Question for owners of Smart TVs and Apple TV

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Awrrr
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#2006598 2-May-2018 15:28

I have a Sony Bravia I bought a few years ago. It was 'smart' but before the switch to Android. Since I had everything I needed with various STBs and a streaming pc, it took a couple years before I remembered the smart functions and became curious about them. So I set up the Internet connection and checked it out. What a dog's breakfast! I mean really, what a load of crap. How anyone at Sony could think this rubbish would be a selling point I will never understand. After making sure I wasn't missing anything I disconnected it again and went back to using it as a dumb monitor.

Today's smart TVs are undoubtedly much better but I still wouldn't waste my time on them. Dedicated external boxes are the only way to go. When I upgrade the Sony (which has an excellent picture, by the way) I will only look for screen size. The rest is just marketing noise. In the meantime, an Android TV box with Kodi, Chromecast, and increasingly infrequently, my streaming pc, do everything I would ever want.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

CYaBro

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#2006606 2-May-2018 15:55

We're in the same boat at home.

We have a Samsung 55" "Smart TV" that's about 4 years old.

We've never used the Smart functions on it as we've got an Apple TV4.

I had a look at the Smart functions earlier this year and while most of the apps worked, they were soooo slow, and no updates in sight.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

littleheaven

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#2006624 2-May-2018 16:40

ATV4 is awesome the way it lets apps from different regions co-exist on the home screen without having to log in and out of different iTunes accounts. It's gotten to the point where my old HTPC is never switched on because there's now an app for every service I watch. The last piece of the puzzle was TVNZ OnDemand, which means I barely even watch normal broadcast TV anymore.

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tdgeek

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#2006718 2-May-2018 19:24

littleheaven:

ATV4 is awesome the way it lets apps from different regions co-exist on the home screen without having to log in and out of different iTunes accounts. It's gotten to the point where my old HTPC is never switched on because there's now an app for every service I watch. The last piece of the puzzle was TVNZ OnDemand, which means I barely even watch normal broadcast TV anymore.

And while there will be Apple "dislikers" :-) the bottom line is that its a standard, where its easy for this parties to add their app, and that IMHO adds to the lifecycle. If you dont like Apple, who cares, look at it like a black box that does the job year in and year out.

DaveB

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#2006779 2-May-2018 21:20

4 X Samsung TV's here that use the smart apps for Plex, Netflix (US), Amazon Prime (UK) BBC iPlayer (UK), ITV (UK), Channel 4 (UK) and Smart IPTV for most live UK, US and Canadian entertainment, news and sports channels 24 hours a day. Sky UK in high def is superb. CNN US is scary and BT Sport is exciting. And Chromecast also works well.

And all off one easy to use (included) remote TV.

The oldest TV is 5 years old now and all works well. The wife loves it, my son is all over it and my wallet loved it. Do some homework before you choose.

DaveB

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#2006783 2-May-2018 21:45

CYaBro:

We're in the same boat at home.

We have a Samsung 55" "Smart TV" that's about 4 years old.

We've never used the Smart functions on it as we've got an Apple TV4.

I had a look at the Smart functions earlier this year and while most of the apps worked, they were soooo slow, and no updates in sight.

I've seen comments like this posted about Samsung TV's before. And I cannot help but think why I do NOT have those problems. I acknowledge but don't know, why so many people report these problems. But they do.

My friends are amazed at what I can do and watch on mine without changing the major settings. It is all pretty much immediate - within a second or two. UK and US apps, internet TV - Samsung TVs are so easy to set up and tame.

The only thing that is slow for me is Lightbox .......... but who watches that?

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Apsattv

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#2006829 3-May-2018 03:24

Just noticed on my older samsung ES8000 first they took the skype away, then youtube, now I note the TV3 on demand has also been autodeleted.

DaveB

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#2006932 3-May-2018 09:49

Apsattv:

Just noticed on my older samsung ES8000 first they took the skype away, then youtube, now I note the TV3 on demand has also been autodeleted.

I stand corrected. It was the TV3 app that was slow on our Samsung, but we changed the regional smart settings to UK and lost it anyhow. I think also the TVNZ app was troublesome. My son will be annoyed if he loses the youtube app.

RickD

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#2006974 3-May-2018 10:43

littleheaven:
ATV4 is awesome the way it lets apps from different regions co-exist on the home screen without having to log in and out of different iTunes accounts. It's gotten to the point where my old HTPC is never switched on because there's now an app for every service I watch. The last piece of the puzzle was TVNZ OnDemand, which means I barely even watch normal broadcast TV anymore.

How does this work? My main iTunes account is NZ region. Do I need to create another account and sign-in with that to download apps only in the UK store?

On ATV do apps from other regions auto update? I remember when I had loaded apps on my iPhone that were not available in the region my App Store account was set to they wouldn’t update.

littleheaven

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#2006984 3-May-2018 10:52

Yes, you need accounts for the other countries' iTunes stores, and then you can log in with each account to download the apps you require. Once you've downloaded them, you can be logged in with any account and all the apps will stay on the home screen, regardless of which account you used to obtain them. As far as I can tell, everything automatically updates. ATV actually makes it very easy to use multiple accounts, as it seems to remember them for a good period of time and you can just toggle from one to the other as needed. Handy if you have several family members all using the one ATV, too. The kids can pay to download a game using their own iTunes account, if you don't want to buy it for them.

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Goosey

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#2006987 3-May-2018 10:57

We have a 2 year old sony.

It has a dedicated button for netflix and a dedicated button for google play.

If we want youtube, we hit the button and speak to the remote and say "peppa pig episodes youtube"....boom.

The sony has inbuilt freeview on demand, which recently now works better after an android update, so we change the input to "freeview", then hit a button and the on demand menus for TVNZ and Mediaworks and I think Maori TV appear.

Easy.

We can also stream from a NAS, but I have no need for this.

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jat80

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#2007172 3-May-2018 14:57

RickD:
littleheaven:

ATV4 is awesome the way it lets apps from different regions co-exist on the home screen without having to log in and out of different iTunes accounts. It's gotten to the point where my old HTPC is never switched on because there's now an app for every service I watch. The last piece of the puzzle was TVNZ OnDemand, which means I barely even watch normal broadcast TV anymore.

How does this work? My main iTunes account is NZ region. Do I need to create another account and sign-in with that to download apps only in the UK store?

On ATV do apps from other regions auto update? I remember when I had loaded apps on my iPhone that were not available in the region my App Store account was set to they wouldn’t update.

Yes you need to create apple id's for the countries you want the apps from so you can download them. You need to switch the Apple ID to UPDATE the apps currently but you can still use any of them without having to switch id''s once you have downloaded them.

Handsomedan

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#2007173 3-May-2018 15:02

Goosey:

We have a 2 year old sony.

It has a dedicated button for netflix and a dedicated button for google play.

If we want youtube, we hit the button and speak to the remote and say "peppa pig episodes youtube"....boom.

I just gave up on Peppa Pig...it just seems to be getting more generic with every season. Less really gritty subject matter - more Daddy Pig making a fool of himself stereotyping.

hmm...Smart TV's are simply not as much fun as they used to be.

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waikariboy

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#2007202 3-May-2018 15:42

Have smart tv and Apple TV4k, was using Smart TV apps but deleted them all and turned of network as i dont like the data they collect on you. Apple TV4k is great for me, i can stream TV3, TVNZ, netflix, Movies from iTunes and Plex. Everything runs great and having no issues !

Balm its gone!

Tzoi

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#2007214 3-May-2018 16:03

The built-in chromecast in my tv is really handy for streaming SkyGo onto the tv

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