How do you use the NOWTV smart box controller

[Anonymous User]

Hey apologies for being a bit thick but have bought one of the NOWTV smart boxes BUT no instructions on how to use control ie how do I pause or rewind etc... ANY ASSISTANCE much APPRECIATED.  Thanks.

[Andy]

@Anonymous User

Welcome to the forum.

The following help guide will help you set up your box

https://help.nowtv.com/article/set-up-your-now-tv-box

And this image might help with the remote control

Feel free to post back if you need any more help. 

[Anonymous User]

Thanks so much very helpful.  Another few questions if  you don't mind, am I right in thinking there is no way to actually switch the box to 'off'/standby and also the box felt very warm after only being plugged in for a few hours is this normal?  AND FINALLY... sorry about this, I had a box package with a 3 month entertainment pass so had to set up and they wanted my bank details.  Do I need to pay for any just normal freeview chanels in the future ie how can I make sure they do not take a payment from me as I won't have the SKY afterwards I don't think.  I very much appreciate your wisdom and assistance.

[Andy]

@Anonymous User

When you turn the TV off or change input to something else eg a DVD player the NOW TV box will drop into a low power Eco mode, which is like a standby mode. There's no actual off switch as such.

The box will feel warm to the touch but this is nothing to worry about as there is a fan inside to keep the internal components cool, just make sure you don't stack things on top of the box or put it in an enclosed cabinet or such.

If you decide to cancel your 3 month pass so it doesn't continue after the 3 months that's fine, you'll still be able to watch Freeview and use all the other apps on the box, the only thing that will stop working is the NOW TV app.

[Andy]

@Anonymous User To make sure they don't take any more payments, just cancel your pass now by going to your My Account > My Passes page

https://account.nowtv.com/passes

and clicking the cancel button next to your entertainment pass, then follow all the steps until it's confirmed as cancelled. Don't worry you'll still get your full 3 months, but it stops it renewing at the end and you being charged.

I would also recommend enabling your Payment PIN in your account, this will prevent accidental or unauthorised payments in the future. To turn your Payment PIN on, go to your My Account > Payment PIN page

http://account.nowtv.com/payment-pin

[Anonymous User]

Thanks so much you have been more than helpful I cannot thank you enough.

[Anonymous User]

Hi,

I come to this subject when searching forum how to use remote controller. It seems be very intuative however there are some issues which I need help with.

1. Is there any way to see more on Free View channels - then NOW  / NEXT? On my old vendor I was able to scroll screen to next hours (for example I was able check what will be playing at 21:00 - at any time. I had to press >> Arrow and this was working). Is something like that in Now TV as well?

2. Comming back to last selected channel on FreeView. I must admit that this is a bit annoying to scroll over and over down to channel which I am interested with. For example: I choosen FreeView and scrolled down a few pages - when I am selecting channel, it started playing on full screen (as expected) - then when I press Back on remote control - is going back to FreeView on the top - and this is not nice scolling down again and again.
Is there any way of going back to the position which I selected? if Not - can this be added because user experience is not as nice as expected with this.

3. Is there any manual for remote control - what is possible - what is not? For example I didn't know that I can pause FreeView channel - that was not clear. Any kind of online manual with tricks would be strongly recommended.

Best regards.

[Andy]

@Anonymous User

Welcome to the forum. 

No unfortunately there's no 7day EPG like most Freeview boxes/TVs display. This has been asked for a lot so it may appear in a future update. You can use the FF and REW buttons on the remote to jump a screen at a time when scrolling through the channels, which makes things a little faster, but there's no option to sort, reorder or delete channels to make this easier.

NOW TV don't provide any manuals other than what is provided in the box, it's intended to be reasonably intuitive to use. Might be worth looking at a few YouTube reviews of the box to see what other features are available. @schnapps is an everyday user of the box and will no doubt provide you with further hints and tips.

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User

Can't really add more than what @Andy has posted here.

Like everybody else who owns a smart box it does need a 7 day EPG, the option to remove unwanted channels and a favourites feature, and some owners have requested channels numbers on the remote controller (which I can't see how that would work on a standard style Roku remote controler, unless nowtv offered users an optional extra remote with numerical input buttons).

The smart box IMO was never designed to replace a full blown Freeview Hard Drive PVR and is more suitable when used for older non smart TV's without HD Freeview.

Saying that I use my smart box on a Panasonic 4K smart TV, where I personally find the HD Freeview picture from the smart box is a little sharper and gives a more cleaner image than my TV's inbuilt HD Freeview tuner or my BT UHD YouView box.

I only tend to watch the HD Freeview channels and never watch anything on the SD Freeview channels, so the way i use my smart box is to open the last live HD channel on the NowTV homepage screen then move up and down the HD channels to select something I want to watch (because i don't watch SD i never use the TV guide, scrolling down the channels list is too much faffing around even with the FF and RW button page skips).

[Anonymous User]

HI,

Thank you for reply and clear details. This helped a bit. I checked forum and see that people are requesting to have 7 weeks program. And I have hope that Now TV team will take in account and start working on this.

I also understand that some solutions were not designed to be replacemnet for normal Free View decoders, however some wee issues like not comming back to last selected channel on TV Guide is quite annoying. Hope that this will improve over time.

Also thank you for details and help.