Eir TV

The procedure for setting up the 2nd box (refurbished box) was exactly the same as for the 1st (official eir box). There was no need to enter my eir account details - both boxes appear to pick these up automatically - presumably from the physical address of my Broadband connection. It is possible that eir might cutoff additional boxes not registered as multi-room, at some stage. This thought did occur to me also. However, I think that Eir are keen to price TV & Mobile services very aggressively in bundles, to win over customers who are paying for costly bundles from other providers, and they may turn a blind-eye to DIY multi-room. They are even selling the refurbished boxes on the eir website - so this seems to suggest that they might quietly be endorsing the practice. If you buy your own boxes, they don't have to recoup the cost of shipping new boxes from Apple, and supporting them, and these are probably their main additional cost drivers for multi-room.

Thanks for the helpful info, Babelfish. I see there are two versions of the Apple 4K boxes - is it the first generation (2017) or second generation (2021) that Eir supply?

Thanks. Hard to say. They don't mention what version.

For anyone interested in the Beijing Winter Olympics I see that today there's a new addition in the channel listings. Eurosport Winter Olympics 4K has been added to the menu starting in a few days. So far the dreaded padlock is missing indicating that it could be extra content at no further cost and in Glorious 4K too!

Anyone else having problems with recording shows off BBC, I'm now longer able to skip forward when watching later on

apple

yeah it was like that for about a week all sorted now. Saying that when I first got it last May you could record off channel 4 in HD now it only allows you to record in SD, I like to record stuff instead of using the channel 4 app so I can skip the ads, but other than that I'm happy with it

I can't be definitive about it - but I upgraded from Eir Vision to Eir's Apple TV box last November. At that stage, some of the recording features on the old box had stopped working, and Eir told me that the box was being phased out, and that I needed to upgrade, as the eir Vision platform was not being actively supported and would be phased out within the next year. They also told me that once I upgraded there was definitely no migration path to revert back to eir Vision (this sounds like where your neighbour is - so they won't be able to go backwards). I was a bit wary of upgrading to the Apple TV box, as I found the eir Vision service very good, and I knew that some of the Irish & UK TV channels have not embraced Cloud recording as offered on the Apple TV Box. However, having upgraded, I was pleased to discover that the UK channels have now come on board for Cloud recording, and only the Irish channels are now left behind. This is not such a problem as you can do catch-up via RTE player, and the dedicated Catch-up feature on eir TV.

Regarding the user experience, eir TV is much closer to a Computer user interface than legacy TV boxes. For the vast majority of users, having Netflix, Amazon Prime, eir TV etc all on the same desktop with the same user interface is a huge convenience. Nevertheless, I could understand that users not familiar with desktops and mice might find the experience a bit daunting. If your neighbour is using the original Apple remote, that may be partly causing the frustration. The Apple remote has a touch sensitive user interface like an i-Pod. Eir now shipping a "dumbed-down" remote - which is probably more suitable for users who are not familiar with touch-sensitive interfaces. Maybe you need to ask eir for one of the dumbed down remotes, if you are using the Apple remote?

It ships with the Eir simplified remote as standard.

Could Siri help? Can you switch channels on EirTV using voice commands?

Yeah i find Siri on the eir remote real handy, you can use the voice commands to change channels, restart skip a few mins forward and back on recordings or open different apps. I was missing the backup button on the evision remote but the voice commands are just as handy. It took my parents a few weeks to get the hang of the new remote but they love it now. If your really stuck you can always train the evision remote to work on the apple tv/ eir tv app (or any remote for that matter).

The EirVision box has a hard disk that saves the recordings locally. If the box is plugged out you won't get any new recordings - but recordings made before you plugged it out will still be there when you return.

Eir's Apple TV box does not have a hard disk - it uses cloud recording, so recordings should still proceed even if the box is plugged out.

Ah is that Eir's doing, cheeky f**kers!

Noticed that on last episode of Derry Girls I think so just watched on All4 will be doing that a lot more so if that's the case!!

silly question im sure. but is there no way at all of using this if you dont have eir broadband? Got it for the mother and she hates it, but in contract for the year. I assume i cant cancel and i dont want to change my own BB provider at home. vpn or anything elsemight make it work?