Smart TV and access to isky, tv3 and tvnz.

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Smart TV and access to isky, tv3 and tvnz.

johnstbr

33 posts

Geek

#108589 2-Sep-2012 11:01

Hi, I'm looking to buy a smart TV as my second TV. I want to access isky, tv3 and tvnz website/apps. I assumed that all smart TV's would be able to do that but after do a little bit of research it appears not. Is there a TV which does? As this is going to be my second TV probably going to get something smaller than 50". Main use will be for kids viewing, xbox gaming/movies and alternative viewing when wife is watching something else on main TV that I don't want to watch. I've got sky hooked up to my current 52" TV so will still be mainly watching sports and movies on this TV. Any good suggestions for a smart TV that would suit me? Thanks.

Spyware

3762 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#680348 2-Sep-2012 11:58

Comment: iSky resolution is 512x288 (wide D1-CIF) with very evident macroblocking due to constrained bitrate. I can't believe that Sky would license a TV app for this but if they did the poor quality alone would make it totally unacceptable in my opinion.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#680740 3-Sep-2012 11:06

johnstbr: Hi, I'm looking to buy a smart TV as my second TV. I want to access isky, tv3 and tvnz website/apps. I assumed that all smart TV's would be able to do that but after do a little bit of research it appears not. Is there a TV which does? As this is going to be my second TV probably going to get something smaller than 50". Main use will be for kids viewing, xbox gaming/movies and alternative viewing when wife is watching something else on main TV that I don't want to watch. I've got sky hooked up to my current 52" TV so will still be mainly watching sports and movies on this TV. Any good suggestions for a smart TV that would suit me? Thanks.

I have yet to see a TV that can offer all if any of the features you have listed. In fact I don't think there is a single device that can offer all of them either.

Our Sony Smart TV offers Quickflix, we have one of the latest models can't remember offhand which one. But it does not do TVNZ ondemand either, let alone isky.

For TVNZ ondemand we use the PS3 app on our playstation. Its pretty crap though but its good enough to catchup on things that you missed. But having a Tivo which records nearly everything mostly solves our need to use TVNZ on demand. TV3 does not have an app.

Your best single solution would probably be an HTPC. Otherwise two Tivo's with the networking package is sort of a workaround for tv3/TVNZ on demand.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#680742 3-Sep-2012 11:15

No smart TVs do this.

your options for devices are:

quickflix available on sony, pana, Ps3 and some other devices
TVNZ ondemand available on PS3

or

hook up a laptop or similar to your TV to get all that you want

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#680753 3-Sep-2012 11:31

theres some software that can stream webcontent over upnp/dlna, such as www.playon.tv

playon.tv doesnt appear to support tvnz/tv3/isky currently. but it does support addons/plugins, which could perhaps add this functionality.

might be worth checking out if you want just the tv to do it.

isky is the tricky one. tvnz/tv3 on demand have xbmc addons, so u could get a raspberrypi and hook that up to your tv to cheaply add support for those services, but there isnt a isky addon for xbmc, and i doubt there will be anytime soon.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#680804 3-Sep-2012 13:03

Instead of a 'smart TV' for the bedroom, we currently use our iPad for catchup TV.
The server in this case is an Apple MacMini.
We then simply screenshare using Splashtop on the Mac and the iPad, then navigate the web using the iPad, and play back whatever we want. Works well with no dropouts.

Like everyone else here, I've never come across a TV that supports all the 'catchup TV' services for the NZ market.

berry

61 posts

Master Geek

#681767 5-Sep-2012 13:10

NonprayingMantis: No smart TVs do this.

your options for devices are:

quickflix available on sony, pana, Ps3 and some other devices
TVNZ ondemand available on PS3

or

hook up a laptop or similar to your TV to get all that you want

So the "browsers" that are in the new smart TV's are pretty useless then? I would have expected that you would be able to play the ondemand things using the tv's browser. Is this not true?

Guess my LG "netcast" is not so much worse than the newer ones if that's the case.

driller2000

935 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#681885 5-Sep-2012 15:57

Dunnersfella: Instead of a 'smart TV' for the bedroom, we currently use our iPad for catchup TV.
The server in this case is an Apple MacMini.
We then simply screenshare using Splashtop on the Mac and the iPad, then navigate the web using the iPad, and play back whatever we want. Works well with no dropouts.

Like everyone else here, I've never come across a TV that supports all the 'catchup TV' services for the NZ market.

hmmm - whereas with my galaxy 10.1 tab (with flash!!) i can stream catchup tv over the browser - no server/ workarounds etc required....

shame its not as "cool" as the apple equivalent though :p

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driller2000

935 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#681894 5-Sep-2012 16:14

berry:
NonprayingMantis: No smart TVs do this.

your options for devices are:

quickflix available on sony, pana, Ps3 and some other devices
TVNZ ondemand available on PS3

or

hook up a laptop or similar to your TV to get all that you want

So the "browsers" that are in the new smart TV's are pretty useless then? I would have expected that you would be able to play the ondemand things using the tv's browser. Is this not true?

Guess my LG "netcast" is not so much worse than the newer ones if that's the case.

have samsung series 8 plasma - and rarely use the "smart" tv bits - but have just tested the built in browser and while i could navigate to the tvnz ondemnand page - it seemingly wouldn't play the shows themselves...from the netsearch i have done it would seem few if any tvs do?

personally i have a small atom/ion2 based htpc hooked up and use this for xmbc / spotify and the odd bit of browsing and catchup tv - i find this to be a much easier process then messing with the inbuilt browser on the tv

good luck with your search...