Easiest way to use TV & Catchup

[ericmark]

link to flipper

Not the easiest to program to start with, but once programmed easy for the user, you are able to set it to turn on/off both TV and set bottom box together, but found unless finger held steady on button could end up turning one on and other off, so had it set to only turn TV on/off.

 

[Lucid]

Mother is 90+ and not good if she has to use two remotes, or similar.

Current TV isn't smart.. She has a BT Freeview box (I think it is) but she finds it almost mindblowing to have to sleect the HDMI channel from the TV, to watch it.

I saw the thread at https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/catchup-tv.548086/ which was useful, but not watching TV much myself I'm way out of date.

If she buys a smart tv & gets it connected to her BT broadband, it looks like she'll still need something like YouView (£10/month - fine). That allows recording too, which I assume TVs don't. Is that right?
If she wants to watch some rerun of last century Corrie or Vera or whatever, would it be simple to access?


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Just looking at TVs. They're much cheaper than I thought at say <£3-400 for 40"ish.

But I don't know what it means by "with" -
WITH
Smart Android TV /with Freeview Play/ Prime Video/Netflix/YouTube/Google Chromecast etc etc etc.
Do any of those mean you don't have to pay to get stuff which you wouldn't get on another TV?

The smart TV will give her access to some stuff but it's not a one-stop solution.

The plus points are that with Freeview Play the TV guide goes back in time as well as showing now and upcoming programming. This allows selection of programmes from up to a week previous. The catch is that it's not a full day-to-day listing. There are only certain programmes listed. In effect, it's a cut-down version of catch-up TV featuring each channels top pick of the day. Just one programme then.

The smart TV does include a more comprehensive catch-up service from the main channels, but again it's a curated selection rather than the entire day's/week's output.


Recording direct from the TV is, IMO, a somewhat limited and frustrating affair. The biggest issue is that the average TV with USB recording only features a single tuner. This means you either have to watch the thing being recorded via the TV's tuner, or switch to a different input (say the BT Freeview box) in order to continue watching live TV.

Honestly, what's the point in that? You might as well have an external recorder which will usually have at least two tuners so you can watch one channel live whilst recording another, or record two channels at the same time (good for coping with programming overlaps) and use the TV itself for watching live broadcast.


There is a solution to all this. There are programmable remotes that can be set up to integrate TV and external recorder and provide a hand-holding guided user interface that means your mum will never get lost with which button to press. In addition, being touchscreen means that icons and buttons can be larger and backlight to help with vision impairment.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Recording direct from the TV is, IMO, a somewhat limited and frustrating affair. The biggest issue is that the average TV with USB recording only features a single tuner. This means you either have to watch the thing being recorded via the TV's tuner, or switch to a different input (say the BT Freeview box) in order to continue watching live TV.

That is something again I have not tried, on my LG.