Latest update removing dev mode

[Anonymous User]

Originally by JaBuzzard: (Post 1 page 49)

SeeMoreDigital wrote:
What???

A NOW TV branded box retails at just £15. 00. The Roku boxes cost signi��cantly more! Somebodies
taking a hit for the differences!

Yes Roku are not making a pro��t. There is a large difference between zero pro��t and a subsidy. The bill
of materials for a NowTV box is most likely well under £15, and my bet is most of the NowTV boxes sold
are not the £15 ones either , because wait a bit and you can get one with a pass for the same amount of
money or even less, to the point where people who never sideloaded anything have draw fulls of the
boxes, because even an offer of £20 for a box with a 3 month entertainment pass (and there have been
lots of better offers) is cheaper than buying three months of passes which would cost you £21 and you
get a spare remote too.

Originally by Wufflebonk: (Post 2 Page 49)

jabuzzard wrote:
SeeMoreDigital wrote:
What???

A NOW TV branded box retails at just £15. 00. The Roku boxes cost signi��cantly more!
Somebodies taking a hit for the differences!

Yes Roku are not making a pro��t. There is a large difference between zero pro��t and a subsidy. The
bill of materials for a NowTV box is most likely well under £15, and my bet is most of the NowTV
boxes sold are not the £15 ones either , because wait a bit and you can get one with a pass for the
same amount of money or even less, to the point where people who never sideloaded anything
have draw fulls of the boxes, because even an offer of £20 for a box with a 3 month entertainment
pass (and there have been lots of better offers) is cheaper than buying three months of passes
which would cost you £21 and you get a spare remote too.

I'll let you carry on with this one 🙂

I'm busy doing other things....

Besides I see @SeeMoreDigital and co have gotten out the vinyl's again... damn they must be so
scratched and broken now the amount of times they've been played. I think Violins are probably all but
worn out too...

Originally by ukbobboy:

@SeeMoreDigital

Hi again SMD

Unfortunately, your answer shows that you have made an assumption based on another assumption,
i.e. if a Roku 3 retail cost £70. 00 and a NowTV black box is £15. 00 then someone is loosing out
somewhere.

However , my experience is somewhat different, remember when video VHS recorder , way back when,
cost on average £400. 00 retail. Did you know that they only cost £71. 00 to manufacture, package and
ship from Japan to the UK, the additional costs were mainly just "mark-up", i.e. what the market will
bear .

Since retail economics has not changed since then, just the products sold, I would suggest you rethink
your "highly subsidised" mantra, unless you can prove otherwise.


UK Bob

Originally by 4268:

@ukbobboy have you considered that there is such a thing as a loss leader .

Originally by Eddie-M (NowTV Team):

Hi @Anonymous User


Thanks for raising your concerns to us here on the Community, In relation to what a Now TV agent has
said about Plex being illegal your correct it is not however the content available to use with in Plex and
other Apps like it can be seen as illegal and therefore puts Now TV in a difficult position with Studios
and Record companies and therefore the decision was made to remove the Dev Mode which enabled
the ability to install Plex via Sideloading due to Plex not being available in the Now TV app store. Also if
apps are being used via the Now T v box that are not available in the App store provided and are
installed by other means i.e Sideloading then Now TV have the right to remove that functionallity if we
wish to do so. If your complaint relates to official apps in the app store available via the Now TV box
then please do raise those concerns with us and we will do what we can can to rectify them. However if
it only relates to an app not offically available on the Now TV box then we cannot do anything further
and there would be no legal basis for us to put that function back as it is against our terms of use. I
hope this clears it up for you and if you have any further questions please do ask away and we will do
our best to answer or at least get the answer for you.


Thanks
Eddie

Originally by DessieB:

Hi Eddie,

I wonder if you could take a moment to explain how customers using Plex on a NOW TV box puts Now
TV in a difficult position with Studios and Record companies, but Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku
all provide Plex for their Streaming boxes and Google provide Plex for android TV boxes without this
putting them in a difficult position with Studios and Record companies?

Thanks
DessieB

Originally by Eddie-M (Official NowTV Team)

Hi @Anonymous User

This would come down to legal notices Now TV have received and therefore have had to remove the
fuction due to some Customers using Plex to watch Pirated Content. So the Dev Mode has been
disabled to prevent Pirated content in the future which in turn has disabled Plex which again can be
used to access Content which can be seen as illegal. This is the steps we found nessecerry to take to
prevent this from happening. If others have not done this then we cannot speak for them we feel this
was the best step to take.


Cheers

Originally by DessieB

Hi Eddie,

So are you suggesting that Apple, Amazon, Roku and Google have not received similar legal notices, or
that they have received similar notices but have chosen to ignore them?

DessieB

Originally by Eddie-M (Official NowTV Team):

No at all @Anonymous User


I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I am telling you what Now TV have received and what we have
done to rectify it if other companies have recieved the same notices then i'm sure they are taking the
Steps nessecerry to rectify that however we at Now TV are not privy to that information and therefore
cannot discuss what other companies intend to do if anything or if they have recieved the same
notices we can only discuss what Now TV have recieved and what we have done to ��x it. At the end of
the day Plex is not an offical app in the App store via the Now TV box therefore Now TV have no
legal obligation to provide that app and therefore can remove any means of accessing it.


Cheers

Originally by MattPenfold:

Eddie-M wrote:
Hi @Anonymous User


Thanks for raising your concerns to us here on the Community, In relation to what a Now TV agent
has said about Plex being illegal your correct it is not however the content available to use with in
Plex and other Apps like it can be seen as illegal and therefore puts Now TV in a difficult position
with Studios and Record companies and therefore the decision was made to remove the Dev Mode
which enabled the ability to install Plex via Sideloading due to Plex not being available in the Now
TV app store. Also if apps are being used via the Now T v box that are not available in the App store
provided and are installed by other means i.e Sideloading then Now TV have the right to remove
that functionallity if we wish to do so. If your complaint relates to official apps in the app store
available via the Now TV box then please do raise those concerns with us and we will do what we
can can to rectify them. However if it only relates to an app not offically available on the Now TV box
then we cannot do anything further and there would be no legal basis for us to put that function
back as it is against our terms of use. I hope this clears it up for you and if you have any further
questions please do ask away and we will do our best to answer or at least get the answer for you.


Thanks
Eddie
So why was I told Plex is illegal Eddie? You admit is untrue, yet that did not stop your colleagues from
say Plex is illegal software. What do you intend to do about their lack of honesty?

You claim you have the right to remove side-loaded apps, but you failed to offer any evidence you have
that right. Since you offered no evidence I can dismiss your claim you have that rigjt as baseless. You
have a choice. You can either offer that evidence, or accept you lied to me.

Originally by MattPenfold: (Post 1 on page 50)

Eddie,
You have admitted that Not TV altered my box. The law, in the form of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is
clear in this regard. Unless you can show Now TV were authorized to access my box and make
alterations NOW TV have committed a criminal offence under Section 35 of that act. It is possible that
Now TV could be considered to have committed an offence under Section 37 , if there was intend to
impair use of the computer . A Section 35 offence carries a maximum sentence of 2 years
imprisonment, and a Section 37 offence carries a maximum of 10 years. Both offences can also carry
an unlimited Ƭne.
So you can only claim that Now TV have not comitted an offence under either Section 35 or 37 if you
can show you had authorisation to access my Now TV box. If you cannot do so, you will be admitting
that NOW TV commited a criminal offence.

Originally by WuffleBonk: (Post 2 on page 50)

@Anonymous User from NowTV, I think there's an age old addidge here that relates to Digging holes and knowing
when to stop 😄

From what I can see, your just not doing ANYTHING to help here, except making up what looks like
semi plausible explanations and hoping that we'll all buy into it.

I have to tip my hat and give you points for trying though. As myself and my co-conspiritors have
recently discovered, we can actually use the official, authourized apps that ARE in the NowTV store,
and pre installed on the box, INCLUDING YOUR VERY OWN NOWTV APP , to play ANY CONTENT we
want, including pirated content should we so wish, I wonder what the recording industry and
music/movie producers that sent NowTV those cease and desist plex letters would do if they found out
about that fact???

I think you'd be forced to remove your own apps, and every official app from the box, IF what your
trying to spin to us all, is actually true....

[Anonymous User]

---

@Anonymous User wrote:

Hey Wufflebonk,

Can you now tell us how you crackedit? (Plex on NowTv box) ?

Thanks

---

Sure can, look back through this very forum, Iv'e done it by using & abusing the PlayTo app which is officially in the NowTV channel store.

Iv'e not had (And probably wont have) time to do any work on the app/hack I started to write until Xmas now.

Since the google group I started has kinda gone dead, I'm thinking of just releasing everything Iv'e done so far onto GitHUb and letting other folks take up the challace.

Before I do though, head this warning, IT's NOT a nice friendly pointy clicky and your done process, hopefully it will be one day, but right now in it's current state it's about as friendly as a cornered rat.

In the coming months i'll probably put it on my github account at  github.com/shawty

[Anonymous User]

IN THE LONGER TERM

There are still many of us working quietly in the shadows to build a suite of software that will allow us to run our own NowTV services, allowing us to have our own computers send the channels we want, to our boxes, without needing to have NowTv/Sky anywhere in the loop.

It is however a long job, and while we are confident that we will eventually be successfull, I feel that day is some way off yet.

[Anonymous User]

I've been reading through this thread and the main point of contention appears to be whether or not Sky has the legal right to update their software in such a way that it removed currently available features (e.g. development mode, and certain composite video features) and software added (hence owned by) the user (e.g. PLEX or other third party apps).

I may be missing something here, but isn't 'development mode' a legacy Roku feature not a Sky one?

So my question is what, on a Now Tv box, constitutes proprietary Sky software.

Is the whole operation system on this box written by and owned by Sky, or do they just own the 'Now TV' app?

If the former, does the 'Roku Powered' logo solely refer to the hardware? If this is the case I’ve found it a bit misleading, as it would seem to imply that, at least to some degree, it has Roku software in there.

[Anonymous User]

---

@Anonymous User wrote:

I've been reading through this thread and the main point of contention appears to be whether or not Sky has the legal right to update their software in such a way that it removed currently available features (e.g. development mode, and certain composite video features) and software added (hence owned by) the user (e.g. PLEX or other third party apps).

I may be missing something here, but isn't 'development mode' a legacy Roku feature not a Sky one?

So my question is what, on a Now Tv box, constitutes proprietary Sky software.

Is the whole operation system on this box written by and owned by Sky, or do they just own the 'Now TV' app?

If the former, does the 'Roku Powered' logo solely refer to the hardware? If this is the case I’ve found it a bit misleading, as it would seem to imply that, at least to some degree, it has Roku software in there.

---

Interesting point, and yes I would suspect there are further leagal entanglments there.

However, Sky have deep pockets, and Murdoch and his empire don't give a rat's ass about anything except screwing the little guy. (This is the man who has openly said in many interviews, that if he had control of the internet, no one would get anything for free, he fully believes that everyone should have to pay access costs for everything including free and open source software!) 

My guess is that yes, Roku do own the software, but since Sky own a large chunk of shares in the company, I would reckon that they would have a very persuasive hammer to wave in roku's direction, if they wanted something changing to suit thier manifesto.

[dr_necessitor]

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/16/roku-cracks-down-on-private-channels/

[Anonymous User]

---

@dr_necessitor wrote:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/16/roku-cracks-down-on-private-channels/

---

As I said.

Sky have deep pockets, and a large amount of shares in Roku.

Oh and SKY are also planning on doing away with Sattalite based subscriptions in the next few years, and instead concentrating soley on cable and set top box delivery, via a rental agreement.

Which basically means, ALL sky services will be delivered on a SkyQ or similar, which you will only rent from them and return if you cancel your subscription, and which you will be banned from modifying in any way.

[Anonymous User]

Just thought I'd add a note on here to tell every one that Sky/NowTV have been stealing from me (Just to add insult to injury)

Iv'e just been doing a reconciliation of my bank accounts, and have found that for the past 4 months sky have taken the £6.99 paymeny for this account from my debit card.

Now before anyone goes on the defensive and states "It auto renews if you don't cancel", I'm aware of that fact, which is why, the month after my pass ran out, and the whole argument about plex being removed started, I canceled the subscription.

On top of that, the debit card that I used to open the account and pay for the first month, was 1 week away from expiring when I used it.  Had things been different, I would have gone in the following month and registered (and continued to pay) on the new card which was awaiting activation at the time.

However things where not different, and due to the plex debarcle I decided that I did not want to proceed, so I cancelled the subscription, and didn't bother renewing my card details.

This shows and is obvious, beacuse if I go into my NowTV billing area right now, it won't let me go any further due to the fact that there is no valid card registered to the account.

So then Sky/NowTV - Answer me this?   If there is no valid card on my account, then how the hell are you still taking payments from my account?  You either have a valid card or you dont.  If you do, then let me in so I can manage it, and canel it etc, if I don't then stop stealing money from me, your committing theft and probably even fraud, which just goes to confirm what EVERYONE has said through out this entire thread.

Sky don't give a crap about thier customers, just as long as they keep coughing up the pennies.

[Anonymous User]

Seems like where destined to play the re-post game again too folks.

Just had to repost my last comment but one, as NTV saw fit to delete it.

Please don't delete negative comments, if your ashamed of them, then aspire to do better, and then there will be less.

If you remove it, I'll just keep adding it back, just like I did with all the previous ones in this thread....

[Anonymous User]

The Ts and Cs are pretty clear.  

Ownership of the player

On purchase the NOW TV Box becoes your property however the software in the NOW TV box does not as it is owned or licenced to Sky or anotyher member of the Sky Group.  Roku, Inc and Sky's other third party licensors retain all all righ title and interest, exclusively and without restriction or reservation in and to the software.

You must allow Sky or its licensir Roku INc. to update the software in the Now TV box by sening signals to your NOW TV Box.  You must not tamper with the software in the NOW TV Box or authorise anyone else to do so.

There is also an etensive  disclaimer of liability including:

any loss or damage cause by Sky....to the extent that such loss or damage results from any breach by you of the conditions of your purchase.

So in terms of the Ts & Cs Sky has the absolute right to remove developer mode and update any of the software supplied with the machine and is not responsible for the disappearance of any software a user may have added to the box. 

But we all knew that really, didn't we?   The boxes came with sports passes worth more than £15 so one can hardly grumble. 

[Anonymous User]

Replaced my NowTV boxes with Roku boxes, record stuff on my grundig, then stream it all over, I use Emby, and now no need to sideload it.

I know Sky might not be bothered about me switching to the Rokus as I'm still subscribing to NowTV movies and entertainment, but I now subscribe to NetFlix and seem to be watching this more than NowTV.

They've just had the latest series of Suits and I'm questioning in if NowTV is worth the money, Do I drop NowTV and then take up Amazon Prime to get top gear, music and the ability to download and watch anywhere?

I see Roku might be dropping the dev mode but this isn't an issue on a native box as I can load in Emby and more channels so maybe it's a blessing in disguise.