Brand New 55" Android SOny TV - No RTE Player?!

sticker

Hi all,

I bought this TV recently:
http://www.harveynorman.ie/tvs-headphones/hd-tvs/sony-55-led-tv-kd55x8509cbu.html

Its great and I'm delighted with it. It has the play store installed and many apps - its android based, but for the life of me, I cannot seem to find the RTE player to install as an app.

When I do a search in the play store it get zero results.

Any shed any light on this?

Thanks!

drunkmonkey

What country play store you in? Are you using anything like unblock-us, hide my ass etc?

sticker

drunkmonkey wrote: »

What country play store you in? Are you using anything like unblock-us, hide my ass etc?

Not sure. How do I check the region? If the set was flogged in Europe, I assume its coded to that?

Never heard of those others - are they apps?

johnybean

Open to correction here but I dont think you can get RTE player on Sony tvs. I have an older Sony smart TV and cant get RTE player on it and I have Samsung smart tv which came with RTE player built in so I believe Samsung may have exclusive rights to RTE player.

sticker

Anyone confirm I cannot get RTE player on Sony TV?

I've tried to use RTE player on my Samsung GS6 and Chromecast to TV but the quality and lip synch is terrible!

sticker

Anyone confrim RTE player is unavailable on Sony TV?

runswithascript

I was onto RTE during the week to ask them about developing an app for Android TV which runs on my NVidia Shield. Here is an extract from the email:

An RTÉ Player app was created for Samsung TV app first as they have the largest share of the TV market in Ireland. Additional apps for other connected TV devices such as Sony are not currently available.We clearly outline ways to watch RTÉ Player through the website 'About' section available here: http://www.rte.ie/player/assets/watch/

All of our TVs are Samsung, and I am in the market for a new one now, and being able to have RTÉ Player, BBC iPlayer, All4, ITVHub, running on them would be a factor when choosing.

Consider returning your TV for a Samsung if it bothers you that much. Bear in mind, with a Samsung, if you block updates at your router before you ever connect it to the Internet, you can load the players from UK and Ireland, if you let it update you can only install either the Irish apps or the UK apps.

You could consider getting a third party device to run the players, but I do not think one exists that has all of the Irish and all of the British working properly. I have checked with Amazon Fire, Nvidia Shield, a plethora of other Android boxes, and many devices running Kodi.

colm_mcm

Can you run RTE player through the browser?
Family member got one of the new Sony 55" as well, dunno if it's the same model but the Smart functions on it aren't great, remote is very counterintuitive.

bmwguy

I almost bought a Sony or a LG or something 2 years ago when I bought my TV, Harvey Norman too. Just as I was about to buy it I mentioned rte player and the salesman told me it was only available on Samsung so I took the Samsung. You can get rte player on an android box (cost about 50 quid) and use it that way.

runswithascript

bmwguy wrote: »

I almost bought a Sony or a LG or something 2 years ago when I bought my TV, Harvey Norman too. Just as I was about to buy it I mentioned rte player and the salesman told me it was only available on Samsung so I took the Samsung. You can get rte player on an android box (cost about 50 quid) and use it that way.

Yes, I see people browsing TVs whenever I am in electronics stores and often think how most of them probably do not realise until they are home, they may have Netflix and YouTube, but are missing a lot of other content.

Yes, you install the regular Android version of RTÉ Player, TG4, and 3Player, but you will have to navigate RTE Player on Android from your remote control, unless you have one that will move a mouse cursor on screen, or you connect a mouse or gamepad etc, no?

I would be happy to learn I am wrong on this...

bmwguy

dusf wrote: »

Yes, but you cannot navigate RTE Player on Android from your remote control, unless you have one that will move a mouse cursor on screen, or you connect a mouse or gamepad etc, no?

I would be happy to learn I am wrong on this...

There is a seperate remote control for the android box. I got an air mouse as they are called just point it at the tv and move it to move the cursor. It's actually a much faster than my Samsung remote for navigating menus

runswithascript

bmwguy wrote: »

There is a seperate remote control for the android box. I got an air mouse as they are called just point it at the tv and move it to move the cursor. It's actually a much faster than my Samsung remote for navigating menus

I had something similar with the remote of my old Xunity Eclipse, although that was a POS so your airmouse is probably better. That said, personally I would only opt for not being able to press, up, down, left, right on the remote to navigate on demand players the way they are meant to work as a last resort.

bmwguy

dusf wrote: »

I had something similar with the remote of my old Xunity Eclipse, although that was a POS so your airmouse is probably better. That said, personally I would only opt for not being able to press, up, down, left, right on the remote to navigate on demand players the way they are meant to work as a last resort.

You can do it that way too if you want pressing up down left right there is a button to turn off the point and click feature and use the directional buttons instead. The one I got with the box was rubbish so I went and got this. It's a great bit of kit it was 20 Euro and really makes a difference


https://www.google.ie/search?q=air+mouse+for+android+tv+box&client=ms-android-htc-rev&biw=360&bih=511&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD-9yfwevMAhUHJsAKHQ-yApQQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=NeIW7acYinMPZM%3A

runswithascript

bmwguy wrote: »

You can do it that way too if you want pressing up down left right there is a button to turn off the point and click feature and use the directional buttons instead. The one I got with the box was rubbish so I went and got this. It's a great bit of kit it was 20 Euro and really makes a difference


https://www.google.ie/search?q=air+mouse+for+android+tv+box&client=ms-android-htc-rev&biw=360&bih=511&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD-9yfwevMAhUHJsAKHQ-yApQQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=NeIW7acYinMPZM%3A

Yes, but you are still moving a pointer on screen rather than pressing buttons to move through options on screen directly, right?

bmwguy

dusf wrote: »

Yes, but you are still moving a pointer on screen rather than pressing buttons to move through options on screen directly, right?

No. See the big blue OK button? There are 4 directional buttons around that above and below and left and right. They don't move a cursor they move through menus in the traditional way most people would be used to.

runswithascript

bmwguy wrote: »

No. See the big blue OK button? There are 4 directional buttons around that above and below and left and right. They don't move a cursor they move through menus in the traditional way most people would be used to.

Wow, okay!

Just to be clear, those arrows button cycle through on screen buttons, even using regular Android apps designed for touch screen devices, like RTÉ Player, 3Player, etc, and navigation is just the same as say using RTÉ Player on a Samsung Smart TV?

runswithascript

I have looked through a few videos on YouTube but I have not yet been able to find anyone navigating using an airmouse without a point on screen.

bmwguy

dusf wrote: »

Wow, okay!

Just to be clear, those arrows button cycle through on screen buttons, even using regular Android apps designed for touch screen devices, like RTÉ Player, 3Player, etc, and navigation is just the same as say using RTÉ Player on a Samsung Smart TV?

That's correct. In fact you have to use them quite a lot as many menus don't fit on a single screen and you have to scroll through them to get the to the end of the list. Cursor only works with Whats visible on screen at the time, direction buttons navigate to next screen. You use both really. Only app I ever had that didn't work very well on it is the eir go tv app. It works very well on everything else. I use rte player, Netflix, YouTube, kodi and showbox mainly. I have 3 player app but don't think I have ever used it.

runswithascript

bmwguy wrote: »

That's correct. In fact you have to use them quite a lot as many menus don't fit on a single screen and you have to scroll through them to get the to the end of the list. Cursor only works with Whats visible on screen at the time, direction buttons navigate to next screen. You use both really. Only app I ever had that didn't work very well on it is the eir go tv app. It works very well on everything else. I use rte player, Netflix, YouTube, kodi and showbox mainly. I have 3 player app but don't think I have ever used it.

Like I said, I would like to see this in action, could not find a video on YouTube where they did not use a cursor on screen to select the on screen options.

With the apps specifically built to be used with remote controls, be they say Android TV versions of for instance BBC iPlayer, or the Samsung 'widget' for same, moving through the buttons moves the screen if necessary.

There should be Android TV versions of Netflix and YouTube available, though if you are happy to keep using the normal Android version no need to change

I have a thread here on boards, xdadevelopers, and reddit, requesting someone with a Fire TV to extract the APKs for All4, ITVHub, and the irish players (although I fear they may not exist on that platform) to see if they work on Android TV - some other apks have been extracted and are cross compatible. These could be of use to the OP.

bmwguy

Well dusf this seems to be a big issue for me you really hate cursors! If you want pm your phone number I can send you a video of it in use by whatsapp if you have it. I'll just do a video of my android box going from the home screen to playing a video using only the directional buttons. Up to you though.

cgaie

johnybean wrote: »

Open to correction here but I dont think you can get RTE player on Sony tvs. I have an older Sony smart TV and cant get RTE player on it and I have Samsung smart tv which came with RTE player built in so I believe Samsung may have exclusive rights to RTE player.

RTÉ player just stopped working on Samsung TV

omeara1113

i got around it on my sony tv by downloading the app to my phone and casting it on to the tv

jim salter

cgaie wrote: »

RTÉ player just stopped working on Samsung TV

I would hope this issue has been resolved as the post is 4 years old?!