Anybody have Tivo and a Lightbox subscription from Spark(Telecom)?

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Anybody have Tivo and a Lightbox subscription from Spark(Telecom)?

need2noy

43 posts

Geek

#171741 29-Apr-2015 16:47

I am a Spark customer and have 5 tivos along with the home networking software. I get unmetered broadband as it is always 0mg usage on My Spark Account. If I decide to take up Spark's offer for a free 12 month subscription for Lightbox will that be the end of getting unmetered broadband or will it have no affect and it will stay as unmetered regardless if I have Lightbox. I want my broadband to stay as it is "unmetered" since I am also a Tivo client of theirs. Surely any add ons like Lightbox should not affect this status. I would like to know if anybody has Tivo and Lightbox and is a Spark client and has it changed their broadband status from unmetered to metered. Thanks.

BigPipeNZ

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#1293737 29-Apr-2015 16:49

Tivo is totally unrelated to Lightbox.

The TiVo unmetering will end at some point, but nobody can say for certain.

It won't have anything to do with Lightbox though.

Also... 5 TiVos? Holy moly!

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Spong

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#1293744 29-Apr-2015 16:56

We have 3x Tivos and the free Lightbox subscription through Spark, although I don't think I've ever watched more than 5x minutes of Lightbox since we got it.

Our Spark VDSL remains unmetered.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

HotDogBreath

90 posts

Master Geek

#1293755 29-Apr-2015 17:15

Only having 2 TiVo's I'm feeling a little inadequate here now! lol
But as above, Lightbox is a completely separate beast from TiVo and it's broadband usage.
The rumour mill had hinted at the fact that the unmetered usage should have ended at the beginning of the year but here we still are.
Throwing my 2 cents into the mix, I assume that the leg work required to sort out the data usage is no longer a high priority and we just might enjoy this free data ride for some time to come.
Personally, Lightbox is worth the effort as they have a handful of very new releases and only trail the US by a very short time frame. I find what TV time I do have (not that much these days) is spread between Lightbox (Samsung TV app) & Hulu via the Apple TV. Netflix hardly gets touched now.
In a nutshell, get Lightbox and enjoy!

GregV

928 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1293786 29-Apr-2015 17:51

Spark UFB user here with Lightbox. No metering taking place (excpet for the last two days, but that was a fault, and is now corrected)

Stu

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#1293839 29-Apr-2015 20:11

To stay on topic - Absolutely no trouble adding Lightbox, metering will not be affected.

On another note; 5 TiVo? Only 4 here. Must try to find another!

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need2noy

43 posts

Geek

#1293963 30-Apr-2015 00:46

Thanks guys for your replies. I have decided to go ahead with getting Lightbox only to find Spark has a "Technical Fault" and I can't go any further after entering my voucher code and email address as when I press NEXT it just keeps coming up with a message saying Technical Fault and they are trying to fix and try again. Well I have been trying quite a few time to no avail and now it is past midnight and after the cut of date as the offer expires before the 30th April 2015. I sometimes wonder if they do this deliberately but I will contact them tomorrow to see if they can extend that offer for one more day since they had a "Technical Fault" that stopped people taking up the offer before the deadline had even finished.

Gosh it sure sounds like I have a lot of tivos, it's only because I have the home networking software which makes it all worthwhile to have a few tivos as it lets you transfer from tivos to tivos from any rooms where the tivos are located or to your PC or vice versa. It's a fantastic feature to have, without it the tivo would just be a recording device and nothing more. I don't know what I will do when my tivos eventually pack up as I don't think there is anything else on the market that has a similar feature for multi-room viewing like tivo has. Cheers.

need2noy

43 posts

Geek

#1293966 30-Apr-2015 01:48

Finally was able to sign up to Lightbox. Only thing is I don't have a Samsung smart tv and from what I can gather that is the only brand of smart tv that it will stream to just as it does with TV on demand. I don't know how Samsung was able to get such a deal with all the TV stations and now with Spark Lightbox. It's not fair as my tv is a LG smart tv and my understanding is it will not stream to it. I don't have a laptop only a desktop PC in another room. Anybody got any ideas how I can get round this problem. The whole idea of having Lightbox is to watch it on my large screen LG smart tv. Maybe I could transfer it from my computer to a flash stick and use the built in media player on the tv to play it back. Or I might have to connect the PC to the tv via cabling which would be a big pain to do. I just read an article online that Spark Lightbox wants to branch out to other brands of tvs, but who knows when that will happen. It just really annoys me that samsung has had a monoply in regards to this which is not fair to other consumers of other brands of smart tvs. I only bought LG when my Toshiba LCD packed up after only owning it for four years. I asked the repair technician who was totally independent and repairs all brands of TVs for his expert opinion on what brand of TV is the best and his reply was LG. It is a great TV but unfortunately Samsung has the monoply with it's apps when it comes to TV on demand and Lightbox. Grrr.