Legal challenge from Nine Network

Started by tick007, May 31, 2006, 05:56:33 PM

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Marc

Quote from: h45e on August 09, 2007, 10:19:42 PM
Should ICE TV celebrate by giving a discount to the customers ;oP
Or new services for free?

We're working on it! Plenty of good things in the pipeline.

tick007

Quote from: marc@iSlayer on August 10, 2007, 10:04:26 AM
Quote from: h45e on August 09, 2007, 10:19:42 PM
Should ICE TV celebrate by giving a discount to the customers ;oP
Or new services for free?

We're working on it! Plenty of good things in the pipeline.

As the original poster who started this thread, let me add my heartfelt congratulations that sanity looks like it has prevailed and IceTV can now really throw themselves into their business with a lot more confidence! :)

But can I offer a word of advice?  I think now would be a really good time to consolidate what you have before launching off trying to provide a world of services that may or may not be of interest to the current small market that you have.  There are still many holes in your basic service (lack of proper Mac support the most glaringly obvious) that you need to patch up.  Your current user base is by no means assured, and they are not passionate promoters of your service to potential new customers.  Go back and look through many of the gripes/complaints/etc on these forums over the last 12-18 months.

I've been with you guys for over 2 years now, but I count myself among that number.  Now that the legal decision against Nine has been given, potential competitors to IceTV may now come out of the woodwork.  The first one that comes along that does what it needs to do very well with excellent customer service will have me as a customer.  Lots and lots of potentially questionable "features" will not win (or keep) me.  I just want an EPG service to do what it says and do it well, on the platform of my choice.  If over time they then incrementally add new features then that's a bonus, but it's not what I'll be sticking around for...

Anyway, my advice is probably worth exactly what you paid for it, but at least you can't say you didn't get any customer feedback! ;)

Marc

Quote from: tick007 on August 12, 2007, 11:31:05 AMBut can I offer a word of advice?  I think now would be a really good time to consolidate what you have before launching off trying to provide a world of services that may or may not be of interest to the current small market that you have.  There are still many holes in your basic service (lack of proper Mac support the most glaringly obvious) that you need to patch up.  Your current user base is by no means assured, and they are not passionate promoters of your service to potential new customers.  Go back and look through many of the gripes/complaints/etc on these forums over the last 12-18 months.
Thanks.

Feedback like that is always welcome. We're definitely going to be careful not to over stretch ourselves. I'm surprised you think Mac support is anything but exceptional... EyeTV and Mac support is very important to us (I use a Mac Mini + EyeTV personally). What specific Mac stuff are you after?

We realise that without our users we don't have a business, so comments like these are taken very seriously.

tick007

Quote from: marc@iSlayer on August 12, 2007, 07:31:21 PM
Feedback like that is always welcome. We're definitely going to be careful not to over stretch ourselves. I'm surprised you think Mac support is anything but exceptional... EyeTV and Mac support is very important to us (I use a Mac Mini + EyeTV personally). What specific Mac stuff are you after?

Your original service was centered around people who had Topfield 5000s.  To this day, you cannot get automated ICE updates to a Toppy connected to a Mac (to my knowledge).  The only "solution" that comes close was Nathan Oates' alpha release of ICEGuide4Topfield, but that didn't do scheduled updates and it also doesn't support using a proxy (so it's useless on my network).

The current Mac support is all centered around onboard TV card support like the EyeTV.  There is a distinct lack of support for PVRs (IMHO) - IceRemote for a Mac-controlled Toppy anyone?  The really frustrating thing though is that you guys have been so close to having this complete solution for so long now!  It can't be that hard to add the USB/upload code to say the IceGuide widget (which already does the automated updates w/ proxy support) and I'd be a happy camper!  I (and others) have opined about this a couple of times over the last couple of years on this forum. :)

That's what I mean about little holes in your service that you need to patch up.  Remove these relatively simple gripes (along with those about the occasional lack of response to forum and email messages and not enough notification and explanation about when problems occur), and I'm sure you'll convert me and nearly everyone else into not only long-term subscribers, but advocates who will not hesitate to promote you as the only EPG service worth using - free or not.

Daniel Drysdale at IceTV

Quote from: tick007 on August 13, 2007, 08:45:32 AM
Your original service was centered around people who had Topfield 5000s.  To this day, you cannot get automated ICE updates to a Toppy connected to a Mac (to my knowledge).  The only "solution" that comes close was Nathan Oates' alpha release of ICEGuide4Topfield, but that didn't do scheduled updates and it also doesn't support using a proxy (so it's useless on my network).

We do have a method to supply guide updates to your Topfield that you may not be aware of, we have a re-purposed wireless router we call the IceBox that plugs into a wired network or accesses a wireless network and provides guide updates to your Topfield.

This solution requires no intervention once set up and only needs a connection to the internet. We support proxies so this may work for you.

As far as a native solution for the Mac, I understand your frustration, we have debated this topic at length here at IceTV and unfortunately the lack of Mac support from Topfield makes it hard for us to supply a robust commercial solution as a native application.


Cheers,

Dan
Software Manager @ IceTV

gomaxx

Congrats from a satisfied client.

Keep on keepin' on

;D

tick007

Quote from: Daniel Drysdale on August 13, 2007, 10:07:10 AM
We do have a method to supply guide updates to your Topfield that you may not be aware of, we have a re-purposed wireless router we call the IceBox that plugs into a wired network or accesses a wireless network and provides guide updates to your Topfield.

I've moved my reply to a more appropriate thread:

http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=141.0