Saorview on the new Argos Catalogue

Rippy

Picked up the new Argos catalogue and was in for a bit of a surprise.
They have a Bush StB listed for €49.99!
Labelled as Saorview approved, no Saorview logo on the box itself in the photo, no mention of it on the Saorview website.
This price is WAY less than any independent retailer or installer can buy Saorview approved boxes, let alone sell them!
On every tv page it boldly ( very boldly!) states at the top of the page that "all our TVs are Saorview HD ready".
The Saorview logo is used.
There is no mention of which TVs are Saorview APPROVED or not.
Blatant misuse of the logo.

jonnygee

There doesnt seem to be any stock of these boxes in any store yet, probably by the time they do get stock in then it will have been approved, shouldnt be a problem.

STB

Rippy wrote: »

Picked up the new Argos catalogue and was in for a bit of a surprise.
They have a Bush StB listed for €49.99!
Labelled as Saorview approved, no Saorview logo on the box itself in the photo, no mention of it on the Saorview website.
This price is WAY less than any independent retailer or installer can buy Saorview approved boxes, let alone sell them!
On every tv page it boldly ( very boldly!) states at the top of the page that "all our TVs are Saorview HD ready".
The Saorview logo is used.
There is no mention of which TVs are Saorview APPROVED or not.
Blatant misuse of the logo.

Nearly all of the Bush products are made by Vestel who as an OEM had a T8300 approved not so long ago, allowing a rebadging with Saorview logo.

Bush brand is of course now actually owned by the Argos group. The T8300 DVB680 will appear under various names over the next year from various supermarket/chainstores as predicted before.

Saorview HD Ready described products are of not course not Saorview approved but I would rather have that than old MPEG2 stock which most certainly would never work. I think they are now understanding that the basics (MPEG4 H264 L4 & MHEG5) will work despite no certification.

Rippy

jonnygee wrote: »

There doesnt seem to be any stock of these boxes in any store yet, probably by the time they do get stock in then it will have been approved, shouldnt be a problem.

I was told they will be in stock within 2 weeks.
The box is probaly another Vestal and approval will follow.
The really blatant abuse of the logo is using it to state all there TVs are "Saorview HD Ready".

St Senan

I think the whole country is Blatantly misusing the Saorview logo and Saorview seem to be doing nothing about it.

Rippy

STB wrote: »

Saorview HD Ready described products are of not course not Saorview approved but I would rather have that than old MPEG2 stock which most certainly would never work. I think they are now understanding that the basics (MPEG4 H264 L4 & MHEG5) will work despite no certification.

I do not agree. Saorview are very protective of the logo for good reason.
This sort of mis-representation makes a mockery of the whole approval process.
The general public cannot be expected to know or care about the difference between "Saorview ready" ( with logo) , and " Saorview approved".
These products may ( or may not) have MHEG5 etc. , but without certification full compatibility now and in the future cannot be guaranteed.

STB

And RTENL would no doubt be of the same opinion Rippy as regards use of "Saorview Ready" alone for the very simple reason that most retailers havent a technical iota. They will be in trouble for using the logo with these products however!!!! (I had missed that by the way from your original post)

I would hope that the basics are being included in their category "HD Compatible" ie BOTH MHEG5 and MPEG4 H264 L4. I know that a lot of the retailers have been harvesting info from here!!!

Argos sell a lot of Freeview muck so hopefully this gets rid of those JVC/Bush/Sharp/No Name TVs that I see cluttering their shops. I'd rather some attempt (thats what I meant). So whilst they will have some certified products at least the others will work once they have the basics. I would consider Argos to the cheap end of the TV market, especially those bloody combo DVD/TVs that wont work.

I had said this on the basis of not using the Saorview logo with the so called compatible range! RTENL will be on to them like a shot anyhow! Its a stupid mistake. I dont think we can include Argos with the sheister small aerial installer groups using photoshopped products that arent Saorview approved either. One for the Argos purchasing manager to take up with his so called clued in technical staff!

Rippy

IMHO, it's a deliberate attempt to mislead.
How much to re-print hundreds of thousands of catalogues?

Machinehead

Saorview HD ready could also be read as "Saorview" 1080i (HD ready). A little confusing and clarification needed by Argos.

wil

Rippy wrote: »

IMHO, it's a deliberate attempt to mislead.
How much to re-print hundreds of thousands of catalogues?

I prefer to read that as "All our TVs are 129.99"

Cant spot a Saorview logo on any of the TVs

About time for a sub €50 stb, I guess I started that thread a few months too soon.

Isn't Vestel the Walker manufacturer, time for Walker to drop their prices

Dman001

I'm guessing this is the Bush STB in question, for those interested:

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5322783/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CHome+entertainment+and+sat+nav%7C14419512/c_2/3%7Ccat_19780832%7CDigital+boxes+and+services%7C14419633.htm

stanley1

has anyone got one of these, does it support mheg5.

Regards

St Senan

Are Argos along with Aldi Registered retailers. They are not here http://www.saorview.ie/products-retailers/find-a-retailer/

wil

scaller wrote: »

Are Argos along with Aldi Registered retailers. They are not here http://www.saorview.ie/products-retailers/find-a-retailer/

Whatever about Argos, Aldi or Lidl are unlikely to qualify

"SAORVIEW will only approve registration by partners who agree to sell a range of approved SAORVIEW products and ensure sufficient choice and availability of stock."

As for the logo
"Only SAORVIEW Approved receivers will be allowed to carry the official SAORVIEW logo on their packaging and marketing materials"

Logo Use
The SAORVIEW logo is for use by manufacturers on approved receivers and by registered retailers to communicate the selling of approved receivers ( Set top boxes and iDTVs ) at the point of sale through retail premises, and on websites by registered online retailers.
SAORVIEW is a registered trademark owned by RTÉ.
To provide accurate information on the service to help consumers to make the switch, retailers are required to adhere to SAORVIEW brand guidelines.

So some are playing a bit free and easy with the logo. Other than that there doesnt seem to be any obligation to register.

coylemj

Dman001 wrote: »

I'm guessing this is the Bush STB in question, for those interested:

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5322783/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CHome+entertainment+and+sat+nav%7C14419512/c_2/3%7Ccat_19780832%7CDigital+boxes+and+services%7C14419633.htm

Classic loss leader, they probably get the profit from the €35 HDMI cable!

St Senan

A few months ago Aldi sold Akura receivers with the Saorview logo on them. How can they legally do this if they are not Approved retailers.

SPDUB

scaller wrote: »

A few months ago Aldi sold Akura receivers with the Saorview logo on them. How can they legally do this if they are not Approved retailers.

As long as they are selling Saorview products anyone should be allowed to sell them even if it is just one product .

There should be no such thing as approved retailers and that nobody else can sell the product if they don't get approval .That's just classic old style protectionism .

byrnefm

coylemj wrote: »

Classic loss leader, they probably get the profit from the €35 HDMI cable!

Yikes! :eek: I clicked on the link and saw it. I thought you were kidding there!

AstralTV

argos

is that not the Greek word for shi*e

apologees to the Peloponnese

zhaoj23

I think the whole country is Blatantly misusing the Saorview logo and Saorview seem to be doing nothing about it. has anyone got one of these, does it support mheg5.

MrSneeg

zhaoj23 wrote: »

I think the whole country is Blatantly misusing the Saorview logo and Saorview seem to be doing nothing about it. has anyone got one of these, does it support mheg5.

I agree see this

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056320108

St Senan

zhaoj23 wrote: »

I think the whole country is Blatantly misusing the Saorview logo and Saorview seem to be doing nothing about it. has anyone got one of these, does it support mheg5.

I totally agree with you. Exact words from the Saorview team last April at the trade seminar held in Dublin.
We the Saorview Team want to work with the Local Established Aerial Installers. Well why haven't Saorview stopped the asa Sky Reps calling door to door selling Saorview then.

Rick_

On a recent trip to Currys in Craigavon and also in Newry, both stores had many of their TV's with the Saorview logo on them. Nice to see that even shops in the North are advertising the ability to receive MPEG-4 signals instead of ignoring them as it's "not Freeview or Sky".

marclt

Rippy wrote: »

IMHO, it's a deliberate attempt to mislead.
How much to re-print hundreds of thousands of catalogues?

What I've noticed in the UK version of the argos catalogue and in other electrical stores is the use of the 'HD Ready' logo and the 'FULL HD' logo. There seems to be less flagging of Freeview HD products.

So one can only assume that where HD Ready is displayed it's 720p and where Full HD is displayed that it's 1080i.

The fact that they have badged Saorview alongside HD Ready is a little unfortunate. But I'm guessing all the products they list can infact pick up the Saorview signal and if they don't then you would be entitled to return the item....

SPAWKER

See that this so called Saorview box is now available for reservation and can be picked up in store from the 9th.

recyclebin

The Bush box along with other Bush and Alba TV's are now up on the Saorview approved list on the Saorview website. I've ordered the box for €50 to see if its any good.

To be fair to Argos they do explain what Saorview and HD ready means in their catalogue.

hairybro

I got one of these €49.99 boxes from Argos yesterday so here's some info FYI:

The Saorview logo is on the cardboard box, "Saorview approved" logo on the manuals, and the Saorview logo on the digital programme guide. The unit itself has no Saorview logo/sticker on the front.

The unit comes with a HDMI cable, but no scart lead for those of us too cheap to buy new TVs (yo! ).

The unit has a powered USB port and is PVR. This works fine with an external hard drive I've just tried (500 Gb, USB powered) but must be FAT32 formatted. Tried recording stuff and playing it back. No problems at all

The menu system seems to be nice and simple, and the programme guide is very good (very much like Sky whereby it shows the programmes on all channels over the coming hours left-to-right with a progress/time bar, etc.).

MHEG teletext works fine too.

Setup was no problem at all. I used a loft-mounted UHF wideband aerial I picked up in Homebase for about €18, pointed towards my nearest transmitter, got TV3 as clear as possible on analogue first, and then installed the STB, which worked perfectly on my first try.

So far so good, so one happy customer here.

Atlantic Dawn

Sounds a great box for the money, especially with the PVR functionality. Does it give programme info details? I found this lacking on a Freeview HD box ive been using, while a small problem it is irritating.

hairybro

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Sounds a great box for the money, especially with the PVR functionality. Does it give programme info details? I found this lacking on a Freeview HD box ive been using, while a small problem it is irritating.

It does. There's an "i"/info button, which will give you a programme synopsis if you use it in the programme guide. If you use the "i" button when watching a channel, however, it just tells you what is on now and next without any programme info (it also indicates if a channel is HD, if there is teletext available, subtitles, etc. which is useful info too). However, if you press the "guide" button when watching a channel it takes you to the programme guide with the current programme selected by default and you can then just press "i" then for details. Two clicks, so. Not too bad.

Atlantic Dawn

Cheers, going to pick one up later, stocks seem low in Dublin, most are just 1 per branch.

Gerry Wicklow

Does anyone know if these have a T2 tuner since they are probably based on a FreeView HD model?

redman

Got one today, very impressed especially at €50 compared to the others I've looked at

In the old days

hairybro wrote: »

The menu system seems to be nice and simple, and the programme guide is very good (very much like Sky whereby it shows the programmes on all channels over the coming hours left-to-right with a progress/time bar, etc.).
.

Does it list the DTT chanels as 1,2,3 etc??

Atlantic Dawn

I got one this evening...

The good:
Very impressed for €50, especially with the recording feature via USB and it also plays media files from USB, as was mentioned it includes a HDMI cable which for something at this price is great. Menus and remote are decent for Bush which is now an Argos brand, picture quality seems good and I am hoping to verify this if RTÉ2 are showing any of the games over the weekend in HD.

The bad:
When recording you can't timeshift back and forth your recording but I was not expecting to be able to record so this isn't too much to complain about.
When it is recording there is an incredibly irritating flashing blue led light on the box, it is really annoying and doesn't look like it can be turned off.

In the old days wrote: »

Does it list the DTT chanels as 1,2,3 etc??

Yes 1 is RTÉ1, 2 is RTÉ2 etc, I think you can also change the order yourself to remove or reorder them to your own preference. Buttons on the remote are a good size and would be recommended if you have novice users who find those tiny remotes with similar systems awkward to use.

hairybro

In the old days wrote: »

Does it list the DTT chanels as 1,2,3 etc??

Looks like this FYI (Vinny B set to record, so is underlined in red).

The Cush

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

picture quality seems good and I am hoping to verify this if RTÉ2 are showing any of the games over the weekend in HD.

The rugby and hurling should be in HD this weekend - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73676804&postcount=321

In the old days

hairybro wrote: »

Looks like this FYI (Vinny B set to record, so is underlined in red).

Looks great thanks. Will give the non MHEG 5 boxes a good run fot their money at that price-point.

sesswhat

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Does anyone know if these have a T2 tuner since they are probably based on a FreeView HD model?

I would say probably not. This box may have more in common with the Walker WP12DTB, than with the Bush DVB680 Freeview HD box sold by Argos UK.

In any case, it might shake up the market at this price.

I notice they have this same product listed on the UK site at £49.99.

Booms

No info on the box or it's packaging.

The user manual says it's a B650, and the tech specs in the back say it's DVB-T, mpeg4 level4.1.

Rippy

Its great that the boxes are available to the public at such a low price.
It gives a big problem to the tv aerial trade though.
The price is WAY lower than the trade price of the cheapest box available from any wholesaler.
It will make it very difficult to sell any boxes at all.
What are we to do? Install the aerial and tell them to go to Argos and buy a box or charge them twice the price for essentially the same box?
Most reasonable people realize that they have to pay a bit more to have the benefits of installation and a in- home warranty. But would baulk at paying twice the price.
Makes it very difficult to give a complete integrated service,
(aerial installed or serviced as necessary, box supplied and fitted, demonstration given).
The manufacturers and wholesale trade need to get on this fast.
CHEAPER BOXES NOW!!!!

tvman2

Have a Panasonic TX-P42G10B (which I haven't retuned) So I got one of the Bush Saorview boxes in Argos to compare and give me all the channels without having to change the sound settings everytime I choose TV3, 3E or TG4. It gives Freeview text etc and placed the UK channels just after the Irish ones and they all can be rearranged
Picture quality is broadly similar to Freeview that is built into the tv. Cannot compare HD as it's not yet available on Freeview. See pics attached. One thing to note, everytime I change channels there is a slight audio dropout which could be a bit irritating.

forzacalcio

Sorry for my ignorance here but are you saying this box gives you UK channels too? Looking to get a box that allows me to watch the UK channels BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 etc, will this give that? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

dubguy45

Does this box do serial link?

Atlantic Dawn

dubguy45 wrote: »

Does this box do serial link?

If you mean series link no it doesn't, you have to individually select multiple episodes of a show.

Gerry Wicklow

forzacalcio wrote: »

Sorry for my ignorance here but are you saying this box gives you UK channels too? Looking to get a box that allows me to watch the UK channels BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 etc, will this give that? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

You will only get FreeView if you are within range of a UK transmitter, either close to the border or certain parts of the east coast. You will also need a suitable aerial.

dubguy45

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

If you mean series link no it doesn't, you have to individually select multiple episodes of a show.

Thanks for the reply. I could probably live with that as the upc box has a mind of its own when it comes to serial link recording.

Red Silurian

€49.99 Not bad by comparison to other irish retailers but consider A Bush Freeview(UK) set-top-box from Argos it's not so good really, is it?

tvman2

colmtheperson wrote: »

€49.99 Not bad by comparison to other irish retailers but consider A Bush Freeview(UK) set-top-box from Argos it's not so good really, is it?

Not a very fair comparison, the Bush Freeview STB shown would be useless if used for Saorview and is not a HD receiver!

Atlantic Dawn

colmtheperson wrote: »

€49.99 Not bad by comparison to other irish retailers but consider A Bush Freeview(UK) set-top-box from Argos it's not so good really, is it?

That is non HD and is less than half its original price, my guess is it's obsolete, nobody in their right mind would purchase a non HD TV now and so the market for a non HD box is tiny.

Red Silurian

tvman2 wrote: »

Not a very fair comparison, the Bush Freeview STB shown would be useless if used for Saorview and is not a HD receiver!

True... But my point being is that if Bush can create a STB for the UK market and sell it at that price why can't they do it down south? Surely MPEG4 tuners and HD capabilities have plummeted in price by now... Sorry I should have been more clear

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

That is non HD and is less than half its original price,

The saorview one is including a €20 discount

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

my guess is it's obsolete, nobody in their right mind would purchase a non HD TV now and so the market for a non HD box is tiny.

Correct unless you didn't have the money for a brand new HDTV... Or better yet the money for any new TV! In which case a €15 box with only standard output and 30+ TV channels would do the finest

STB

colmtheperson wrote: »

True... But my point being is that if Bush can create a STB for the UK market and sell it at that price why can't they do it down south? Surely MPEG4 tuners and HD capabilities have plummeted in price by now... Sorry I should have been more clear




The saorview one is including a €20 discount



Correct unless you didn't have the money for a brand new HDTV... Or better yet the money for any new TV! In which case a €15 box with only standard output and 30+ TV channels would do the finest

Saorview and Freeview HD are not the exact same specification.

Be careful of buying heavily reduced stb stock from the UK. There are either old Freeview SD (MPEG2) stock (incompatible with Ireland) or are problem stock with heavy returns.

There is already Saorview (Bush) box for €50 as detailed in this thread. Again they are part of a Vestel T8300 generic approval from Terracom. They will most likely appear under rebranding names (Akura/Technika/Bush) at cheap prices from supermarket chains.