eVision (IPTV service from Eircom) [Merged]

kooga

Leslie91 wrote: »

You are just taking it for the phone and BB ultimately?

All 3 need to work for me to be happy as I don't have the Sky/Saorview/satellite option. It's UPC or Eircom for me.

I can't get upc bb where I live so have always had eircom and delighted with efibre so far

former legend

In case anyone missed it, Sky have announced that the Ryder Cup will be broadcast on Sky Sports 4, therefore anyone hoping to watch it via eVision is out of luck...

bridestream

I believe ALL golf is only on Sky Sorts 4 channel.
This is the reason why - when evision comes to me in the Kilcock area - I will not be subscribing.
As golf is my first choice sport I have to stick with SKY.
Although there is always the IPTV option with companies other than Eircom as a possibility!

Leslie91

bridestream wrote: »

I believe ALL golf is only on Sky Sorts 4 channel.
This is the reason why - when evision comes to me in the Kilcock area - I will not be subscribing.
As golf is my first choice sport I have to stick with SKY.
Although there is always the IPTV option with companies other than Eircom as a possibility!

Is SS4 only available on SKY platform? does it not come as part of SKY Sports pack with UPC?

bridestream

Yes - ALL current (1 to 4) Sky Sports channels are available on UPC.
Eircom/eVision has only Sky Sports 1 & 2.
Other IPTV providers have Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Don't know who is carrying Sky Sports 5 yet.

UPC not available in greater Kilcock area.

Kensington

Did anyone's evision throw a wobbler about 11pm last night?
Internet stayed working fine but the TV stopped.

Both boxes had no picture/sound on any of the channels.
Programme guide showed "Error -11: This request has timed out".

Plugged both boxes out/in where they subsequently sat there for 10 minutes with "You are not subscribed to this channel" messages on all of the channels before coming back to life about 20 minutes later.

kooga

Kensington wrote: »

Did anyone's evision throw a wobbler about 11pm last night?
Internet stayed working fine but the TV stopped.

Both boxes had no picture/sound on any of the channels.
Programme guide showed "Error -11: This request has timed out".

Plugged both boxes out/in where they subsequently sat there for 10 minutes with "You are not subscribed to this channel" messages on all of the channels before coming back to life about 20 minutes later.

didn't watch tv on the evision box last night, so i don't know. however that code did come up on my box before and i merely turned off the box for a while and it resolved itself.

AlanS181824

Kensington wrote: »

Did anyone's evision throw a wobbler about 11pm last night?
Internet stayed working fine but the TV stopped.

Both boxes had no picture/sound on any of the channels.
Programme guide showed "Error -11: This request has timed out".

Plugged both boxes out/in where they subsequently sat there for 10 minutes with "You are not subscribed to this channel" messages on all of the channels before coming back to life about 20 minutes later.

My auntie rang me last might about half 9 telling me about the "Eircom tele isn't working again!"
She said she could see the UI but there was no picture.
You could see eVision up the top but nothing else, blank everything.
Got her to reboot the modem and the boxes and it seemed to fix it, to which she responded "they're lucky it's free!"
Unrelated? Probably but still!

Furp

I had issues around 9 last night i could watch channels but not bring up the programme guide.

In general I am happy with the service at the price, the picture quailty i find very good compared to Sky HD which I had since 2008, but I think it needs some usability improvements, like:

Direct Access to Planner
Search for a show
smaller guide interface to see more of the programmes on.
Cached guide-this was something sky took years to implement.
Series Link, I set this for a few series and it recorded them every time they were on including repeats rather then just the new ones, but i need to try this more.
Dedicate support forum on the eircom site would be nice too.

I do think it has very good potential I will be sticking with it for a year, and saving 500+ on my sky bill.

kooga

Furp wrote: »

I had issues around 9 last night i could watch channels but not bring up the programme guide.

In general I am happy with the service at the price, the picture quailty i find very good compared to Sky HD which I had since 2008, but I think it needs some usability improvements, like:

Direct Access to Planner
Search for a show
smaller guide interface to see more of the programmes on.
Cached guide-this was something sky took years to implement.
Series Link, I set this for a few series and it recorded them every time they were on including repeats rather then just the new ones, but i need to try this more.
Dedicate support forum on the eircom site would be nice too.

I do think it has very good potential I will be sticking with it for a year, and saving 500+ on my sky bill.

what packages do you have?

very happy with the series link ability, i have true blood tg4 and walking dead rte 2 on series link. As no repaets are broadcasted it records just a single show

however i will be setting up this evening true blood on fox to record and i see from the tv listings each episode is shown three times a week so that will be interesting.

Furp

I have the standard, and experience packages plus HD on top, One example was recording the new season of mythbusters I found that it recorded around 9 episodes over the course of a week, but this may have been because the series link needs to set on the first broadcast on a new episode rather then the repeat at 2 on the morning.

kooga

tks for that

will just do a single episode record tonight for true blood on fox and do series link from next monday. will post updates

kooga

kooga wrote: »

tks for that

will just do a single episode record tonight for true blood on fox and do series link from next monday. will post updates

as per previous poster my evision box recorded the two repeats of true blood on fox last tuesday night even though i had selected just an individual episode.

I have series linked from monday the new episode so will be interesting to see what happens. Anyway its only a minor issue, the most important thing is stable recordings.

dublinman1990

I had a guy who told us that my own estate in Blackrock was hooked up to eFibre and he offered myself and my mum with an eVision offer today with 50 TV channels and (he said) up to 100Mps broadband and a landline telephone at €12.50 a week for an 18 month contract.

It seemed like a very good offer but we didn't have enough money to pay for it at the time. We would only be paying for an extra 14 channels we didn't have from the basic pack and the rest we would get will be on Saorview/FTA Satellite. We would have to pay extra for Sports if the options from SKY and BT Sport was also taken up.

We kindly declined the offer because are currently saving up to pay our bills on top of everything else. The amount of wriggle room to pay for other things would be even smaller if we had taken up that offer.

channelsurfer2

Evison now 15euro per month - a 50% increase in price, plus an extra 3 euro for the broadband necessary to get evision. (48 euro) to total 63 euro without offers! Previous price was 10euro plus 45euro so an overall 8euro price increase.

spmccann

Being early adopter of any technology is risky and this is eircoms first attempt at television but the evision boxes are rubbish. The remotes are cheap and the response from the box is flaky at best. There hasnt been a software update for them since they were installed even though the box needs several things fixed in the software.
The basic package is very basic and we had to upgrade but we are still missing a lot of channels. The record function on the boxes sometimes doesnt work(yes to box is on and yes the router is on) . Also even when the evision boxes have been switched off the download speed is considerably slower. Cost wise its about a 10 cheaper per month but Id go back to sky in a heart beat if i wasn't going to be stung with contact cancelling charges.

I wont even get into the mess we had with the changeover from vodafone where eircom "forgot" to inform vodafone we were switching and I was stung for an extra months charges and several long conversations with support to get it sorted.

I was really hoping eircom could shake up the market and deliver a really good product it has been a disappointment.

Onthe3rdDay

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

Evison now 15euro per month - a 50% increase in price, plus an extra 3 euro for the broadband necessary to get evision. (48 euro) to total 63 euro without offers! Previous price was 10euro plus 45euro so an overall 8euro price increase.

It was poor value at 10 euro when you consider almost all of the stations are available FTA on Satellite or Saorview with a much better picture. At 15 it's a bit of a joke, you're basically paying 180 euro a year for stations you can get for free and it slows your broadband down. That's not even going into the buggy aspects of the box and the picture quality which isn't as good as Sat or Saorview.

icdg

I'd love to know what the subscriber numbers for eVision are. It has been available for nine months now. I looked at Eircom's last quarterly update but couldn't find any reference to how many households are taking eVision, which is worrying - they obviously aren't keen to trumpet them! The biggest problem is that they will not attract any Sky Sports customers (which in these days of free-to-air satellite would be probably the biggest continuing driver of pay-TV subscriptions) while they are limited to the Wholesale Must Offer channels while their two biggest competitors (Sky and UPC) have the full Sky Sports package.

Onthe3rdDay

icdg wrote: »

I'd love to know what the subscriber numbers for eVision are. It has been available for nine months now. I looked at Eircom's last quarterly update but couldn't find any reference to how many households are taking eVision, which is worrying - they obviously aren't keen to trumpet them! The biggest problem is that they will not attract any Sky Sports customers (which in these days of free-to-air satellite would be probably the biggest continuing driver of pay-TV subscriptions) while they are limited to the Wholesale Must Offer channels while their two biggest competitors (Sky and UPC) have the full Sky Sports package.

There's were they're really missing a trick. If we put picture quality and Slowdown of broadband speeds to one side there are plenty of households out there that want some sport. Why not offer BT sports and Setanta for 16 euro a month. Nothing else (they could throw in basic stations for free if they wanted.) They might be surprised at how many would consider the service at that price point.

Right Now if you want any Sports in HD you have to pay 36 euro which is too much when you consider almost all the other stations you get are free to get elsewhere.

Mantis Toboggan

Well lads I think ye are being a little harsh. I've the service and I think it's actually quite good. Granted I don't watch much "live" tv but I think for the money it's pretty good. Evision will cost me 120 euro for 18 months, that includes a free box which can record and free installation.

Someone mentioned the remote control being a joke, that's just wrong it's actually a very good remote. I find the UI much better that satellite fta which is terrible imo and upc. Don't think it's fair to compare sky, who have been at tv for donkeys years against Eircom who haven't even been going a year.

Onthe3rdDay

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Well lads I think ye are being a little harsh. I've the service and I think it's actually quite good. Granted I don't watch much "live" tv but I think for the money it's pretty good. Evision will cost me 120 euro for 18 months, that includes a free box which can record and free installation.

Someone mentioned the remote control being a joke, that's just wrong it's actually a very good remote. I find the UI much better that satellite fta which is terrible imo and upc. Don't think it's fair to compare sky, who have been at tv for donkeys years against Eircom who haven't even been going a year.

I think for certain situations where you have no other way of TV reception it's a solution but after your 18 months it'll cost you 180 euro a year, Unless you've no other way of getting TV it's a very expenisive way to watch stations that are almost all free to air.

Also you know you're in trouble when a customer is trying to defend the service by saying it's being going less than a year. If it were any other service and it didn't do the job properly it would be returned to the shop.

I'd actually like to see eircom do this properly. More competition is needed in the market if at all possible, they've just done a poor job IMHO. However I can see how it suits some people.

Mantis Toboggan

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

I think for certain situations where you have no other way of TV reception it's a solution but after your 18 months it'll cost you 180 euro a year, Unless you've no other way of getting TV it's a very expenisive way to watch stations that are almost all free to air.

Also you know you're in trouble when a customer is trying to defend the service by saying it's being going less than a year. If it were any other service and it didn't do the job properly it would be returned to the shop.

I'd actually like to see eircom do this properly. More competition is needed in the market if at all possible, they've just done a poor job IMHO. However I can see how it suits some people.

But how does it not do the job properly that would warrant it being returned?

Onthe3rdDay

Buddy Holly wrote: »

But how does it not do the job properly that would warrant it being returned?

Well in the cases I directly know about (2 friends got it) One of them returned it because the picture quality was so poor. The other one got a box (and then a second one) that just didn't work reliably.

What I'm basically trying to say is that other providers come to market with a product that basically works well, with a good picture and a wide selection of channels from Day One.

Eircom have come to market with a product that has a poor picture, compared to Sat/Saorview/cable. A poor selection of channels and also an service that slows down your internet connection.

They know this themselves. If their service was good they wouldn't be offering 6 months for free and an 18 month contract. They're banking on people taking the service and then not changing. My own grandmother won't change from Eircom because she doesn't want to lose her number. No amount of convincing will change her mind. It wouldn't surprise me if half of eircoms custom comes from those that are too lazy to change/scared/ or plain bewildered.

Kensington

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

Well in the cases I directly know about (2 friends got it) One of them returned it because the picture quality was so poor. The other one got a box (and then a second one) that just didn't work reliably.

What I'm basically trying to say is that other providers come to market with a product that basically works well, with a good picture and a wide selection of channels from Day One.

Eircom have come to market with a product that has a poor picture, compared to Sat/Saorview/cable. A poor selection of channels and also an service that slows down your internet connection.

They know this themselves. If their service was good they wouldn't be offering 6 months for free and an 18 month contract. They're banking on people taking the service and then not changing. My own grandmother won't change from Eircom because she doesn't want to lose her number. No amount of convincing will change her mind. It wouldn't surprise me if half of eircoms custom comes from those that are too lazy to change/scared/ or plain bewildered.

You should have seen Sky, then Sky+, then Sky+HD, then SkyGo on their release dates, they had their fair share of teething problems. Even the recently released Sky+HD 2TB and the Sky On Demand service has multiple issues.

Yes Sky TV today is superb but frankly for what TV I watch it doesn't warrant paying €26+ a month. If you're in an apartment with a no satellite dish rule and no communal setup, then UPC or Eircom tend to be the only options. UPC is not much cheaper than Sky but their TV is god awful. No sat dish = no FTA.

For €10 or even the newly updated price, it's not bad. For your average Joe Schmoe, Show me a FTA system that gets RTE/FTA-sat, 7-day EPG, series link and recording, that doesn't involve faffing about with Linux plugins, USB hard drives, transponder rescans and so many remotes you'd need extra limbs to operate! They don't want the hassle

Also on the picture quality, some of the channels look really bit rate compressed but these were the same on Sky. On HDMI up scaled picture looks far better than the Sky+HD box ever managed.

Onthe3rdDay

Kensington wrote: »

You should have seen Sky, then Sky+, then Sky+HD, then SkyGo on their release dates, they had their fair share of teething problems. Even the recently released Sky+HD 2TB and the Sky On Demand service has multiple issues.

Yes Sky TV today is superb but frankly for what TV I watch it doesn't warrant paying €26+ a month. If you're in an apartment with a no satellite dish rule and no communal setup, then UPC or Eircom tend to be the only options. UPC is not much cheaper than Sky but their TV is god awful. No sat dish = no FTA.

For €10 or even the newly updated price, it's not bad. For your average Joe Schmoe, Show me a FTA system that gets RTE/FTA-sat, 7-day EPG, series link and recording, that doesn't involve faffing about with Linux plugins, USB hard drives, transponder rescans and so many remotes you'd need extra limbs to operate! They don't want the hassle

Also on the picture quality, some of the channels look really bit rate compressed but these were the same on Sky. On HDMI up scaled picture looks far better than the Sky+HD box ever managed.

Indeed they did have their issues, I'm not here to defend SKY as such. I actually pointed out some of your points earlier, it is suitable for some people in some situations. However, If you do have a Dish and get a Freesat recorder for appox 100 upwards, you can get a lot more stations than Eircom offer and never have to pay a penny again. Many are better than the eircom box. Obviously there are those that have no idea about TV systems I wouldn't recommend them straying off a path that works for them.

The only place I've ever heard people happy with the picture is here on the internet. Every real world person I've come across hasn't been happy. One person was very happy with the picture until we found out he was watching the saorview feed. Needless to say when he saw the eircom picture he was less than delighted.

Kensington

Wonder were they on non-HDMI connections? If you don't have HDMI then its an S-Video type connection as your fallback which is probably pretty bad!

Onthe3rdDay

Kensington wrote: »

Wonder were they on non-HDMI connections? If you don't have HDMI then its an S-Video type connection as your fallback which is probably pretty bad!

As far as i'm aware they were HDMI connections. But there may have been cases were it wasn't. However almost everyone I know is now using a set with HDMI connections. There was a huge clearance of old sets over the last few years.

Mantis Toboggan

Must say I don't see any issues with picture quality. I've the Irish channels free in HD and I find them as good as sky HD. I'm in an apartment so it suits me down to the ground. They also offered me setanta, espn and BT sports free for 2 months so I'm happy out.

Also I do have FTA as there's an old satellite outside and find it very difficult to navigate around it, it's a complete mess and not worth the hassle.

Regarding the boxes of your friends that didn't work, look I've had a few sky boxes replaced over the years, it doesn't mean their service is terrible just a dodgy box. It happens.

At the end of the day if you watch a lot of tv and want to pay for sports and movies then sky is your best bet. But I get these channels through alternative means so the evision box makes sense. Eircom aren't really competing with Sky, they would be foolish to do that. They are trying to create a cheap, limited alternative which I feel their is an appetite for.

Onthe3rdDay

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Must say I don't see any issues with picture quality. I've the Irish channels free in HD and I find them as good as sky HD. I'm in an apartment so it suits me down to the ground. They also offered me setanta, espn and BT sports free for 2 months so I'm happy out.

Also I do have FTA as there's an old satellite outside and find it very difficult to navigate around it, it's a complete mess and not worth the hassle.

Regarding the boxes of your friends that didn't work, look I've had a few sky boxes replaced over the years, it doesn't mean their service is terrible just a dodgy box. It happens.

At the end of the day if you watch a lot of tv and want to pay for sports and movies then sky is your best bet. But I get these channels through alternative means so the evision box makes sense. Eircom aren't really competing with Sky, they would be foolish to do that. They are trying to create a cheap, limited alternative which I feel their is an appetite for.

Fair enough if it suits you and you're happy with the picture quality. I will say if I were doing Sat FTA i wouldn't be using any SKY equipment for many of the reasons you point out. However on proper FreeSat or FTA equipment that available on Amazon and shops up and down the country the picture is a lot better on most if not all stations.

Again it is personal choice, but just from my own experience the only people that actually give Eircom the thumbs up are online. In the real world I've only come across minor disappointment. A good few I know thought it would be a great way to get extra channels but once they saw the picture quality they sent the box back. Side by side they all thought the Saorview picture and Freeview picture (these people are in donegal) was a lot better. They went out and bought an better aerial to get a satisfactory picture. These people aren't tech minded and would be willing to spend the 10 a month and Eircom weren't able to convince them.

As for boxes breaking, I understand that dodgy boxes exist but when the second one in a row is dodgy you can see why people run in the other direction when they see all their friends with equipment that works first time.

I can't argue that they're trying to create an alternative, for what they're offering it's not cheap. There probably isn't that much of an appetite for it at this stage as it's not been marketed correctly (nothing to do with technology) If it had been anyway successful they would be shouting from the mountain tops but subscription figures seem to be low.

Furp

Regarding the picture quality I find it very good, equivalent to sky in most cases better in others. We have it on two tvs, with HD on both. I will say at first I was not impressed with the quality until I noticed the eircom guy had forgotten to set the boxs to output 1920x1080.

As for sky the interface is good now but it took years and was not until the as samsung boxes came out and the HD EPG that the interface improved.

I do think the eircom box could do with a better interface and if they were public on improvements to the service it would help. For me we are trying it for a year, saving €500+ on what we would have spent with sky.

As for bb slow down issues I haven't seen any, we still get 79mb and have been downloading xbox one games, watching HD streams on 4 tablets. There is plenty of overhead with the fibre connection to do many things at once IMHO.

kooga

just to update.

my box is series linking away the walking dead and true blood without fail.

However on two occassions now when i have turned my box on from standby there has been no response, i.e. it freezes on the intro page and gives no epg data or series recording info.

the only thing to do is to plug it out and start again, a bit annoying. When you plug it out and put back in you have to reset your recordings.

I see from the start of the august the basic package is gone up to €15 a month. On that basis when my free six month trial finishes i will not be keeping it at €180 a year.

I'm only using it for terrestial recording as i have a humax to do my uk recordings and for €180 i can buy a humax or panasonic freeview hd recorder instead.

spmccann

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Someone mentioned the remote control being a joke, that's just wrong it's actually a very good remote.

.

You must have a different remote than I got with our boxes. The remote often doesn't respond and it feels cheap compared to the old sky remotes we had.

Mantis Toboggan

spmccann wrote: »

You must have a different remote than I got with our boxes. The remote often doesn't respond and it feels cheap compared to the old sky remotes we had.

Must be a dud. MMine works perfectly. You should definitely return that.

kooga

Series Link

just noticed that true blood is repeated on a wednesday evening on TG4 yet my series link only records the Tuesday night episode not the repeat. In addition i am series linking true blood on Fox and it records all the repeats as well.

Mantis Toboggan

Just got the setanta sports pack, including ESPN and BT sports free for 2 months, happy days.

jaggiebunnet

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Just got the setanta sports pack, including ESPN and BT sports free for 2 months, happy days.

How did you manage that may I ask?

Mantis Toboggan

jaggiebunnet wrote: »

How did you manage that may I ask?

Just rang them up as asked about it!

jaggiebunnet

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Just rang them up as asked about it!

Cool - must do the same!

Leslie91

Question lads.... I'd like to have wired internet to the telly itself as part of the eircom offering. Is this possible do you know or is the broadband all wifi?

Kensington

Leslie91 wrote: »

Question lads.... I'd like to have wired internet to the telly itself as part of the eircom offering. Is this possible do you know or is the broadband all wifi?

If you buy a basic network switch, yes, just plug the switch into the homeplug and run your devices - including the eVision box - through the switch.

Naturally enough Eircom won't support such a configuration, or set it up for you, and you may hit contention issues if you're transferring bulky files or using high bandwidth on the other devices connecting into the homeplugs. But for use like smart TVs or a PS3, its fine.

Kensington

Anyone lost recordings on RTE One?

Showing an error on any past recorded programs saying the channel is no longer available on eVision.

kooga

turn the box on and off

Kensington

Tried that, doesn't appear to have made a difference.
Really annoying as I had a few recordings built up which now no longer work.

Mantis Toboggan

Kensington wrote: »

Tried that, doesn't appear to have made a difference.
Really annoying as I had a few recordings built up which now no longer work.

When the box is on try holding the off switch on the remote for 10 seconds. This should properly power down the box and may help!

Kensington

Buddy Holly wrote: »

When the box is on try holding the off switch on the remote for 10 seconds. This should properly power down the box and may help!

Still nothing...
Nothing more than a minor annoyance at this stage, but if it begins to become a regular occurrence it'll be more than a minor annoyance!

kooga

my evision box failed to record the walking dead on rte last friday night................have it on series link.

Scrolled forward on the epg to next friday and the episode shows as being on series record. Interesting to see what happens.

will keep an eye on true blood tonight on FOX.
In addition my internet was a bit hit and miss at the weekend as well.

kooga

i got a txt from eircom offering me 1 month free sky sport 1 and 2. can cancel after one month no new contract but i have to ring them before sep 15 otherwise €30 a month. so took it.

ring 1800312012

redser7

Me too, kicked in this afternoon. You can cancel early and still keep if for the rest of the month.

An Ciarraioch

After reading about the Setanta Pack promotion here last week, various snafus have meant it didn't kick in for me yet, so not confident about this either!

Mantis Toboggan

For play to Eircom, great move in fairness!