All4 not working on Now TV box

mjm3346

J_B said:

Or perhaps get a Firestick that you can load all the apps on - cheaper than a new TV!

Currently £50 but often on offer for less

That's the second most expensive one £29.99 gets the firestick lite which has been as low as £14.99 and is often down to £19.99 and all of them have access to 100's and 100's of apps - inc multiple catch up services and various other free and pay for streaming services 

bigpat

Yeah, a firestick is definitely a thought. But my telly's not great anyway, as it has an annoying "buzz" sometimes and it might be time to upgrade. When I say "new", I mean "new to me". There's quite a few on eBay and Facebook. I just need to do a bit of research so I don't end up with the smart TV equivalent of betamax!

mjm3346

bigpat said:

Yeah, a firestick is definitely a thought. But my telly's not great anyway, as it has an annoying "buzz" sometimes and it might be time to upgrade. When I say "new", I mean "new to me". There's quite a few on eBay and Facebook. I just need to do a bit of research so I don't end up with the smart TV equivalent of betamax!

I had a firestick before getting a larger and Smart TV - I nearly always still use the firestick (and have 1 for my non-smart tv) as that offers more than the prime video app and I can just flick between what is on there and the standard channels also there is the potential to download apps on the firestick. Friend has a Fire tv which effectively has more of the firestick built in so it can run all the apps a firestick can - It is possible to download some apps that I don't mind taking a risk with on a cheap firestick but wouldn't want to risk a TV set on. Also where a smart TV can run various apps which might included the prime app it is up to whoever makes the tv to continue to release updates for the apps it supports, there have been threads on here about apps no longer working where the tv no longer supports updates for them (I think with firestick Amazon say they will provide support for at least 4 years from the date a model was last available from them, other brands may well do the same)

shiraz99

If you don't want to buy into the whole Amazon Prime experience, then as an alternative to a Firestick I'd recommend a Roku stick instead. In fact, as an Amazon Prime subscriber myself I actually prefer to use the Roku stick over my Firestick as I find the latest Firestick's interface to be a bit rubbish, in fact using Roku's Amazon Prime's app is actually better than Amazon's own.

mjm3346

shiraz99 said:

If you don't want to buy into the whole Amazon Prime experience, then as an alternative to a Firestick I'd recommend a Roku stick instead. In fact, as an Amazon Prime subscriber myself I actually prefer to use the Roku stick over my Firestick as I find the latest Firestick's interface to be a bit rubbish, in fact using Roku's Amazon Prime's app is actually better than Amazon's own.

You don't need Prime to use a firestick and while I find the amazon app is easier to navigate around that maybe because there are less options on the app than the firestick  - I use some apps I pay direct for that can be downloaded to firestick but not the app

bigpat

This is a useful discussion even though it's wandered off my original question and now you're making me rethink things. I kind of assumed that a smart TV basically had some kind of "stick" technology built in and that you would be able to add new apps to it, e.g. if you found a new streaming service. Do they not work like that? Or some do and some don't?

Does using the right stick, more or less make your "dumb" TV into a smart one?

Neil_Jones

bigpat said:

Does using the right stick, more or less make your "dumb" TV into a smart one?

Yes.

With the added benefit that you will get app upgrades (to Prime, Netflix, YouTube, etc) that you won't always get on a Smart TV.  Most apps on a smart TV eventually stop being supported and stop working as the service evolves, and the user base drops, making it less cost effective to upgrade them, if they get any upgrades at all.

With the Fire Stick having a much wider user base (and Amazon practically giving them away some times) your Smart support will last much longer - assuming the stick doesn't pack up in the process

debitcardmayhem

No they don't work that way, I read that some TVs will lose the ability to run ITV hub, because ITV are no longer support certain TVs...I will see if I can dig it out.

Sticks(or boxes) tend to be more flexible but nothing is ever future proof. My freestat box used to support iPlayer and ITV, the they gradually stopped working for that, not a problem for me since the box still works for satellite and records and it allows it to run as DLNA server so I can stream HD recordings from it and watch anywhere. Not bad for a 11/12 year old box 

Edit: of course "smart tvs" are only smart until the providers change their way of working, which happens quite frequently.

debitcardmayhem

Here is a link for itv hub https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/itv-hub-stop-working-some-freeview-devices/

bigpat

Good stuff, thanks everyone. I think I'll still get a new(ish) TV but get a non-smart one and get a stick. Firstly, the TV will be cheaper and there are a lot more good used ones out there. Secondly, it sounds more likely that a Firestick or Roku stick will get upgrades and even if that stops at some point, it should be cheaper to replace the stick than replace the TV.