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Messages - Joffa

#1
Beyonwiz / Re: Beyonwiz T3
May 27, 2014, 11:35:53 PM
The point I was making about charges is that 'acceptable commercial terms' can take many shapes & sizes in today's markets. A big upfront fee from Beyonwiz puts all the risk on them. If IceTV is a big enough draw to help them sell more product, then 'phew', it was worth it. If not, they loose.
On the other hand, if IceTV believe enough in their product, then T3 users will lap it up & they'll still make money.
Without some kind of arrangement no one wins & even though a big upfront from Beyonwiz may not be a mutually acceptable solution, some money has to be better than no money?
Fee for service is a common concept, as are other creative financing vehicles such as performance related payments (ie: lower up front, then staged payments based on #users adopting IceTV on the T3 platform), per user payments, pass through to the end user (ie: increases subscription) etc...
I'm just not sure I see solution thinking vs problem identification here.
Anyway, perhaps I'll just leave the T3 in the basement until someone fixes the problem to a user friendly enough level where it can be brought up to the living room.
Thanks for the comments on the over scanning btw. I'll give that a go over the weekend.
Cheers
Jof
#2
Beyonwiz / Re: Beyonwiz T3
May 25, 2014, 10:45:23 PM
I came to this thread out of a bit of frustration - finding it from a google bash of how others are finding the T3 from a usability perspective.

Have had a DP-S1 since I got to Aus in 2009. I bought it since I'd just moved from the US & the beyonwiz was one of the only STB's I could find on the market that could drive my US NTSC TV.

The needs for that has gone now since I've got an Aus TV, and whereas the DP-S1 still works great for TV,  it's DVD player is slowly dying (I guess from a bad power supply issue).

I had no idea what IceTV was when I bought the box but when I found out it was like the PVRs I was used to back in the US I was delighted & have used it every day, as has my wife, who is not technically minded but has coped just fine with the simple IceTV GUI.

Since I've now also got an Aus Blueray in my rack, I have no real need for the STB to have a DVD on board, so I decided to upgrade the Beyonwiz & retire the DP-S1 down to the media room so I can get TV down there as well as just movies. Since I've been very happy with Beyonwiz & especially the ease of recording, I stayed with the brand & just bought a T3.

After the usual set-up, I dived in & looked around for where to enter my IceTV settings, not knowing there wouldn't be any. I know I may be ignorant, but I always thought that IceTV & Beyonwiz were joined at the hip. They seemed so tightly integrated on the DP-S1 that I actually thought that IceTV & Beyonwiz were the same product!

Had I known the T3 had no IceTV before I purchased, I think I would have reconsidered (as of right now).

My reason for this is that the first impressions of T3 guide / record GUI is horrible. Any GUI change can take a while to adjust, but coming from the purely intuitive options of IceTV on the DP-S1, I was pretty horrified to find that any time I pressed record, or tried to change a channel after pausing previously, I was presented with long lists of options about exactly how I wanted the box to interpret my request. To be clear, my wife doesn't understand what terms like timeshift mean (I'm not sure she even knows it's a real word actually!), and lists of questions nearly 2 pages long every time she pressed a button did not go down well at all. I also seem to have lost series record / remote record etc. Perhaps I'll find them eventually, but it looks like I'll have to learn some pretty complex menus first.

I know a lot of people like detailed options, but a lot of people just want it to work too. Net point in my case is that I'm going away with work for a week tomorrow & have had to downgrade the living room back to the DP-S1 again otherwise I'll face becoming an offshore helpdesk from an annoyed wife who has no idea what the box is asking her to do whilst she's busy missing her favourite program.

Can't IceTV become an optional plug in for the T3 so that people like me who want simple functionality can choose to buy/install & use it? That way everyone wins. Beyonwiz get to offer a more detailed EPG GUI for those who want that, users can choose to stick with IceTV if they prefer their way of navigating, Beyonwiz don't have to pay IceTV since only users who want it will pay for it, IceTV get a great (open source based) platform to distribute their product / reach customers on etc. Beyonwiz could even charge IceTV a 'dating agent' fee for any new customers they send through which IceTV could pass through to the end user within their subscription fee (which if the product is good enough, people would be happy to pay).

Apple have been doing this for years.

Any thoughts?

Joffa

PS - the T3 also seems to be zooming my image slightly & I'll loosing info from the left right of the screen - even on their guide. I've tried every setting possible & can't find out how to fix this (even though I've only spent an hour and gotten through 10% of their options in the set-up screens so far!)