Update Now TV app for apple TV

[Anonymous User]

Will the Now TV app for Apple TV ever get an update?

The current version is complete rubbish and makes me regret ever getting a Now TV pass.

Unless there is an update my Now TV experience will be very short indeed.

[Clem_Dye]

My NowTV box regularly locks-up, needing a power recycle to clear the problem. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to synchronise my account, so that stuff that I’m watching via my LG TV doesn’t show up on the box. It seems very picky on the HDMI settings too. It’s a flaky product, in my opinion, which could be why (in part) Sky stopped selling it.


Clem

[RoyB]

@nst 

I want a cheaper service, and I’ve got a dish (or at least a satellite link plumbed into the house which comes to the same thing, over which I can get Freesat, and could get Sky Q if I wanted it, which I don’t). And I also want flexibility, which Now offers, and Sky Q doesn’t.

But I would like Now in 4K, and would be prepared to pay extra for it. (We watched Dune last weekend, and were blown away by it, so much so that we sent off for the UHD disc, so we can watch it again without the limitations of HD (where the spice gets a bit lost) and with better audio too).

And we aren’t interested in a Sky Glass TV, as it is no match for our LG GX setup, thank you.

But all the above makes us a prime target for Sky Glass via the Puck, if Sky set the deal up right.

If. So we await further details of the Puck arrangements with interest. If Sky can tempt us across, then maybe this deal will be one that starts impacting Now. Depending on how many Now members are like us, looking for a little more,

But if Sky can’t tempt us over, then I’d judge that Now is safe for the near future, until the next threat comes along. Which isn’t going to be the Virgin box, even if that becomes available on other ISPs.

[RoyB]

@Clem_Dye 

You should not confuse devices made for Now by Roku, especially old ones, with the current Roku range of devices actually badged Roku.

You could practically heat a room with a NowTV Stick, whereas the parallel Roku device only ever got slightly warm. What was that about, then?

[dr_necessitor]

@RoyB I suspect it was the result of making a product using a severly cut down version of the hardware and/or operating system! All of the genuine Roku branded hardware that I’ve ever owned over the years has never had overheating problems. Maybe the odd other problem but not overheating.

[Clem_Dye]

My NowTV/Roku box is the puck type, with an Ethernet connection. Just why Roku only produces kit with only wi-fi connection seems pretty rubbish to me. Sure, it might keep costs down, but not everyone can get a good enough wi-fi signal for decent streaming. As always, it’s manufacturers giving us what they want to give us, rather than what we actually want, witness Sky/NowTV not bothering to fix the NowTV app. on ATV kit for 5.1 audio. Pathetic. Unfortunately, it’s a captive market. If you want access to ‘X’, then you have to take what’s available, which then confirms that the manufacturing decisions were correct. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

Another example of customers not getting what they actually might want is the support of DTS codecs on new TVs. It's Dolby or nothing. Why position your products as HDMI switching centres, only to not support a widely-used codec? I find it odd that the likes of LG and Panasonic still produce players that handle DTS, yet their TVs won’t pass it through. Only Sony seems to be supporting DTS at present. The argument that eARC is the way to go is probably correct in the longer term, but there’s an awful lot of kit out there that doesn’t support it. There’s plenty of other stuff on my list of annoyances, such as sound bars without any HDMI connections.

I can’t see Sky/Now fixing the audio issue on ATV kit, and, as others have commented, I think that the writing’s on the wall for the NowTV service. Like many people, I don’t want to subscribe to Sky. NowTV with the Boost pass is a reasonable way of getting access to the few shows that Sky carry that my wife & I want to see, without the umpteen commercial breaks that Sky inflict on paying customers. It’s that very reason why I stopped subscribing many years ago. I’m paying to watch programmes, not commercials. A case in point: one show that we watch on Now has an average episode length of 39 minutes; on Sky it’s an hour, that’s 21 minutes of ads. If Sky’s long term plan is to ‘force’ NowTV subscribers to use its new streaming service, where ads. can’t be avoided, I certainly won’t be bothering.

[dr_necessitor]

Agree with the comments by @RoyB really.

We had a dish at our previous house until we moved here nearly 4 years ago, but literally not permitted to have a dish at this house even if we wanted one!

Luckily we don’t want one, mainly because we were early adopters of streaming (and consequently abandoning recording stuff) & no longer need a myriad of devices and cables under/behind the telly.

We do still have an aerial (which has to be inside the loft but works fine - except when the transmitter burned down last summer of course).

I see the recent releases of Sky Glass and the Virgin box as realisation by the broadcasters that streaming is here to stay, dare I say even “it’s the future”.

And so I suppose folk like us are the natural initial target market. Until such time as ultrafast broadband is pervasive and as cheap as superfast is today, at which point more people might see the attraction of ditching the dish. Maybe some sort of cloud based PVR might also help persuade those who are reluctant to relinquish Sky Q to make the leap?

[nst]

@RoyB 

I am in the same position... I have a dish.. .I used to be a SkyQ customer.. but am no longer... just a NOW user.

I have to say... im assuming you already know this as you are contributing to the AppleTV thread... but in my opinion Sky Glass is simply a rip-off of the Apple TV "TV" app....

Thee TV app is fantastic.. ive said this before but it alone is the reason why I was able to forgo SkyQ and any type of recording facility which I had relied upon for the last 30 years+

Following a TV show, watching on streaming apps, and having the TV app aggregate content from everywhere (apart from Netflix - boo) and showing you when a new episode is ready to watch is great... really great....  and surprise surprise thats exactly what the Sky Glass experience is... just a copy of the TV app.

Where the TV app is superior to Sky Glass is that it is available and syncs across all your Apple devices so if you have an iPhone and iPad your 'record queue' for want of a better phrase is available everywhere... that is so much better than Sky Glass.

In days gone by.. or if Apple didnt have the TV app then I would be the same.... ignoring the Sky Glass service with TV as I already have a very nice one thanks.... but very interested in the stand alone puck coming this summer (or even the surprise Virgin Media stream service that just launched this week).

The trouble is.. and the reason we are all here watching NOW, is that the SkyGlass service and Virgin Stream is still far more expensive than NOW - although granted in better quality reaching 4K of course where NOW will never be.

[36deedee]

Does anything you watch on now tv on apple appear in apples up next rail??

[Enapace]

@RoyB 

I am in a similar situation to you I would already be on Sky Glass if it was standalone already I expect as it's the service i've been wanting for years. I live in a odd situation where I can get fibre internet but not Virgin or a Satellite dish so never been able have a fully PayTV experience. I await for the price of the puck eagerly if it's less then a £100 and still a 1 month contract like Sky Glass is with the TV i will be ordering one as soon as i can. 

[nst]

@36deedee 

yes, all of NOW's content does - has integrated with the TV app for a while now.

[RoyB]

@Clem_Dye 

Oddly, the LG GX soundbar with our LG GX TV does support DTS, right up to DTS-X, even though the TV doesn’t.

And it also claims to support Dolby Atmos, though Rtings claim it downmixes it to stereo, which would be very odd. And is not borne out by my listening to it critically, though it is certainly true that this soundbar has no upward firing speakers,

eARC certainly isn’t the way to go here, either; if I play Tenet from my Panasonic UHD player, audio and video both into an HDMI input on the TV, it entirely declines to push the DTS audio track to the eARC output; it looks like even bitstream audio passthrough needs DTS support on the TV for this to happen.

I have things set up so that video goes to the TV and audio straight to the DTS-supporting soundbar though, so the above doesn’t affect me day to day, but I thought I would try it for the purposes of this thread; no go.

[nst]

@Enapace 

I assume you are an appleTV owner as you are in this thread ...

Have you tried the TV app?  It really is the sky glass experience with the added benefit that its free.

[Enapace]

@nst 

Yes i do use the TV app but i would like be able to easily watch more TV channels then i currently can have full tv guide access and be able to watch Sky Sports in 4K plus additional channels that we simply don't get on Freeview or Now.

I agree the Apple TV is very good and i will certainly use it might be moved to my second TV and used for Sky Go will look at pricing for Sky Go access when i get a Sky Glass standalone puck later this year.

[nst]

Thats interesting.

I do hope that they keep the pricing reasonable, and also that you can purchase as many pucks as you like for as many TVs as you like and the watchlist synchronises across those devices - without charing more for each connected puck.

I appreciate that using Apple TV TV app you are of course missing a TV guide etc but ive rarely watched live TV over the last 10 years or so and therefore the broadcast schedules are of little interest to me.  I do of course keep an eye on new series that are starting so I can add them to my AppleTV watchlist and then hopefully forever more I am notified when new episodes are available although this isn't really foolproof its a lot better than nothing.

I would be interested in Glass.. or the puck version at least - but to me its costing too much still....

£26 a month minimum - thats for basically the NOW £9.99 entertainment package (more or less) but including SD Netflix which lets face it you'd not want in SD surely.  Add movies and its £11 a month.

Sure, NOW's Entertainment, Movies, and Boost comes to £25 a month but the equivalent Glass sub for the same in HD (4K even) is £37.

Add to that the ability to stop cinema, entertainment, boost month on month and NOW is still the cheaper but lower quality option of course.

Then of course you have the new Virgin Media Stream....

one off purchase of the box.. (£35) then :

£12 per month Entertainment HD (Sky). £15 Cinema HD

So actually thats much cheaper than Sky Glass - £27 a month for entertainment and movies in HD.  Still just ahead of NOW but equally as cancellable month on month.

Things are really interesting lately...  I do wonder now the future that NOW has... yes its aimed at a slight different audience but the lines are significantly blurring now between services.

[Hooba]

So the SkyGo app is now available on TestFlight. And it appears that SkyGo an AppleTV is 720p maximum. Incredible. 

Maybe they think users will just be grateful its in colour rather than black and white.

[Popeye13]

To be fair, SkyGo on the XBOX & PlayStation has only ever been 720p, along with the desktop version too. They were hardly going to go full HD just for Apple TV because the outcry from XBOX and PlayStation users would be loud

[Enapace]

@Popeye13 

But Sky would have a legit answer to that part of the deal with Apple if they had done 1080p for Sky Go on Apple TV.

Not entirely surprised it’s 720p to be honest as it might of been to competitive to a Puck on Sky Glass else. How Sky think these days. 

But the final nail was put in Sky’s Coffin today of being the dominant force in U.K. PayTV. With the BT Sports/Warner Discovery deal finalised soon as the HBO deal expires with Sky they will be in a pickle and come the next premier league tv rights.  

[gavs82008]

@Enapace 

Re the BT Sports/Warner Brothers Discovery deal, I wonder if we will get some updated information on that today?

https://www.bt.com/about/investors/financial-reporting-and-news

https://www.bt.com/about/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/results-events-and-financial-calenda...

[Enapace]

@gavs82008 

We have it’s finalised just waiting on regulatory approval to finalise it now 

https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-and-warner-bros-discovery-agree-to-form-new-premium-sports-joint-ve...

[gavs82008]

@Enapace 

This is going to be a game changer and very interested to see how pricing works out. 

Already subscribe to Discovery+ without the sports, but would seriously consider getting the sports side if it's priced reasonably.

[Enapace]

@gavs82008 

I’m in a bit of an odd position as I have Discovery including Sports Till August but I already pay for BT Sports via EE so waiting see what happens on pricing as I would like to cancel one of them. 

But this has settled decision for me when I move in July/August I’m going for BT TV instead of Sky Glass. Just not going have 4K Sky Sports but will be able record and I imagine BT TV will be getting the live discovery channels back on the EPG as well can’t imagine that would be hard to add in.