TV box demo + free box

Post by **Kate** » Wed 26 Mar 2014 16:31

UK TV in France are proposing a free demonstration of their TV boxes, including a free box and a months subscription as a thank you to anyone who would be prepared to host this demo ie they install a box in your home and you invite people round to watch a demo of how it works. If you would be interested in a free box and installation and would be prepared to invite others around to see how everything worked, please contact James via the contact form on the TV website at http://www.uktvfrance.net/

They explain how it works
IPTV is a way of delivering TV transmissions via your internet connection. Most likely your internet provider already offers a TV service as part of their package and this is IPTV!

The plus with IPTV is that as part of its delivery system the channel information is compressed so that the data that arrives at your home is much lighter than say, watching iPlayer or Youtube, etc. This allows one to watch TV normally, without the program freezing or 'buffering'.

A set-top box is used to deliver the data and this links between the clients TV and internet router. It's very small and tidy box with a remote control and the in build software gives a channel guide and catch-up TV. With the remote control one just moves through the channels to select the program desired, just like normal TV.

IPTV is still a baby in comparison to satellite and so things are developing and being learnt daily. It's not without it's problems for sure, just like satellite when the weather is bad. IPTV is a slave to internet traffic so if internationally internet traffic is very high, it can slow down but 99.9% of the time it's a perfect solution.

Sadly it's not free though as all this data generated by TV programs costs money to deliver and so we have to charge for the service, The plus point if a client is a second home owner is that they can switch on and off the service as they wish, not needing to pay for it if the house is empty!

I offer a number of packages; the basic freeview package at 14,99€PM, Freeview & Sky with all sports + Video-on-demand at 34.99€pm and Russian and Scandinavian packages for 26,99€

russell · Post by **russell** » Thu 27 Mar 2014 10:39

Kate,
I think you have been misled. That isn't Sky's website but the website of an independent IPTV service. It has nothing to do with BSkyB.
Russell.

neil mitchell · Post by **neil mitchell** » Thu 27 Mar 2014 10:58

Even so, it appears to be a fairly decent offering. The box is a reasonable price and Eur 14.99 pcm isn't bad (although I expect the payg price is more).

I have a feeling that these things will be the way to go once we've all got over getting it for free previously.

The business about compression of data and no buffering (if true) is significant because my home made laptop system often buffers and I suspect that is due to the demand on the Player/Demand sites because we get a pretty reliable 7.5 MBps in Vernet.

I guess the concerns are the longer term reliability of the service and I'll wait on a bit with my stop gap system until/if one or two market leaders emerge

Post by **Kate** » Thu 27 Mar 2014 12:32

Hi Russell
No, I havent been mislead, it's me doing the misleading

cos I dont know the technical words, so my use of skybox is completely wrong as is their name which is UKTV in France! Thanks for pointing that out and sa ing me getting into trouble everywhere!

russell · Post by **russell** » Thu 27 Mar 2014 14:47

neil mitchell wrote: The business about compression of data and no buffering (if true) is significant because my home made laptop system often buffers and I suspect that is due to the demand on the Player/Demand sites because we get a pretty reliable 7.5 MBps in Vernet.

All TV transmission data is compressed using various algorithms, mostly according to one of the MPEG standards. This is not unique to this supplier. Uncompressed HD video reqires a transmission rate of about 500 Mb/s. The degree of compression affects the quality of the picture. The IPTV streams referred to as HD are about 2 Mb/s giving a picture quality comparable to the old 625 line PAL system. Lower data rates give a more blocky picture especially when there is much movement.

I too get buffering problems at peak times. As you say this is more likely to be congestion at the server supplying the stream than your connection. The only way to avoid it completely is to use a service that enables you to download the program to your computer and then play it locally at a later time.

Russell.

neil mitchell · Post by **neil mitchell** » Thu 27 Mar 2014 17:47

I emailed them about the cost and they said that the Eur 14.99 pcm is for one month and you can stop and start as often as you like without any charge. If you want it for much more than a month you can just set up a recurring payment so that it just continues. There are a few of these suppliers around now and I have to say that if I was ready to go for it, this looks like the best deal around.

EILEEN · Post by **EILEEN** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 10:22

We have been using IPTV since we lost the satellite picture.
The picture on the TV is not as good as the satellite one was, but the service is good and the catch -up service is a great help. For the iPlayer, I try to download to PC ( we do use a VPN ) in the morning to avoid the buffering we seem to get some evenings. We have not had any buffering problems so far with the IPTV. ( not the service Kate mentioned above but similar)
It has been fairly painless but does cost.!!
The VPN is an annual charge of about 30€/40€ and the IPTV is 18€ pm.

Eileen.

russell · Post by **russell** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 11:18

EILEEN wrote:( not the service Kate mentioned above but similar)
Eileen.

O.K. which service are you using?

Russell.

Owens88 · Post by **Owens88** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 12:22

Neil

We are in Vernet soon. So either we ciould host a session (and you would be invited obviously) or you could.

Cheers

John

Pearsonb · Post by **Pearsonb** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 12:27

In view of Kate's confusing headline, can we make it clear to everybody that Sky is receiving no money from this deal? There people are pirating the. Sky services and could be shut down at any moment. Think carefully before paying annual memberships.

Pearson

Post by **Kate** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 12:48

Will take the sky out of the box so it's slightly less confusing.

EILEEN · Post by **EILEEN** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 14:21

Russell,
we are using UKEXPAT...for IPTV
Eileen

neil mitchell · Post by **neil mitchell** » Fri 28 Mar 2014 16:59

Hi Owens

Not sure when we're down next, we were there in Jan and Feb, hoping April.

Neil.

russell · Post by **russell** » Sun 30 Mar 2014 20:26

neil mitchell wrote:Even so, it appears to be a fairly decent offering. The box is a reasonable price

It would be interesting to see how well it works. However I'm not so sure that the box represents good value. It uses a single core 450 MHz processor with 512 MB of memory while cheaper competitors units can be found which use a 1500 MHz dual core processor. It has no built in WiFi and no SD card slot. It is running a rather old version of the Linux system (2.6.23 kernel) so Android apps such as Filmon won't run.

Russell.

Santiago · Post by **Santiago** » Tue 01 Apr 2014 12:28

Like Russell, I'm a bit dubious of the value or even the validity of this offer.

Is the box good value compared to alternatives - a computer, PS3, SmartTV etc?

What do you get for the 15€ a month that a smartDNS wouldn't provide for 4€?

Filmon is free and walks a fine line of legality. It has been threatened with closure several times.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that UKTV, like other people offering these packaged solutions, are selling a set of things that are available for less or for free and making it look as though they are the ones providing the streaming.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable, like Allen, could advise on the wisdom of buying these kind of solutions.

montgolfiere · Post by **montgolfiere** » Tue 01 Apr 2014 13:11

I am now getting much better results from the Android FTA IPTV System i have been investigating for the past 8 months.....

>The UK FTA TV in HD with no subscription (the main Channels BBC 1,2,3,4, ITV1,2,3,4, some +1's, C4, C5, E4, More4, Dave, CBBC, CBeebies etc etc. ),
>no subscription for the service itself
>as well as access to Movie Streaming, and huge Libraries of Series etc etc.

At the moment the only thing i haven't got easy access to on these systems is the BBC Radio Stations, however there is access to 1000's of Radio from around the World including the UK.

I think these are a much better bet (and cheaper) than any subscription IPTV Service apart from the fact that they have no Catch up service. However most 'Series' etc can be found via the various 'add-ons' which allow access to huge libraries of recent Tv etc...

Most people who have had them installed seem very happy.

Dave Smith.
www.british-tv-in-france.co.uk

Sue · Post by **Sue** » Tue 01 Apr 2014 14:09

Dave what is required for this set up, what is the cost of equipment and setting up. Is there any buffering, what internet speed is required. Unfortunately I am not at all technically minded and all the letters you quote after Android mean absolutely nothing to me. Could you please spell it out for me in laymans terms!!

montgolfiere · Post by **montgolfiere** » Tue 01 Apr 2014 14:33

The Speed required 2mbs +.
We have between 2.1 and 1.9 and there is very little Buffering just so long as no one else is trying to download anything like Youtube etc. to a Computer etc. at the same time. (General Surfing and emails etc. is fine at the same time.)
Please note: that i have encountered the odd situation where even though there is high speed eg. 4mb/s the 'quality' of the Internet connection is poor and this has caused problems. This is 'rare' but then you are reliant on the likes of Orange to fix the problem!!!

The costs involved are on the Website....

russell · Post by **russell** » Tue 01 Apr 2014 21:31

montgolfiere wrote: At the moment the only thing i haven't got easy access to on these systems is the BBC Radio Stations, however there is access to 1000's of Radio from around the World including the UK.

I find the app from Google Play, "Listen to BBC" by Airfree works well.

Russell.

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TV box demo + free box

TV box demo + free box