EirTV vs Vodafone TV PLAY

peejay1986

Hey. I've been given the daunting task of migrating my mother from a lifetime of Sky TV. The costs are astronomical for what she uses it for (primarily recording soaps and watching Alibi / Gold / etc) and we can't be bothered doing the yearly bartering with Sky to keep the offers going.

She has just been given the heads up that she is eligible for a FTTH upgrade so we thought now would be a good time to switch to a new provider and bundle TV + Broadband with someone.

I've read a lot of people on hear have tried Vodafone and Eir's offerings so I'm asking, if anyone has the patience, to please give me their pros and cons of each.

Key things here are:

• Ease of use. My mother can barely operate the Sky system after 20+ years.
• Recording if at all possible, but not critical
• Standard channels and some of the typical Sky entertainment ones too
• Option for multiroom?

Again, she should have a new (at least) 500mb FTTH set up in the house so streaming should hopefully be ok.

Sincere thanks to anyone who can give their input.

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058361376/eirtv-vs-vodafone-tv-play

The Apple TV 4K box used by Eir seems to be the best of the new streaming players. For someone who is used to a legacy hard-disk box like Sky, it will be a huge transition, and take a little time to get used to. However, once converted, it is actually a much easier GUI to navigate, and more like a PC desktop. I have seen a number of elderly people cope very well with it. The main issue with Apple TV seems to be the touch control remote-controls. These are not very intuitive for users who are accustomed to traditional remotes. However, Eir don't ship the Apple remotes - they have their own remotes, which are very straightforward to use.

You get the first Apple TV box included in your Eir TV subscription for €9.99 per month, with all the regular TV channels. Regarding multi-room, there are two options. You can rent additional multi-room boxes at €9.99pm each. However, since the Apple TV box is not proprietary to Eir, you can also buy your own additional boxes outright, and you won't have to pay the monthly multi-room subscription. This option isn't publicized by Eir, but there are plenty of us doing it. This is a significant advantage over the other streaming providers such as Vodafone, who use proprietary boxes, forcing you to pay their multi-room fee for each box. Eir also sell re-conditioned Apple TV boxes on their eir Store website, for €59.99. They are fully guaranteed etc, so very good value at this price.

Recording is becoming difficult with all the streaming providers. RTE do not allow any of the streaming providers to offer recording, forcing everyone to use RTE player. Eir did offer unrestricted recording of BBC until a couple of weeks ago - but they were the only provider able to do this, and BBC seem to have blocked them also now. This is a significant pain, because BBC iPlayer is not available in Ireland - however, all the streaming providers have this issue now. There are some "catch-up" options on the TV-guides - but they are patchy, and not the same as proper recording. Recording is still available for other UK channels such as Channel IV.

Sky seems to have moved towards offering their premium channels via Now TV wholesale to other TV providers, so Now TV is probably the best way to get Sky Entertainment channels. The Now TV app runs on Apple TV. You can get Sky News via the Sky News app, so no need for a Sky subscription.

peejay1986

This is brilliant. Thanks very much for taking the time to give your thoughts.

So essentially Eir's offering is an EirTV app on an AppleTV?

Annoyingly I just sold my old AppleTV last week on adverts 🤦‍♂️

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122427373#Comment_122427373

Yes - Eir TV is just an app running on a standard Apple TV box. It's unfortunate that you sold your old box. There is probably a good 2nd hand market for them, because they are relatively expensive new. You could probably pick another one up on Adverts - but like a lot of things on Adverts, I suspect that a lot of them are stolen?

KildareP

The first Apple TV is provided to you by Eir at no additional charge, you only need additional Apple TV's for multiroom. Bear in mind the Apple TV units are HDMI only so any older TV's only rocking SCART or RF connections will not work.

A refurb ATV sold by Eir can be got for €59.99, https://eir-store.ie/collections/brand-apple/products/apple-tv-4k-32gb-refurbished-black

I picked up one myself, it has some scratches around the rear HDMI port and on the base of the unit but otherwise is 100%.

It only comes with the standard Apple TV remote, so you may want to buy her the traditional style remote as well which are €39.99:

https://eir-store.ie/collections/brand-eir/products/copy-of-eir-tv-traditional-remote-black

If you sign up online (not in a shop or over the phone) they've a promotion where they'll credit €100 to your 2nd bill so that would essentially cover the costs of a 2nd refurb ATV and remote. Even if you don't sign up online, it's paid for itself after 10 months when you'd be paying Eir €9.99 for multiroom in order to get the second box loaned from them for as long as you had it.

peejay1986

Brilliant. Thank you both. Really appreciate this.

Odd question maybe but have either of you experience in dealing with Eir when it comes time for contract renewal? What's the likelihood of keeping the cost to near the level of a new customer? Much effort involved? Sky is disgraceful. Last time I was on the phone for an hour and three quarters.

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122429022#Comment_122429022

I re-negotiate the bundle every year. If you are prepared to commit to another 12 months, I find eir always willing to renew at the €9.99pm rate for the TV add-on, including free Amazon Prime Video. Likewise for their mobile SIM-only add-on at €9.99. They will also discount the basic Broadband bundle to a competitive rate compared to what is available in the market at the time. Best to do your research on competitor offerings 30 days before renewal, and show them that you know the cost of the best competitor offering. I find they are generally willing to match this, or close enough that it is not worth moving. However, you have to make a call to do this - ask for loyalty dept, and tell them you are shopping around. You can't do this on-line - you must make the call. It only takes 5 minutes. Otherwise you will be moved to the higher bundle rates after the first 12 months. If you do it 30 days before your contract is up, you won't be moved to the higher rates at the end of your contract.

human 19

I know its not what you were asking about, but have you thought free-to-air satellie channels on freesat for a once-off price of a dish & box ? The channel selection/entertainment guide for the main TV is much the same on the remote compared to other boxes (I use a VU+duo box). For multi-room you could use a laptop over ethernet using a simple web address . I use a raspberry pi connected to a monitor in the kitchen via the electric wires in the house using a Netgear adapter. The latest Pi can stream HD TV and only cost about 100 quid including case, PSU etc. I used to use the vu+ app on a tablet over wi-fi but was limited the last time I tried it a few years ago

No problem with recording. I use a Transcend external hard drive. I think you acan order the boxes with a HDD installed but I prefer to fill up a drive and then buy a new one every couple of years.

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485415#Comment_122485415

Nothing wrong with free-to-air at the moment, and it has some attractions now that all the streaming services have recording limitations. However, you need to be aware that the satellites are going end-of-life, and are not going to be replaced. Sky are aggressively moving new customers onto broadband streaming of TV, and Freesat is being replaced with Freely in UK, which is also delivered over Broadband. Hence it is possible that the UK satellite services on Astra may be discontinued within the next few years. The likely date is 2028, when Sky's contract ends, so you might get 3-4 years more of free-to-air on satellite. However, 9 channels were already discontinued earlier this year, and other channels may drop Freesat as Freely becomes the dominant free-to-air platform in UK. Unlike Satellite, Freely will not be available in Ireland.