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[TheBoy]

NowTV box is Roku box, so not really designed by Sky

There are probably more VW Beetles in the world than Omegas, quantity does not mean quality!

Ah, so it may actually work then.

As to quantity, you said "nobody uses that junk". I disagree. And junk? Damn site more reliable than anything Sky provide, at least it does what is asked of it...  ...like remember to record programs.

[tunnie]

NowTV box is Roku box, so not really designed by Sky

There are probably more VW Beetles in the world than Omegas, quantity does not mean quality!

Ah, so it may actually work then.

As to quantity, you said "nobody uses that junk". I disagree. And junk? Damn site more reliable than anything Sky provide, at least it does what is asked of it...  ...like remember to record programs.

I see what WMC can do, it's the hassle of getting a machine beefy enough to do it & the expense that goes with it. With Sky you get a free box which one at my parents, has been 99% reliable, no real issues at-all.

Doing a quick Google, can you use Plex? Point that to Media content?

Any Roku Apps should work on NowTV box

[bored bigyin54]

Thats why I won't ever have a Sky/Now subscription then. I've got enough shite under the telly, without more ill conceived, ill designed Sky shite.

And I bet worldwide, there are far more Media Centers than Sky boxes

[TheBoy]

I see what WMC can do, it's the hassle of getting a machine beefy enough to do it & the expense that goes with it.

Not really. Mine is running a 25W CPU (that includes graphics), so hardly "beefy"

With Sky you get a free box which one at my parents, has been 99% reliable, no real issues at-all.

Too unreliable. People joke about Mr Jobs with crApple products, we should go down the same route with Uncle R and what Sky throw out (hardware wise).

99% reliable is simply not good enough.

Doing a quick Google, can you use Plex? Point that to Media content?

Why would I want to use Plex? I cannot see one valid reason for doing so. My Media Center is an all-in-one device under the telly that can deal with all recorded telly (capable of 4 simultaneous recordings, which watching an existing recording - makes the crap Sky boxes look poor), all UK (and US ) catch-up TV services, all my music (streamed from another server), all my photos (streamed from another server), any video files, all my DVDs (and remember that by its nature it has an upscaler that makes DVD upscalers look like VHS) and provides an enormous web browser when we have our holiday buddies round organising our next trip.  And all this it can present to any other device capable of playing media anywhere on the Internet, along with remote scheduling.

And when its not in use, it uses less than 1W (eat your heart out, Uncle R). In fact, even at full chat playing a 1080p video, it uses not much more power than a Sky box in standby...

[cleggy]

I see what WMC can do, it's the hassle of getting a machine beefy enough to do it & the expense that goes with it.

Not really. Mine is running a 25W CPU (that includes graphics), so hardly "beefy"

With Sky you get a free box which one at my parents, has been 99% reliable, no real issues at-all.

Too unreliable. People joke about Mr Jobs with crApple products, we should go down the same route with Uncle R and what Sky throw out (hardware wise).

99% reliable is simply not good enough.

Doing a quick Google, can you use Plex? Point that to Media content?

Why would I want to use Plex? I cannot see one valid reason for doing so. My Media Center is an all-in-one device under the telly that can deal with all recorded telly (capable of 4 simultaneous recordings, which watching an existing recording - makes the crap Sky boxes look poor), all UK (and US ) catch-up TV services, all my music (streamed from another server), all my photos (streamed from another server), any video files, all my DVDs (and remember that by its nature it has an upscaler that makes DVD upscalers look like VHS) and provides an enormous web browser when we have our holiday buddies round organising our next trip.  And all this it can present to any other device capable of playing media anywhere on the Internet, along with remote scheduling.

And when its not in use, it uses less than 1W (eat your heart out, Uncle R). In fact, even at full chat playing a 1080p video, it uses not much more power than a Sky box in standby...

Bet it cost more than a tenner

[TheBoy]

I see what WMC can do, it's the hassle of getting a machine beefy enough to do it & the expense that goes with it.

Not really. Mine is running a 25W CPU (that includes graphics), so hardly "beefy"

With Sky you get a free box which one at my parents, has been 99% reliable, no real issues at-all.

Too unreliable. People joke about Mr Jobs with crApple products, we should go down the same route with Uncle R and what Sky throw out (hardware wise).

99% reliable is simply not good enough.

Doing a quick Google, can you use Plex? Point that to Media content?

Why would I want to use Plex? I cannot see one valid reason for doing so. My Media Center is an all-in-one device under the telly that can deal with all recorded telly (capable of 4 simultaneous recordings, which watching an existing recording - makes the crap Sky boxes look poor), all UK (and US ) catch-up TV services, all my music (streamed from another server), all my photos (streamed from another server), any video files, all my DVDs (and remember that by its nature it has an upscaler that makes DVD upscalers look like VHS) and provides an enormous web browser when we have our holiday buddies round organising our next trip.  And all this it can present to any other device capable of playing media anywhere on the Internet, along with remote scheduling.

And when its not in use, it uses less than 1W (eat your heart out, Uncle R). In fact, even at full chat playing a 1080p video, it uses not much more power than a Sky box in standby...

Bet it cost more than a tenner

Actually, it didn't . BP bought it all for me

But yes, not including the case (getting decent, silent cases that look suitable is nigh on impossible), the cost was about £300 18 months ago, most of that on the ultra low power CPU and the 3TB hard disk (which was bloody expensive back then)

[tunnie]

So how come WMC is not main stream then? If its so good?

I still stand by the large expense to set it up, make it reliable too. Plus the hassle factor in building a PC. I've not done that in about 10 years.

Since when does anyone need to record 4 things at once? I know you probably do, but most normal people don't need that. TiVo box I had in the flat had 3 tuners, never maxed those out.

I'm fed up with Windoze anyway, get enough of it at work. Unreliable, slow, crap, can't wait to get my new Mac. Just be nice to have a change day to day, not having to wait forever for my HP Elitebook to boot and shut down. My 8 year old Mac mini, can boot, launch the forum and shut down in the time it takes my 2 year old HP laptop to boot.

NowTV box works very well for what it is, cheap, small, comes with a remote, massive on-demand content, from movies to entertainment. As long as you have a decent connection, who needs local content?

[albitz]

Finally binned SKY a couple of weeks ago after almost 20 years. Don't miss it at all tbh. 

[biggriffin]

Never had sky never will,got better things to waste my money on. Like petrol,

[tunnie]

Thought this was about NowTV

[cleggy]

Thought this was about NowTV

That's what I wanted to know about

When is it likely to have ITV player?

[tunnie]

Thought this was about NowTV

That's what I wanted to know about

When is it likely to have ITV player?

Not one on Roku as far as I know, so long way off

[cleggy]

Thought this was about NowTV

That's what I wanted to know about

When is it likely to have ITV player?

Not one on Roku as far as I know, so long way off

That's a shame It would be nice to have all the catch up channels rather than watching on the computer

[TheBoy]

So how come WMC is not main stream then? If its so good?

It is, just not so much in the UK.

I still stand by the large expense to set it up, make it reliable too. Plus the hassle factor in building a PC. I've not done that in about 10 years.

Which is part of the problem here - Elonex were the last to make a prebuilt one (and very good it was too in its time). But in the UK, we don't have any PC manufacturers, only bolt-it-together backstreet boys.

Since when does anyone need to record 4 things at once? I know you probably do, but most normal people don't need that. TiVo box I had in the flat had 3 tuners, never maxed those out.

I think you'd be surprised, esp by a generation who do not stream/download. Hence, look how many have to have youview/freeview/freesat recorders on top of their Sky boxes, and use them to record FTA, and the Sky box to record Sky only content. In the case of Sky, stuff is repeated so often, I suspect that helps with the lack of tuners.

I'm fed up with Windoze anyway, get enough of it at work. Unreliable, slow, crap, can't wait to get my new Mac. Just be nice to have a change day to day, not having to wait forever for my HP Elitebook to boot and shut down. My 8 year old Mac mini, can boot, launch the forum and shut down in the time it takes my 2 year old HP laptop to boot.

Unreliable? Slow? Blame the idiot who built it. As I've said before, my 6yr old Core2 Duo HP 6720s will boot Win7 Pro to CTRL-ALT-DEL prompt from cold in less than 10s.  Last time it crashed/BSOD/misbehaved was, errr, never.

Crap? Well, thats subjective. I'd still absolutely state that it remains the best general purpose desktop out there.

Obviously Sky's corporate build is every bit as shit as the one I have to use on my works Elitebook 8440p. Before they could sort out a build (which meant I wasn't able to use it) I had a generic Win7 build I put on, and used as my own personal PC at home. The bloody thing flew, as expected. Now, with the corporate build and 'dangle berries' on, along with Bitlocker encryption, its takes a minute or so to start from entering Bitlocker password to CTRL-ALT-DEL, and one of our apps leaks memory, as by the end of the day, I have 3 or 4 Gb committed memory.  Remember corporate environments are very different to personal usage, and security requirements (disk encryption, security GPOs etc) all add overhead.

No issue with simply being bored with Windows though. I am in that there hasn't really been much since Vista landed. But there is not a viable replacement. All that said, the OS shouldn't matter (to the user) IMHO.

NowTV box works very well for what it is, cheap, small, comes with a remote, massive on-demand content, from movies to entertainment. As long as you have a decent connection, who needs local content?

NowTV probably does work well for what it sets out to do, apart from streaming will not look good on large screens until we get the bandwidth and consistent latency to run it. Even Mrs TB can tell streamed content. Even HD streamed content. And she can't tell the difference between an upscaled DVD amd a 1080p source...


(Edits for fatfinger typos)

[steve6367]

I was able to take advantage of the cheap offer for the 1st year - so payed up my £10 for the box. Been very good so far, basic but works well :-)

Steve