work below 5meg anyway!

Second day with TT and i woke up to no internet, had to get CEO office involved as Customer Service was useless (they wanted to send a bright sparks engineer out an week and half later), and i got released from my contract and back to o2 for broadband.

Problem with You View is that is partners BT and Talk Talk both use some sort of line management, IP Profile for BT and DLM for TT, which for a customer like me on a "long line", isn't much use when they want to start playing God with the service, i kept getting "errors per second" as the excuse for the slow speeds, where on o2, their was no problems with disconnections, the line was stable syncing at around 4-4.4.

The thing that annoys me the most is, Talk Talk live Internet TV services all state a minimum of 5meg to work, yet on the Xbox and a sync of 4 on o2, i can watch Sky Movies live channels on Now TV without any problems and a decent enough picture on a sync of 4 and a download speed of 3.8, with the likes of Netflix, Now TV and Love Film all playing back in HD without any issues.

I had been thinking of buying a You View box, but after reading the stories that it won't carry live sport to non subscribers to BT or TT, buying a second Xbox to watch stuff in the bedroom is looking right now to be a better bet.

I love the idea of You View and the potential of what the apps and service the box may carry in the future, but it is starting to look like politics may get in the way, thanks to the likes of BT and Talk Talk that want users to sign up to them, rather than use their own/current ISP and access services and pay companies direct like how apps on the likes of the Xbox work.

We live in a one bedroom flat, my partner has no interest in the PC or the internet, the only time she is online is on her mobile, and i know how to manage my bandwith when it comes to wanting to stream Netflix etc, and until we become a nation where most can access Fibre, then when the likes of BT and TT start offering these tv services, they need to get more realistic with their minimum speeds required, as currently i feel they are set far too high, and probably more based on a household where 3 or 4 people are online at the same time, and these less than realistic speeds for tv to work, is based on the streaming still works when "mum, son & daughter" is online when "dad" is watching Sky Sports, rather than 2 people watching a movie and the one PC in the house is switched off.

VisionMan1 · 18-12-2012, 18:09

Hi, steven cardwell,

Sorry to read about the problems your had, but if I may, I'd like to explain why it is the way it is...

The current online services, such as Netflix, Lovefilm, Now TV ect, all use a broadband transmission method which is known as Unicasting and this only requires a user has a line speed of 3.5Mbps to view.

However, both BT and TT are/will be using a method known as Multicasting, which is a far more efficient use of their broadband network. The only downside for you was it does indeed require 5Mbps to access, and this is purely down to technical reasons of Multicasting.

BigFoot87 · 18-12-2012, 22:32

Quote: