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Well I voted YES even though, like many of you, I had years of subscription left.


I've been an IceTV user for 10 years, I like it and I want it to continue.


I don't really care about ad-skipping but I do care about having an accurate and complete TV guide and the automated scheduling is fantastic.  We won't get anything like that elsewhere.



They aren't asking you to commit to anything, they are just trying to suss out numbers to see if it is a viable option moving forward.

I suspect that Apple devices do not have native support MPEG 2 ts files. (99% shure that Quicktime does not.) Cannot remember if the SKIPPA will transcode or not.

Ian

PS Have not tried using the SKIPPA as a DLNA server.

No Macs don't have native support for MPEG2 but Kodi has its own codecs.  MPEG2 is supported.

Has anyone else tried watching recording remotely via DLNA?


In Windows 10 I can't get this to work at all.  I see the icon for the records but noting will play.


On PS3 none of the items will play.  This is probably codec dependent.  I wasn't surprised.


On Kodi (Mac) it will only play a few of my recordings.  Like 3 out of 10 for far.


I use Kodi to play from various DLNA sources quiet regularly, I'm fairly sure its working correctly.


Also items only show up on the "Raw recordings" category is that correct?

The ability to adjust the amount skipped, when you press left or right arrows, by a finer amount.  i.e. by the second

The way beyonwiz does it in the P1 etc is great.

I like to skip forward by 30 sec but backward by 25 sec.  The if I really only want to skip 5 sec I can quickly just go forward and back.

The ability to turn off ad-skip (which is far too slow).


For one show its does take about the same amount of time as a original recording, but by the time you add in the default padding a 30 min show becomes a 60 min recording. so basically you can watch you ad-free show after about 2 hours.  If you record 4 * 30 min shows in a row, the last one won't be ready for 8 or more hours.


I'd rather turn it off and save the power and heat. 


Better yet, the ability to specify which shows to process at the time you set the recording.  Far more useful.

The ability to re-order the channels in the EPG.

Hi Guys,


I received my Skippa at work today and set it up when I went home for lunch.  So I've mucked around with it for about 40 mis in total.


I haven't experienced any problems with the remote at all.


My sitting position is about 3.5 meters from the unit at and angle of about 20-30 degrees for the front and in a shady room (blinds drawn).


I took note of its effectiveness because I had read your reports before I'd gone home.


I'm just reporting this because I thought, given my experience, you may be experiencing a fault rather than a design problem.


Cheers,


Erik

My Skippa has arrived in Sunsine West (VIC) so it's getting close. That's probably about 50kms away as the crow flies. However estimated delivery is "by 30 Sep"  :'(

My Skippa is now at Wantirna Sth and will be delivered today!  :D  Strangely it also says "Estimated delivery by 28 Sep"

That estimated delivery date of 29 Sep does not make me feel any better - I was told that mine was 25 Sep. Clearly something very wrong with Australia Post systems is such discrepancies can occur. I would be nice if on the tracking it indicated the currently estimated delivery date.

Ian

Never fear,  My estimated delivery date was the 28th until today when it arrived.


Cheers,


Erik

Well, my status has still not changed; my Skippa apparently has not left Sydney, whereas some ohers bound for Melbourne or Tassie have made it to Sunshine West. Hopefully it will arrive there today. If not I will have to assume that Australia Post has misplaced it. I have not recived an email with updated ETA so hopefully still for delivery on Friday.

It's been my experience with AusPost eParcels that the status doesn't generally get updated very much until its at the final destination depot.  You might find that the status updates with all various stops appears online just before it is delivered. 


Hopefully this is the case for you and not something else.


Cheers,


Erik.

Oh Crap!  What are we gonna bitch about how????


I feel so empty ;)

5 years (lifetime) of IceTV sub at discounted auto-renew prices is $395 don't forget to add that to the price of those other units.
And do those units feature ad-skip?  A valuable feature.

You do not have to go for the device specific 5 year lifetime subscription. I got a 4 year multi-device subscription about a year ago for $149 special price. There was a similar offer not long ago. At the time it covered up to 5 devices and was recently retrospectively changed to 10 devices. I have just under 4 years to go. So the value of included IceTV subscription can be minimal for some users. The value of the included Skippa subscription depends on how you use the device. While I am sure many users will find it great, it is not essential for my viewing habits ... commercial TV, what is that?

The subscription I was referring to is the multi device sub and the price quoted was the ordinary price discounted for having auto-renew not a special deal like the 4 year one.


The point I was trying to make is that IceTV are doing themselves out of business by selling lifetime and heavily discounted subs.
 
At the time they sold the 4 year Subs for $149 I bought one too.  They must have needed a cash injection which they would have gotten but the downside is that for the next four years all of those people are now going to be paying no annual sub fees.


What is going to sustain them as a business if they keep pre-selling their product at a discount and forgoing the trailing revenue? I wonder how many of IceTV's customers took up that offer are now effectively dead weight for the next 3+ years. How do they pay wages and continue to offer the service?

Ah, but they are paying as the Skippa at just under $600 RRP is much more expensive than other 3Tuner PVRs. The Altech 9600t is selling on eBay (Bing Lee) for $249 with $5 for delivery. Except for wifi the specifications are similar to the Skippa. The updated Beyonwiz T2 has 3 tuners (1 is USB) and records 8 programs over 3 networks and has RRP of $299 (without HDD).

Ian

5 years (lifetime) of IceTV sub at discounted auto-renew prices is $395 don't forget to add that to the price of those other units.
And do those units feature ad-skip?  A valuable feature.

I reckon they should be selling the Skippa with 12 Months of IceTV subscription included for a rock bottom price with enough margin to cover warranty and support costs. After the first year they start having subscription revenue.
Dump the stupid subscription for not disabling the ad-skip feature or roll it into the normal sub and call it a feature.

I doubt the volume of Skippas would ever be enough to make them huge profits,  they should be using it as a tool for getting subscribers rather than a profit making tool on its own.

That my 2c (seasonally adjusted) :)

I have pondered IceTV's wisdom in selling devices with "lifetime" subscriptions to their main product.  Once all of those products are sold, where is their income stream going to be coming from if we aren't going to pay any subs for years to come?

With the advent of Netflix and other streaming services, PVRs have limited and dwindling appeal especially since Freeview+ offers seamless access to catchup via the TV guide. 

I would have thought it would make more business sense to sell the Skippa as means of generating more subscriptions.  I think most of us would have been quote happy to continue to pay our regular annual sub for the guide.  Instead they seem to have lamely added a sub for the ad-skip feature at the last minute which seems like a half-baked and poorly planned money grab.

I think their main game is to attract TiVo customers and I think they therefore had no option but to include the EPG/Recording subscription as that's what TiVo is still offering.

What are you attracting them to if not your primary product (the guide).  How much value is there in having a customer that isn't paying.  The Skippa should have been used as bait for the guide.

If Skippa required an annual subscription for IceTV, I definitely would not have bought (I mean ordered) one. I simply wouldn't have looked twice at it. I would have bought another PVR and been using it already for months.

I was actually quite surprised that they offer lifetime, I would have expected maybe 12 months included.  Especially at the $399 introductory price.

Companies typically promote pre-order "specials" to generate much needed cashflow.   

...

I don't know IceTVs specifics and this is pure speculation, but all the signs are there ...  If the original production date was lost due to lack of cash on hand at the time, it makes sense that they extended the pre-order offer to try and generate the extra dosh needed to get that run secured.   Everything then snowballed from there ...

The reason for posting such speculation, is that if true, I sure hope they are able to sort it out and would be OK with waiting (as long as we were kept informed), as the alternative is that we will suffer far more than just a delay.   

I have pondered IceTV's wisdom in selling devices with "lifetime" subscriptions to their main product.  Once all of those products are sold, where is their income stream going to be coming from if we aren't going to pay any subs for years to come?


With the advent of Netflix and other streaming services, PVRs have limited and dwindling appeal especially since Freeview+ offers seamless access to catchup via the TV guide. 


I would have thought it would make more business sense to sell the Skippa as means of generating more subscriptions.  I think most of us would have been quote happy to continue to pay our regular annual sub for the guide.  Instead they seem to have lamely added a sub for the ad-skip feature at the last minute which seems like a half-baked and poorly planned money grab.


All in all I think the whole Skippa debacle has been handle very poorly.  IceTV has gone down in my estimation significantly as a result.