IceTv in Voluntary Administarion

Started by emmsee, October 07, 2015, 05:58:18 PM

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csutak40

Quote from: Pursya on October 09, 2015, 12:26:34 PM
The Skippa unfulfilled orders have been told the order will never be fulfilled. Even if a new owner for the business is found.

Actually,I've been wondering why that is.  If someone buys the business, surely Altech would be happy to get rid of their stock of Skippa?
Cheers,
Judy
Last Update Dec 9 2020; Beyonwiz V2, T2,

csutak40

Quote from: IanL-S on October 09, 2015, 02:34:56 PM

Hmm, written in 'accountant', I may be able to understand it. But I have been 'out of the game' for over seven years now so the jargon may have changed and my 'accountant speak' may have deteriorated.
Ian

LOL I'm in the same boat, except in my case, it has been nearly 20 years, so I know that the jargon has changed  ;D
Cheers,
Judy
Last Update Dec 9 2020; Beyonwiz V2, T2,

prl

All the best to Dave, Madeleine and all the other staff at IceTV. Thanks for the service you've helped deliver.

I hope that IceTV can continue on in some form.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Pursya

Quote from: csutak40 on October 09, 2015, 05:52:46 PM
Quote from: Pursya on October 09, 2015, 12:26:34 PM
The Skippa unfulfilled orders have been told the order will never be fulfilled. Even if a new owner for the business is found.

Actually,I've been wondering why that is.  If someone buys the business, surely Altech would be happy to get rid of their stock of Skippa?

As I understand it the Skippas are no longer the property of the purchasers.
They are the property of the manufacturer. And as the manufacturer is apparently in receivership then no one actually owns them.
If they are ever returned to the market it will be as a brand new unit that you would have to pay for......again!
If the Skippas ever came to market I certainly would not buy one. They are dependant upon the IceTV EPG and even if that discontinued and a s/w update changed that dependency, the unit then becomes nothing more than a standard PVR.
And there are plenty of those around with better warranty and service backup that the Skippa will ever have.

peteru

Quote from: FMB on October 09, 2015, 12:36:02 PMI wouldn't recommend registering as an unsecured creditor. You just end up getting bombarded with meeting minutes and reports all written in 'accountant'. It just makes for depressing reading when you realise how bad the situation is, how much money the insolvency firm is making (at your expense) and how unlikely it is you'll ever see any money.

I made that mistake a couple of times when clients went belly up. Now I just write off the debt and move on.
Just a word of advice on that. If you ever get audited by the ATO, that's not good enough. If you haven't taken reasonable steps to recover those debts, you can't just write them off. What the ATO likes to see is the final wind up letter from the administrator.

As unpleasant (and possibly time consuming) as it is to be shafted out of money, you have to put up with the administrators rubbing the salt in it too. :-(

I know, I've been through this several times too, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  >:(

Ea5e

Well, as lucky unsecured no-box creditors, we can attest to the disappointment of premature evaluation.
Back of envelope calculations of ~16,000 subscribers (now) @$99 - staff costs of 10 - stock - other expenses = Ooops! The administrator is right. Maybe someone will buy, but the value equation will be a $1 sale and a big cash injection, and if Altech UEC has folded it's tent.... That also prevents the liquidator clawing back payments to Altech under Oz liquidation laws. So, the relatively few unsecured creditors at the moment will turn into many thousands. The news is enough to stop many renewing (like me), so say 1/12 of 16,000 per month, enough to deliver the final killer loss of cash flow.
Sorry to miss a great service that took on a box too far.
I'm off for Fetch TV tomorrow at comparable pricing, curated EPG, streaming and series recording. No subscription either, that's supported by users paying for premium packages (not me)

NBOSTI

The writing was on the wall. When I first saw IceTV promoting this machine I knew trouble was on the way for the EPG service in general. It all started earlier this year when the server " Upgrades" left us in the lurch. Too many eggs in one basket or greed? I don't know, but they would never be able to deliver "Ad-Free" recordings.
The majority of networks , including ABC and SBS no longer have visible triggers when a program starts, rather just jumps into it straight from promos. No intro credits, watermarks nor any other signal.
They have more money and resources than IceTV and will always be ahead of the game for whatever their reasons are. They are all in on the FreeView, so is that behind it?
I was never going to buy a Skippa, (my mac mini set-up has given me 4 tuners for years),..I feel for those that ordered and paid for one and now look like not getting a refund. But more I am going to miss the convenience of the online scheduling and EPG should they fold altogether.
I hope that an investor is found to bail them out,...and please stick with delivering an up to date scheduling and EPG service.

warkus

#97
Quote from: Pursya on October 09, 2015, 08:14:16 PM
Quote from: csutak40 on October 09, 2015, 05:52:46 PM
Quote from: Pursya on October 09, 2015, 12:26:34 PM
The Skippa unfulfilled orders have been told the order will never be fulfilled. Even if a new owner for the business is found.

Actually,I've been wondering why that is.  If someone buys the business, surely Altech would be happy to get rid of their stock of Skippa?

As I understand it the Skippas are no longer the property of the purchasers.
They are the property of the manufacturer. And as the manufacturer is apparently in receivership then no one actually owns them.
If they are ever returned to the market it will be as a brand new unit that you would have to pay for......again!
If the Skippas ever came to market I certainly would not buy one. They are dependant upon the IceTV EPG and even if that discontinued and a s/w update changed that dependency, the unit then becomes nothing more than a standard PVR.
And there are plenty of those around with better warranty and service backup that the Skippa will ever have.



This is totally inaccurate, these rumours going around about Altech Multimedia or UEC going under as well as icetv are simply untrue. (Thats the manufacturer).

Go to uec.com.au main page and read the blurb on there.

They are simply closing their australian operations to concentrate on other sales areas, and have appointed a distributor/agent here instead to sell the Altech line.

The brand and products will continue, its just the direct wholesale that will stop.

This is likely the reason that icetv are in trouble, i imagine they had an arrangement in place with them for payment, but when altech MM overseas decided to close the doors on their australian operations, they most likely wanted to wind it all up without any strings left attached or debt.

I dont know the real reason, its just a guess, but i do know that the manufacturer is not in administration. Far from it.


Mark





Tyrus

I wouldn't be blaming UEC for IceTV's troubles.  For all we know it was IceTV's inability to pay per their original terms that caused UEC to withdraw from Aus.  IceTV tried to renegotiate payment terms, which UEC originally tried to support, then pulled the plug when IceTV failed to meet those terms as well. 

Like I said in my post back in early September,  I suspect that all the funds IceTV received from pre-orders was pretty well all used on R&D, wages, utilities and other overdue bills.  So when it came for paying the balance of the initial production run they were already up the creek - which is why they extended the pre-purchase offer in a hope to attract more cashflow.  Big mistake and potentially illegal if it can be shown that they were technically insolvent at that point.

Like others have said here, this blame falls only on the executive, not the staff who are just more victims like ourselves.


IanL-S

Quote from: warkus on October 10, 2015, 12:40:20 AM

This is totally inaccurate, these rumours going around about Altech Multimedia or UEC going under as well as icetv are simply untrue. (Thats the manufacturer).

Go to uec.com.au main page and read the blurb on there.

They are simply closing their australian operations to concentrate on other sales areas, and have appointed a distributor/agent here instead to sell the Altech line.

The brand and products will continue, its just the direct wholesale that will stop.

This is likely the reason that icetv are in trouble, i imagine they had an arrangement in place with them for payment, but when altech MM overseas decided to close the doors on their australian operations, they most likely wanted to wind it all up without any strings left attached or debt.

I dont know the real reason, its just a guess, but i do know that the manufacturer is not in administration. Far from it.

Mark

Spot on mark. The administration puts the manufacturer is a difficult position. As they do no own the SKIPPA firmware (IceTV Elements) or the SKIPPA brand name, they would have difficulty selling them. They could change the firmware to remove proprietary IceTV aspects, cover up the IceTV identifiers and ship it with a different RCU. A lot of work.

Ian
IceTV: IceBox + BYOB IceBox + 2xTRF-2400 + 2xTF7100HDPVRtPlus + SKIPPA [RIP] + T2 + U4 + V2
No IceTV: a few Toppys and T2
Synology NAS
Check out the oztoppy wiki and oztoppy Forum for Toppy help

GXK

Add skip/ auto skip has stopped working on my skippa. Been stuck on one programme for days. I rebooted the skippa and tried a few things without luck. Came to the boards to see if others were effected and saw this thread.. SoI guess that auto skip has been deactivated for everyone?

Yes, I know this is a small thing compared with jobs at stake and others that have paid for units that they will not receive, but I am interested to know if it is just my skippa having issues or if this feature has been disabled despite the life time auto skip subscription.. I realise that this will be toast anyway If ice tv folds, but if it is still supplying the epg for the time being, then I don't see why they would have turned off the add skip feature?

Heideho

I've noticed that ad skip feature has ceased also. Figured it had been switched off as part of the Ice TV problems. My Skippa isn't a brick yet but I can see that coming soon. Pretty disappointed.
Brisbane

IanL-S

Quote from: Heideho on October 10, 2015, 11:26:00 AM
I've noticed that ad skip feature has ceased also. Figured it had been switched off as part of the Ice TV problems. My Skippa isn't a brick yet but I can see that coming soon. Pretty disappointed.

This seems to be a widespread problem: http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/bug-reports/47/autoskip-not-working-since-upgrading-to-1-1-10600/4640/

Hopefully it will be fixed in the next firmware update.

Ian
IceTV: IceBox + BYOB IceBox + 2xTRF-2400 + 2xTF7100HDPVRtPlus + SKIPPA [RIP] + T2 + U4 + V2
No IceTV: a few Toppys and T2
Synology NAS
Check out the oztoppy wiki and oztoppy Forum for Toppy help

GXK


Dan9477

I think we've had more communication from the liquidators in the last few days than we have from ice tv since skippas conception  :-[