Eir TV

bugsyb4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121544469#Comment_121544469

We have a refurbished box in our bedroom for around 9 months and no issues, someone on here had advised about getting it and was a great tip!!

bugsyb4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121544527#Comment_121544527

Always codes for NOW TV on the boards thread here, one of the best threads on boards and very active. Am currently paying €15 p/m for 12 months for Sky Sports and €10 p/m for 6 months for TNT Sports and Premier Sports! Could never justify paying full price for Sports every month and haven't had to for I reckon must be over 2 years since started using NOW!!

babelfish1990

Yes - I have bought several of the reconditioned Apple TV boxes from Eir and they work perfectly. You might get a minor scratch or two on the outside finish, but nothing that will affect performance - and they are fully guaranteed. These boxes have no hard disks like the legacy TV boxes, so there are no moving parts to break. The only issue you might have is that the reconditioned boxes seem to ship with the original Apple remote controls, whereas the free Apple TV box that comes with your eir contract ships with an eir branded remote. If you want to keep the same remotes across all your devices, eir sell their branded remotes separately.

icdg

It always bears mentioning that there’s an excellent thread over in Bargain Alerts that if you keep monitoring will reduce the price of Now TV quite a bit, you should be able to get both sports packages for a combined price of about €30 or less on occasion.

decor58

Sorry, I know it's off topic but we got Sky movies for 1e a month through Now, handy for the winter months, it pays to keep an eye.

MarsCur

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120419879#Comment_120419879

Hi. Just wondering did you manage to re-contract keeping your old eirvision box or did you have to get the Apple tv box ?

If you had to go with apple tv box, any issues with it and with tv/broadband service since please ?

bugsyb4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121639676#Comment_121639676

No I went with the Apple TV Box and tbf am quite happy with it as is working a lot better than my old Eirvision box was, I only really wanted to keep it for my recordings most of which I was never going to watch anyway haha. The only thing that annoys me is I can't record programmes on the Irish channels but always have the RTE and Virgin Media players to watch stuff back on but I find myself not bothering. The Apple box has all your apps in the one place.

On an aside if looking for multiroom I wouldn't include in contract I would just buy a separate refurbished one from Eir store which I got the tip of I think from this thread or else one very similar. As far as I know Eir charge €10 p/m for multiroom whereas I think I made a once off payment of somewhere between €60-80 for a refurbished box around 9 months ago and no issues since!

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121639888#Comment_121639888

I also migrated from the old eir Vision box to the eir Apple TV 4K+. I am also generally happy with the move. I was a little reluctant to move initially, because of the possibility of issues with recordings - but on balance the advantages of the new platform justify the migration, in my view. All the providers are moving away from the hard-disk legacy boxes, and so you might as well bite the bullet and move now before you are forced to move because something stops working on the old box.

The main advantages are having all TV apps (Netflix, eir TV, Prime, etc) on the same platform, with a proper desktop GUI rather than navigating a legacy clunky legacy TV box. The main disadvantage is that the Irish channels do not allow recording - but as mentioned by bugsyb4 this is not a huge issue, because their Player apps run on the Apple TV box. Eir have unrestricted recording of BBC and other UK channels (unlike Vodafone & Sky who seem to be unable to offer this) - this is critical because BBC i-Player is not available in Ireland. I also second the idea of doing multi-room with additional Apple TV boxes purchased off the eir Store site - I have bought several of these, and they work fine and are fantastic value. Multi-room multi-channel TV for €9.99pm is the best deal around, and the Apple TV platform is the best of the cloud TV hardware platforms.

Bellie1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121640881#Comment_121640881

That's strange that only eir have BBC recording. If watching stuff on the rte player via eir, can you fast forward ads?

icdg

Sky Stream has a BBC on demand section (they are rather insistent it not be referred to as iPlayer) in lieu of recording. When I had Sky it had only launched and the selection wasn’t great but I’m led to believe it’s improved a bit.

The platforms with traditional hard drives (Sky Q and VM TV360) can record on all channels including BBC.

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121642720#Comment_121642720

Vodafone & Sky are UK companies, and everyone can get unrestricted BBC i-Player in UK, so they probably assumed that they don't need to allow recording on their new platform in Ireland? You cannot fast forward ads on the RTE player. This is likely the reason why the advertising supported channels are all trying to discourage hard disk players and why all the TV providers will ultimately be forced to migrate from their legacy boxes to streaming with cloud players. With streaming, the advertising can also be localized more accurately. The migration to 4K/8K with fibre broadband distribution and the retirement of satellite & cable distribution will give all the providers an opportunity to retire their hard-disk boxes. It won't happen overnight, but you can expect the monthly fees for hard-disk subscriptions to remain relatively high or increase vs streaming players, to encourage the retirement of hard disk boxes.

icdg

You’ve raised that point about them being UK companies again, and it’s just not a charge that’s true, in the sense of them bringing a UK product to Ireland unaltered.

Sky are well aware of the situation. The days when their Irish operation was one man and a dog selling the UK service with barely any changes are long gone, they employ a significant number of staff here these days. They have done a specific deal to carry on demand BBC content in Ireland, rights issues stop it from being everything at this point but hopefully that situation will get better. BBC have an issue with it being called iPlayer, I’m not sure why that is, but it allows catch up of some recent BBC on demand content.

As regards Vodafone it’s already been pointed out that they don’t have a TV offering of their own in the UK, they are offering an unmodified Apple TV box with no specific Vodafone content offering and a bundled Apple TV+ sub which isn’t the same thing. Their new TV Play product was first launched in Portugal and is being rolled out in a number of European markets but not the UK.

bassy

i am a eir fibre customer and have eir sim plan also.

wonder if i got a apple box could i view the eir channels or is there another fee for the channels ?.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121672082#Comment_121672082

There's a separate fee according to their site. Assume it would need to be provisioned on your account.

icdg

In the days of eir Sport you could view eir Sport, Freesports, and for some odd reason, TG4, with an eir broadband (not tv) subscription. But those days are long gone. Maybe TG4 still works.

babelfish1990

You need to add eir TV to your bundle in order to activate the streaming of live TV channels. This adds €9.99pm to your bundle cost, but you get your first Apple TV box & Amazon Prime Video included free with the subscription. You can buy additional Apple TV boxes outright, to avoid paying additional multiroom fee. Eir sell reconditioned Apple boxes on their eir Store site for €59.99, which is a great price.

starlit

Hi is it still worth getting eir tv over sky? In a country area in Munster.

babelfish1990

Eir TV is a much better platform than Sky Stream. Eir use the Apple 4k TV box with very good sound integration. Eir have the best recording options of all the Streaming providers, with unrestricted recording of UK channels. Eir is also excellent value at €9.99pm. and there is no extra charge if you want to add multi-room using your own boxes. Works fine if your broadband is >20Mbps.