Looking for a legit box for standard UK and Irish channels

trellheim

thanks in advance

I am looking for something I can just connect to a wifi and comes out of the box with irish and uk freeview channels and has a remote control

must not be tied to virgin or voda or any particular internet provider

happy to pay a tenner a month or whatever but must not be a dodgy box

nice to have but not mandatory netflix , prime , apple tv apps.

any ideas ?

icdg

OP you won’t find what you are looking for I think. If you are willing to be tied to eir broadband (and I appreciate, having had a nightmare last time I tried to cancel them, why you might not want to be), eir TV probably comes closest to what you want for the price point you are willing to pay.

An Apple TV or Fire TV with RTE/VMTV/TG4 apps will give you most of what you want except U.K. channels. If you can you could put up a satellite dish to receive those.

trellheim

thanks - even if I paid 50 quid a month ? still nothing out there ?

babelfish1990

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119679425#Comment_119679425

Eir TV is €9.99 per month if you take it in a bundle with Eir fibre. You get an Apple 4k+ TV box included in the bundle, and this does everything you are looking for wirelessly. You can pay an extra monthly fee for multiroom, but you can also buy additional Apple TV boxes yourself, and you will have multiroom without any additional monthly fee. (Eir don't advertise this, but is is a big advantage of their system). Eir sell as-new refurbished Apple TV boxes for €79.99 which is an excellent price, if you want to add your own multi-room boxes. Bundle cost including TV & Fibre Broadband is €44.98pm for 12 months. You can also add 5G mobile SIMs to your bundle for €9.99pm I don't see why you want to pay €50pm for TV alone when you can get muti-room TV fully legally for €9.99pm?

icdg

Sky are now the only broadband-neutral pay-TV platform, all others will require you to take their broadband. You’ll need to put up a dish.. Sky Stream (their fully IPTV option) will be along at some point but could be another year or more based on the lag it took to launch Glass.

trellheim

Thanks for the responses. As I said, can't be tied to a broadband provider. It was a faint hope but I was hoping those more in-the-know could help . Does NowTV or anything like that make any difference.

It looks like I'll have to get a dish in and go saorview + freesat , at that point theres no need for Sky , + as you say an apple tv for the streaming services

Pity.

cuttingtimber22

Have you tried ibox? They have an app on the Apple TV box. Basic channels is 3 euro per month with an offering up to 10 euro per month. Also have a 7 day look back period.

trellheim

thanks ibox looks interesting . Still a 12 month lock in tho

ubermick

Myself and the family are looking at moving back to Ireland next summer, and been eyeing Eir as the best option. That 24 month introductory price does my head in though. €45 a month for 24 months, but then it doubles in price. And since you're dependent on them for the TV access, canceling them and switching to a different provider means you lose TV access as well.

Looked into ibox, but have heard they're fierce buggy altogether.

It really is a shame there isn't a Saorview/freeview option for the Apple TV or Fire TV that isn't IPTV.

mikeecho

I've smart android tvs, and tbh, I'd be better off with a dumb tv for terrestrial, and a freesat stb and a dongle (Google tv or firestick)

If u want subscription tv, just get sky.

I have a room where I have just that setup. Old tv, Google tv dongle, and a freesat box.

I do have some questionable apps installed on the Google dongle.

It works well for me, but it might not be what you're looking for.

trellheim

no can't be a subscription, must be month to month with no lockin . Oh it'd be an easy job to do the dodgy thing here, but companies just flat out do not want to provide answers here.

pizzahead77

Sky have launched their Glass TV here in Ireland and have launched their Stream box (standalone box version of Glass TV) in the UK which works over broadband.

I'd imagine that they'll launch it in Ireland next year