TalkTalk Offers Free YouView

I am thinking of ditching Sky and going for TT Youview, the only thing that is holding me back is the thought of going back to watching SD on all but BBC One HD, BBC HD, ITV1 HD and Channel 4 HD, the last time i used a freeview box with my LCD TV the picture quality on some channels was awful.

Has anyone here had this installed?

Does the box up-scale the SD channels and if not how do you find the picture quality?


TIA.

I thought youview did do HD
http://www.youview.com/features/
claims
"High Definition
Extraordinary TV in HD

Brighter, sharper pictures and sound. YouView supports full HD. On demand and catch up programmes are also available in HD, and if you record something in HD, you can watch it back in HD."

In reply to a post by ggremlin:

I thought youview did do HD

It does that's why i said -

"holding me back is the thought of going back to watching SD on all but BBC One HD, BBC HD, ITV1 HD and Channel 4 HD"

Most of the channels i watch regularly on Sky are in HD so going back to SD is going to be a big step backwards if the picture quality is rubbish, i will stay with Sky if this is the case.

The live channels are just Freeview so only those in HD on Freeview will be in HD on the YouView box.
The on-demand aspects will vary according to the content source.

Used freeview recently on a big TV and amazed how people put up with the blocky picture on SD

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Used freeview recently on a big TV and amazed how people put up with the blocky picture on SD

That is what it was like on mine, i thought the cheap Asda freeview box wasn't helping but it looks like freeview is not the best option, i will stick with Sky and wait until we get FTTC by then we will probably all be viewing the majority of channels in HD by way of our Broadband connections..

In reply to a post by Jack_Hackett:

I am thinking of ditching Sky and going for TT Youview, the only thing that is holding me back is the thought of going back to watching SD on all but BBC One HD, BBC HD, ITV1 HD and Channel 4 HD, the last time i used a freeview box with my LCD TV the picture quality on some channels was awful.

Has anyone here had this installed?

Does the box up-scale the SD channels and if not how do you find the picture quality?


TIA.

Why does what appears to be a set top tv box require some employee of talk talk to install it, as presumably it will connect to the existing antenna and or router ,why does something as trivial as this require customers to spend £50.00 when they can easily perform D.I.Y. and achieve the same or a better outcome without it

http://www.youview.com/how-it-works/

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 14-Oct-12 21:53:04)

You may want to look at VouView shortcomin before deciding
http://hummy.tv/forum/threads/dtr-t1000-youview-shor...

If you aren't that bothered about the catch up services (apart from iPlayer), a much better option is the Humax HDR-Fox T2

I have one and it upscales SD content and it is perfectly fine on my Panny 42" TV

I've been on Freeview for years, and this is the best PVR I've ever owned for Freeview

It also has a lively custom firmware community, that adds all manner of extra features to it
Such as:-
Web interface
Smart Phone Web Interface
Remote scheduling
Network Share mount - play virtually any video/music/photo stored on a computer, server or NAS
Decrypt both SD and HD content
Transfer recorded video to USB drive, or via your home network (SD and HD) to a computer
FTP server
On box video splicer
Bittorrent client
Samba server
There are many more, just too many to list

Look at the Forum for more info
http://hummy.tv/forum/

Freeview picture quality is awful and since a youview box is a glorified Freeview PVR, it will be the same.

The idea of youview is good, in that the you can go back in time on the guide, but then it goes from the guide and onto the providers app. So you pick say HIGNFY on BBc a couple of days back and it will go to the BBC Iplayer, so no standard interface.

The box can also be a bit slow.

i don't have one myself, but I am in contact with someone who got one as they was in the trials.


Maybe you should wait until the bring out a Freesat version.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Freeview picture quality is awful and since a youview box is a glorified Freeview PVR, it will be the same.

The idea of youview is good, in that the you can go back in time on the guide, but then it goes from the guide and onto the providers app. So you pick say HIGNFY on BBc a couple of days back and it will go to the BBC Iplayer, so no standard interface.

Sounds like something easily achievable by Raspbmc on my Raspberry Pi.

Why does what appears to be a set top tv box require some employee of talk talk to install it, as presumably it will connect to the existing antenna and or router ,why does something as trivial as this require customers to spend £50.00 when they can easily perform D.I.Y. and achieve the same or a better outcome without it

No one seems to be letting on but i have read there will be a D - I - Y install option next year.

Edited by Jack_Hackett (Mon 15-Oct-12 18:23:57)

If you aren't that bothered about the catch up services (apart from iPlayer), a much better option is the Humax HDR-Fox T2

I had a Foxsat box (not HD) before i moved to Sky and was impressed with the SD picture quality, I might have a look at the latest HD versions as i now have the twin feed from the dish that would allow me to get the most out of the box.

In reply to a post by Jack_Hackett:

I had a Foxsat box (not HD) before i moved to Sky and was impressed with the SD picture quality, I might have a look at the latest HD versions as i now have the twin feed from the dish that would allow me to get the most out of the box.

The Humax Foxsat HDR is a great unit.

In reply to a post by Jack_Hackett:

If you aren't that bothered about the catch up services (apart from iPlayer), a much better option is the Humax HDR-Fox T2

I had a Foxsat box (not HD) before i moved to Sky and was impressed with the SD picture quality, I might have a look at the latest HD versions as i now have the twin feed from the dish that would allow me to get the most out of the box.

But SD on Dsat is not much better if any better than Sd on Freeview. Our digital TV system be it via Dsat or terrestrial is to be honest awful. Even Hd is not that great.

The problem is now people are so used to it and forgot what the picture quality was like with analogue, which was better than the digital system

I use netflix for 99% of my video entertainment now, i don't have a TV licence, the other one percent i get via DVd/Blu-ray and most of the stuff on Netflix have a better picture quality than our TV system

have used freeview in 4 different areas using 2 different set-top boxes, a 2007 PC card and a 2012 freeviewHD PC card. Also have used old skybox to view freesat, and spend some time with SkyHD box also.

freesat via old skybox was pretty poor on alot of channels, plus at the time (maybe now aswell) it was missing Dave. The main channels were ok but not hugely different to the main channels via my Blackgold Freeview PC card. However, those same channels via the set-top boxes were worse.
The SD channels via my new blackgold DVB-T2 card are better than with the 2007 card.
FreeviewHD compares well with skyHD, though only 3.5 HD channels on FreeviewHD presently.
Our 2012 TV SD tuner and 200hz panel was loads better than the 50hz offerings. This TV I think does some extra stuff to make the SD stuff a bit better also, but the PC card via HDMI seems very similar.

My main points are: like with hi-fi the quality of the output given the same input can vary considerably due to the decoding/display hardware.

Newer hardware is likely to give better picture than older hardware for the same inputs.

The Humax Foxsat HDR is a great unit.

I will give that one a look.

In reply to a post by Jack_Hackett:

I will give that one a look.

Hold on a bit longer and you could get the latest:

http://www.humaxdigital.com/uk/freesat/

If it's as good as the Foxsat HDR it will be a winner.

AS a customer of Talk Talk, in a situation approx under 2 miles from the Exchange, They cannot reliably deliver 1.75 Mbps (Currently 1.0 !)
If you are already getting a good download speed they should be OK!
The problems start when you have to phone "Customer Support"!

In reply to a post by scottie4642:

AS a customer of Talk Talk, in a situation approx under 2 miles from the Exchange, They cannot reliably deliver 1.75 Mbps (Currently 1.0 !)
If you are already getting a good download speed they should be OK!
The problems start when you have to phone "Customer Support"!

I get this all the time - http://www.speedtest.net/result/2248007043.png

Edit to add -

@Oliver341 that box looks the dogs gangly bits.


.

Edited by Jack_Hackett (Wed 17-Oct-12 18:03:32)