New Now app discussion thread

[Saint1976]

The new app on Roku has been live for about 24 hours so a chance for users to give some feedback, hints and tips or highlight things that aren't obvious.

Positives for me;

Navigating the app is much quicker and the remote seems more responsive.

The time bar/search is superior to previous efforts. Click right to skip 10 seconds or hold down to the right and the timer slides showing progress in minutes.

Subtitles on live TV including live sports broadcasts.

Subtitle text size can be changed in Roku system settings.

Auto play next episode now active although I'd like a way to switch it on or off.

Negatives

Some of the text is way too small.

Can't change live channels without exiting the current stream and returning to TV guide. A big no no from me!

TV guide on the top row of tabs should be next to Home making access quicker.

Still can't skip promos at the start of on demand content but for some strange reason there's the option to pause.

A question - on live sports broadcasts there is a greyed out "go live" icon. Does that mean we are going to get the option for in broadcast replays of key moments? Or is that purely for the pause live broadcast function? If it's the latter, it doesn't work. I tested by pausing for 2 minutes, pressed play and the "go live" is still greyed out.

[redchiz1]

@Saint1976 

If you pause and/or rewind the live action, say to replay a moment, then the Go Live option becomes active and simply takes you straight back to the live stream, pretty cool.  🙂

[Saint1976]

@redchiz1 must have been a glitch as tested that twice and it didn't work. 3rd time was a charm. 

[commanda6]

Hi @Saint1976 

 the go live function is for when you have been either been on a live/linear broadcast for a while and you either want to rewind or pause the broadcast. The go live function purges the buffer and take you back forward to what is being shown on the linear channel at that present point in time again

that's right, you can rewind linear channels, not just pause. Keep in mind though that you can't rewind from before you went to the channel and can only rewind to a certain point, 10 to 15 minutes. I believe

This functionality ( live pause/rewind) has actually been available on Roku for a long long time. In many previous versions of the app as well. Not just this one, but due to the recent update. It's now far more obvious that this functionality exists.

 and I just realised I ended up typing out a rather long-winded explanation of what @redchiz1 said above 😅

The TV Guide is available in the tab menu at the top screen. Overall, the UI rows have improved somewhat particularly in the what entertainment and cinema tabs . Now the view all button for a row that represents a content category is at the start of each row rather than at the end. This makes navigation far quicker.

What text is too small. Are you referring to the text used on the tab menu at the top of the screen?

[Saint1976]

Hi @commanda6 yep, always been aware of the pause/rewind on Roku but never really used it as it has some limitations. As I said above, the first couple of times I tested it nothing happened, it was still greyed out so must have been a glitch or I didn't pause for long enough. Given the prominence of the "go live" button I rather hoped it was like BT Sport's enhanced player where you can skip back to important moments in live sports broadcasts but that was wishful thinking.

As for the TV guide, I'd prefer the top tabs to be ordered - search - home - TV guide - movies - TV shows - sports - kids - hayu - settings. Given the countless options available to access on demand content by scrolling down the screen, it seems odd that to access TV guide is limited to going all the way to the top right hand tab after more options for on demand content.

The text on the TV guide is now 2 or 3 points smaller. Even with glasses on I'm having to squint or move closer to the TV to read the TV guide which wasn't a problem before the update.

[schnapps]

I don't understand why NOW have added the "Go live" button when actually watching a live stream and this useful "Go live" button should only be showing on the TV screen when you have actually paused something and playing back something not in real live time.

Also don't understand why there is a time progress bar when watching live, where it doesn't seem to do anything from what I can tell (Edit - it might be something to do with the live pause buffer, but is this necessary ?).

Where the time progress bar should only appear when using live pause either rewinding or forwarding together with the "Go to live" on screen button if you want to go back to the actual real time live TV feed.

I am so missing the pop up now and next channel banner with the option to see what is also available on the other channels or switching to another channel whilst watching from a live stream rather than jumping back to the TV Guide.

[petecc]

I posted another thread on this, but in my case it's (yet another) total failure by NOW because the Watchlist and Continue Watching lists are just not syncing with anything else. After the update it seemed like they'd just disappeared but I found out that I could add shows to the Watchlist and the Continue Watching was working, it's just that nothing I now do on the Roku (Express) is synced with the website or Android app.

Apart from that (major problem) it seems okay but still no support for Roku remote control app keyboard. Can't really see the point, I'd much, much rather go back to the old version that synced properly (most of the time).

Overall, a giant leap backwards....  🙄

[tothbros]

overall a good update. much faster navigation!

the minus, as the first post mentions, is the lack of ability to change live channels with up/down buttons while the live stream is on. now i have to backup into the tv guide. this is a big issue for me as well

[tothbros]

i would definitely stay  with this update, even with the above mentioned issue. for me, the whole app came alive, its so much faster

[schnapps]

Navigating around the NOW GUI has definitely got a lot faster.

Though moving around the top line with Home, Movies, Entertainment, Sports, Kids, Hayu, TV Guide and the Gear Wheel icon is still sluggish slow for me (not so fluid when pressing the remote).

It's a shame they couldn't include a full voice search under the search section when using a suitable remote that has a microphone on it, instead of speaking one letter at a time (though it does help for people who struggle to type) when inside the NOW system.

I would also liked to have seen a dustbin button on the on screen keyboard to delete my typing in the search box instead of keep click on the x remove letter at a time button.

Also I have finally figured that you can search for an Actor or Director where like my old NOW box I was expecting the filter results would bring up the names of these people (which it doesn't) but instead it attempts to bring up the content library on NOW associated with that person.

Still not sure if I like the new search engine inside the NOW App.

So far only really tested on a Roku Stick Plus using this latest NOW version.