Vodafone launches TV Play

Just a note for those considering this. I has the install booked today and had to send it away after the installers contacted support when the box wouldn't pick up my account. Turned out that the TV box will only work with the Vodafone Modem as they need to activate some IPTV setting on the modem itself. I have a UniFi network at home, including the SecureGateway (which is connected to the Fiber terminator).

So if looking to get this product, bear in mind you'll be stuck with the Vodafone router.

Oh yes, the offering from Vodafone UK is pretty basic which is why I said stuck TV package in quotation marks :)

So far, a giant thumbs down. Hope to return the box and revert to my old TV box.

What I don't like -

1 - I think the speaker sounds terrible. With the prior box, I output the sound via a simple RCA jack to an Amazon Echo speaker, which actually sounds pretty decent for what it is. I was excited to see the TV Play box arrive as it had a B&O speaker. Oof, it sounds awful. I changed the simple sound options on the box and it still sounded terrible. If you watch / listen to your TV with a proper sound bar or similar setup and don't need the speaker, this won't be a big deal. But considering the TV Play box doesn't have an audio jack input, I can't use it with my Echo, hence this new box is a pretty massive sound downgrade for me.

2 - As mentioned above, several channels aren't recordable, including one I record all the time. So that's a real problem.

3 - Obviously remotes can be a bit of personal preference, but in my view the new remote that comes with the TV Play is another fail. The prior remote actually words on some of the buttons (Guide, Recordings, Exit, Info, Menu, Options). The new remote lacks that clarity and is likely to be an issue for my wife or others that aren't familiar with the remote.

4 - Again, maybe personal preference and maybe something I'd get used to - but the on-screen menu is terrible as well. Hard to read the channel names and I haven't found a way to set up a personal profile (yet at least).

Other problems -

5 - When we "upgraded" to TV Play because we were out of contract and the sales guy at the store said the new box would be cheaper, he didn't even mention that we'd be getting a new cable box. Not cool. (We were actually in to discuss our cell plan, the sales guy is the one who brought up our TV plan. That wasn't even on our agenda.)

6 - At first connection, the TV Play box didn't connect with our account. Took them a week to sort that out. But they forgot to put our Sky Sports package on. (And it's Friday in front of a big sports weekend!)

7 - When they transferred our account to the new TV Play box, for some reason they canceled our Sky Sports add on. No idea why. Guessing just an error when the sales guy renewed our contract.

8 - The new box doesn't have any of our prior recorded shows on it (I guess makes sense if the recordings are on the hard drive of the boxes themselves). But because the sales guy didn't tell us we'd be getting a new box and nobody explained clearly that we'd lose access to these recordings, well, that's a bunch of shows we're not going to get to watch now (including a bunch of one-offs).

So, all in all, not to happy with the TV Play box nor how this all went down.

I was wondering about that, since I clicked on the Now channel and it seemed to bring up Sky Sports options. But nobody from Vodafone explained that's how we have to get Sky Sports going forward with the new box.

And yes, pretty much a deal killer if can't record the NFL games.

Don't know how all this works, but wonder if that's how Vodafone is able to offer this box cheaper than a lot of competitors (from what I've read). They either have to pay higher licensing fees (which would allow for recording channels) and pass that cost to consumers, or don't pay those fees (and thus customers can't record those channels) but cost of product is lower. (Again, I don't know if my thinking is right, just postulating.)

I'd rather be able pay a little more so I could record all channels, otherwise this is all going backwards. What's the point of a DVR if you can't, you know, record things. Heck, 30-40 years ago I could record all my channels, using a VCR. So these restrictions make little sense on the consumer side.

And you can't pause live sports programming with Now TV.

It's like they've taken all the technological advances of the past 20 years (recording, pause and fast forward, higher picture quality, 7-day program guides) and just rolled them back like they don't exist.

I didn't know that about Now

if they want to offer a budget product, fine - but when it's the only offering, it's not really a budget 'alternative', it's just your only option, you can't choose anything else

I'd be cool if they offered tiers so I could get the features I've gotten used to for x years, but they don't

Nope. Basically got jammed by them and only 2 choices are to either keep the new TV Play box or cancel tv service altogether. Once you get a new box there is no rolling back to old box. I've tried several avenues and they're not budging from this.

I think when they put us back on contract the savings was like €20 per mo. I really only watch 3 channels, mostly by recording and then watching when I can. With the new box, 2 of those channels are blocked from recording. So for me, I'm not sure the saving was worth it and my tv service is now virtually (almost) worthless given what I watch and how I use it.

re: your situation, I'm confused - are you still able to use your old box? but are just out of contract? we were out of contract for over a year I think, didn't really seem to matter if we were on or off (meaning, nothing happened when we rolled off)

the only reason we went back on contract is because we went into the local Vodafone store to discuss cell phone options and sales guy noticed our tv was off contract and he said he could save us some money by signing a new contract - seemed like a simple decision so we said yes, but he never mentioned we'd have to use a new box, not cool - if I had known that, probably would have stayed with old box as we were happy with it and don't like the features and restrictions of the new box

When I got eir Tv in 2019, it was really bad too, unable to record, It is interesting that you can record Virgin media channels on Vodafone TV play, not on eir tv atm. The more competitions the better for all consumers.