Freeview Play vs TV EPG for 85 year old.

Korkyb

Hi all

I'm just awaiting delivery of a TLC 43C645K which is for my elderly monster in law.

She isn't great with Tech and currently has a basic SKY Q package which I don't feel she needs (any channels she uses are on Freeview) so she is basically paying Sky just to use the recording facility which she sometimes struggles with.

The plan was / is for her to ditch Sky (she is out of contract) and use the TV's Freeview EPG along with catch up apps (the use of which I was not relishing teaching her).

I've since noticed that the TV has Freeview Play which I have never used before.


My aim is to keep things as simple as possible for her.


My question is:

Would it be feasible for her to only use "Freeview Play" and never use the TV's own EPG.


If I understand correctly Freeview Play has a 14 day EPG so as well as looking forward 7 days she would also be able to play programmes from the last 7 days directly from the EPG.

If this is the case then this would make life much simpler as she wouldn't have to try to navigate the individual "app" (iPlayer etc) to find the programmes she watches and she wouldn't have to worry about recording programmes (I'm not sure if the TV in question has a recording function??)

If she can just use the Freeview Play EPG and not go near the TV's own EPG then this would be one less layer of potential confusion.

She does have decent WiFi.

Thanks for any advice!

ecraig

Freeview play is a separate “app” to the EPG. The remote will likely have app buttons on it - 1 for FVP and the other for the Guide.

Just as my personal opinion here although you didn’t ask for it. MIL has obviously learnt how to use Q, coming from some sort of other Sky product or from Freeview. What makes you feel she will be confused when moving to a new service? Has her state of mind deteriorated since she migrated and learnt how to use Q?

You can’t keep Q without paying Sky some money - Sky Essentials for £5 a month typically is availabile but you need to call Sky to discuss this. One can continue to loan the box and have access to the basic free to view channels and bbc/itv catch up services.

Korkyb

Thanks

My FIL was handier with the remote than my MIL is but he unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago - previously he could have sorted any issues.

I spoke with Sky a few days ago and best they said they could do was Essentials at £15 which is a lot just for her to use the recording facility. If they offered it for a fiver then she would keep it - I might have another pop at them today.

The remote does appear to have a dedicated FVP so accessing FVP should be easy.

My question is really would FVP provide everything she needs without having to stray elsewhere into the telly's functionality?

elsien

Obviously, it’s person specific but 85-year-old parent manages perfectly well with a Chromecast and streaming the apps to the TV.
I do get the odd phone call when she’s forgotten how to find the TV channel that Chromecast streams on, but other than that it’s not much  different to following a TV guide. 

So I’m not seeing much difficulty in someone learning to use a slightly different new system if they’ve already got their head round an existing one?