Youview boxes

iammumtoone

I am after some advise on youview boxes. I have googled but can't find the answer.

I have a HD tv so would like to watch on demand in HD. Do I need a special box for this or do they all receive on demand in HD

I would like to get a talktalk one as these are available cheap on ebay but not sure if it will get the on demand in HD (especially as I will be buying an older version)

Has anyone any experience of these? What would I get that is better if I purchased the Humax version rather than the cheaper talk talk one?

I would only be using it to watch on demand tv as I already have a HD freeview tv and a hard drive recorder (which is also my DVD player so will still need this)

Thanks

sirmosh

From what I've seen only BBC iPlayer is in HD although I think all YouView boxes will do HD on demand. ITV has awful picture quality and Channel 4 and 5 aren't much better but definitely not as bad.

I also believe that the iPlayer HD content is still a long way off broadcast quality whereas the BBC catchup stuff on Sky for example looks pretty much as good as when shown live to me at least.

As for the on demand stuff such as films I'm not sure how good the HD content looks as I've never seen anything on there myself.

almillar

And of course the quality of the on demand picture will depend on the speed of your net connection - I'd want 8Mbps+ to get the best out of it.

iammumtoone

almillar wrote: »

And of course the quality of the on demand picture will depend on the speed of your net connection - I'd want 8Mbps+ to get the best out of it.

Just tested it and its only 6 Is there anything I can do about it, is it the down to the broadband provider or where I live? Sorry that's probably a dumb question but I don't know the answer.

VisionMan

iammumtoone wrote: »

Just tested it and its only 6 Is there anything I can do about it, is it the down to the broadband provider or where I live? Sorry that's probably a dumb question but I don't know the answer.

6Mbps will work just fine for TalkTalks YouView streaming services.

sirmosh

iammumtoone wrote: »

Just tested it and its only 6 Is there anything I can do about it, is it the down to the broadband provider or where I live? Sorry that's probably a dumb question but I don't know the answer.

It's most likely to be your distance from the exchange and possibly the quality of your line. Unless you can get fibre optic in your area there's no much you can do about it. 6Mbps should do, most advertise 3-5 as the minimum. Obviously the faster the better though.

almillar

iammumtoone - samknows.com is an excellent website that can tell you what providers are available in your area. If you've got an old modem you might get an improvement on your ADSL service (all providers will be roughly the same speed though), or as above, you might be able to get fibre optic (Infinity) which will be far faster.
See how you go with 6Mbps first though, 2Mbps is often quoted as a minimum and you're 3x that!