New RTE Player

Tigerandahalf · 10-11-2019 11:47pm

You could cast it to a pc monitor and watch live tv - no tv licence needed so maybe they realised the fallback and removed it.

vidapura · 11-11-2019 11:25am

decor58 wrote: »

Is that the old (yellow and black) one, my Samsung bluray has the message that the app won't be available from November 11th.

I gave up on the RTE Player app on the LG.. just non-functional.

I got a NowTV stick for the kitchen TV and strangely enough it has a working RTE player on it ...

Still has sh*teloads of ads, but it does eventually play the programme...

mcquaim · 11-11-2019 11:52am

Yeah, I have it on the Shield TV and on an LG TV.

It seems to be a version designed for Android TV boxes and it's pretty decent. The version that is available to sideload seems to be for touch devices and doesn't work on the Fire TV.

Is it possible to download an APK from the Shield TV for instance and load it onto the Fire TV?

mackersdublin · 11-11-2019 12:07pm

decor58 wrote: »

Is that the old (yellow and black) one, my Samsung bluray has the message that the app won't be available from November 11th.

A relative's 2014 Samsung Smart TV (H6700) has the same message regarding not working after today. And there's no way of updating the app to the newer version. The TV is only 5 years old. Surely RTÉ should be making sure their app is available to Samsung TVs

vidapura · 11-11-2019 12:33pm

mackersdublin wrote: »

Surely RTÉ should be making sure their app is available to Samsung TVs

Surely if RTE and the government are making it mandatory for every household in the country to pay a license fee they should be expected to at least provide a functional Player.. for All platforms...

decor58 · 11-11-2019 1:31pm

vidapura wrote: »

Surely if RTE and the government are making it mandatory for every household in the country to pay a license fee they should be expected to at least provide a functional Player.. for All platforms...

We bought a Sony TV in 2011, and most of the apps on it were useless within 18 months, tv3, Netflix, Sky news, BBC news, the message was "this app is not compatible with your device". It was one the early SMART tv's, who bears the responsibility, the app developer or the product manufacturer, same with phones, apps update all the time.

garv123 · 11-11-2019 1:31pm

I find RTE player absolutely awful lately!

We dont have any top internet, but we get speeds of about 7-10mb.

With no issues at all, we watch Netflix, Prime, Now tv, and then we use Virgin Player on the laptop.

But RTE player is absolutely useless. Always buffering, it works slightly better on the laptop than the tv but still not good enough to watch an episode.

But yet the ads all load perfect, but it might freeze at the end of the ads, and when you refresh you have to rewatch the ads. Then when you skip onto where you stopped you have to watch more ads because you're skipping an ad break along the way.
I dunno why I bother paying the TV licence for such crap service. Then when you go abroad you have to pay for GAA games.

11-11-2019 4:25pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Rte player no longer working on LG tv. It doesn't even load the first screen.

The new updated version of the RTE player is still working on my LG,I watched an episode of Paths To Freedom during the lunch break!

garv123 · 11-11-2019 9:43pm

Rte player stopped working on my Samsung TV today. Says update now to keep watching but In small blurry font it says available on computer devices only. The update says the service is having issues try again.

jimmycrackcorm · 11-11-2019 9:52pm

Chatting to someone who works in RTE recently about the player. He said internally they run it thinking that they have good connectivity. But he says the problems are the scale out on demand, that they won't consider streaming via AWS and as such, it'll never be able to cope.

FRIENDO · 12-11-2019 1:07am

New RTE player not working on the Now TV stick either

Everything else perfect

beauf · 12-11-2019 1:26am

FRIENDO wrote: »

New RTE player not working on the Now TV stick either

Everything else perfect

Same here. The oh watches it on the phone, and it crashes constantly. I've given up on it. 10yrs they've been trying to get this working and its still abysmal.

vidapura · 12-11-2019 10:53am

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Chatting to someone who works in RTE recently about the player. He said internally they run it thinking that they have good connectivity. But he says the problems are the scale out on demand, that they won't consider streaming via AWS and as such, it'll never be able to cope.

Yeah its fairly obvious they don't have much technical nous in the place.
I doubt it was developed in-house and I'd say internally they don't have a clue.

garv123 · 12-11-2019 3:41pm

The "contact us" part of RTE player is slow and glitchy, and I cant leave a message..

That really sums it up.

Kurn · 13-11-2019 2:09pm

Yea last night I said I'd watch something on the bus in RTE Player, 4 ads loaded, it played the program for 5 mins and then completly crashed.

I have to say I have never noticed any other app crash like that on my iPhone. On my LG TV, it seems very slow and sluggish, like the TV is pushed to it's limits trying to load it. Then it askes me to login regardless of the fact I already did log in. Then I get stream not found or it works eventually.

mackersdublin · 13-11-2019 6:01pm

mackersdublin wrote: »

A relative's 2014 Samsung Smart TV (H6700) has the same message regarding not working after today. And there's no way of updating the app to the newer version. The TV is only 5 years old. Surely RTÉ should be making sure their app is available to Samsung TVs

I contacted RTÉ yesterday via https://www.rte.ie/player/profile/contact

And this was their response this evening...

Hi ***,
Thank you for getting in touch with RTÉ Player.
Some Smart TV's (LG/Samsung) are no longer providing updates or support for this particular version of the operating system. As such, if you have an operating system that pre-dates 2015 the latest RTÉ Player app update may not be compatible with your TV. If possible, please update the software on your TV to the latest version. If you are unable to do this, I'm afraid that I can no longer provide technical support regarding this issue.
Best wishes,
***.

So basically any LG or Samsung Smart TV older than 4 years won't have access to RTÉ Player. And yes the TV has the latest software update. What a complete joke

ShaneOC · 27-11-2019 9:39pm

Good news! Was able to update to the new (Red) RTE player on my LG TV a few minutes ago.

mossy464 · 27-11-2019 9:46pm

ShaneOC wrote: »

Good news! Was able to update to the new (Red) RTE player on my LG TV a few minutes ago.

How old is your LG? Mine is two years old but don't have the option to update when I open rte player and can't find it in the content store either.

I've also checked the TV for a software update and it's up to date.

Such a pain

ShaneOC · 27-11-2019 10:28pm

mossy464 wrote: »

How old is your LG? Mine is two years old but don't have the option to update when I open rte player and can't find it in the content store either.

I've also checked the TV for a software update and it's up to date.

Such a pain

Mine is about 3 years old. I had it set to the UK content store and when I switched it back to the Irish one it said some apps needed to be updated and the new RTE player was available.

Tigerandahalf · 27-11-2019 10:32pm

ShaneOC wrote: »

Mine is about 3 years old. I had it set to the UK content store and when I switched it back to the Irish one it said some apps needed to be updated and the new RTE player was available.

I have done this. No virgin media player comes up in the content store, just youtube clips.
The rte player won't load for me either.

Do you have the broadcast country and the lg content store both set to Ireland?

ShaneOC · 27-11-2019 10:39pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

I have done this. No virgin media player comes up in the content store, just youtube clips.
The rte player won't load for me either.

Do you have the broadcast country and the lg content store both set to Ireland?

No, broadcast country is set to the UK.

I don't have Virgin Media player showing up either.

Tigerandahalf · 27-11-2019 10:42pm

ShaneOC wrote: »

No, broadcast country is set to the UK.

I don't have Virgin Media player showing up either.

I have the same as that but the rte player won't load for me. I have just noticed that the rte player is no longer in my dns database so I will contact the provider.

mossy464 · 27-11-2019 11:22pm

ShaneOC wrote: »

Mine is about 3 years old. I had it set to the UK content store and when I switched it back to the Irish one it said some apps needed to be updated and the new RTE player was available.

I changed my LG services country back to Ireland and I was able to find the new RTE app in the content store.

In order to install it I had to remove the old one first as it kept opening that one.

I have the new one installed now, although the first thing I tried to watch didn't load.

Anyway, progress

Tigerandahalf · 28-11-2019 8:58am

I contacted my dns provider. It seems they have removed support for the rte player as rte were constantly blocking their servers in Ireland. That is what they say. Maybe rte issued a strongly worded letter. I won't be bothering with the rte player now.

garv123 · 29-11-2019 10:56am

I noticed my samsung 6 tv downloaded a new RTE player by itself in the last few days. The red logo one. The old one was still there too.
Seemed to open up ok. Didnt have time to check how well it worked.

Tigerandahalf · 29-11-2019 7:47pm

The lg app doesn't seem to remember where you previously watched even though you register an id with it. Is that the same with the other tv apps.

Other half wants it for the late late toy show so I might end up just chromecasting from the phone.

Higgins5473 · 29-11-2019 8:10pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

The lg app doesn't seem to remember where you previously watched even though you register an id with it. Is that the same with the other tv apps.

Other half wants it for the late late toy show so I might end up just chromecasting from the phone.

I thought the LG app doesn't even have a watch live function. That's how mine is anyway, just playback.

Tigerandahalf · 29-11-2019 8:17pm

There is no live stream. Neither is there a catchup. It is just a random series of tiles. You can't see content from yesterday or the days before.

I use the iplayer and the difference in quality is staggering.

Higgins5473 · 29-11-2019 8:24pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

There is no live stream. Neither is there a catchup. It is just a random series of tiles. You can't see content from yesterday or the days before.

I use the iplayer and the difference in quality is staggering.

sorry, misunderstood, thought you were saying you would watch it live on LG tv using player tonight.

I haven't used RTE player in months, you can exaggerate criticisms but when I say RTE player is unusable and completely useless...it really is just that.

Kurn · 30-11-2019 10:16pm

I started watching Frasier series on RTE player. The last week - every single episode _null_stream. Has anyone in RTE not come accorss the fact that most of their titles don't actually load...

lertsnim · 01-12-2019 2:27pm

Kurn wrote: »

I started watching Frasier series on RTE player. The last week - every single episode _null_stream. Has anyone in RTE not come accorss the fact that most of their titles don't actually load...

I just tried Frasier now on a LG TV and Frasier plays normally here.

garv123 · 01-12-2019 5:46pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

The lg app doesn't seem to remember where you previously watched even though you register an id with it. Is that the same with the other tv apps.

Other half wants it for the late late toy show so I might end up just chromecasting from the phone.

Same with the Samsung. You have to restart the episode of of course watch even more ads.

Higgins5473 · 01-12-2019 9:06pm

garv123 wrote: »

Same with the Samsung. You have to restart the episode of of course watch even more ads.

This is a genuine question without any anti RTE app stuff, but how can say Netflix prime etc run perfectly for me on a 1gbps fiber connection and then Rte app buffers, adds etc?

Before complaints be made tot he bai what is the issue with Rte and seeing ads aside from the obvious

garv123 · 01-12-2019 9:59pm

Higgins5473 wrote: »

This is a genuine question without any anti RTE app stuff, but how can say Netflix prime etc run perfectly for me on a 1gbps fiber connection and then Rte app buffers, adds etc?

Before complaints be made tot he bai what is the issue with Rte and seeing ads aside from the obvious

With the ads, you watch the ads at the beginning, grand no issues, but if you have to skip forward to where you stopped watching, You must watch the same ads again straight away. Then if it freezes and you have to refresh, guess what? Both sets of ads again.

Higgins5473 · 02-12-2019 9:58am

garv123 wrote: »

With the ads, you watch the ads at the beginning, grand no issues, but if you have to skip forward to where you stopped watching, You must watch the same ads again straight away. Then if it freezes and you have to refresh, guess what? Both sets of ads again.

Yeah, I've noticed that much...my question was more from a technical perspective . I am watching Netflix with some 4k content and it has never ght buffered even once. I turned on the player last night before posting and tried 'bachelors walk' for a bit of nostalgia. Buffered within 10 minutes of play to a freeze, only option to restart and view the ads again.

I am sure RTE get paid per ad view/play. Is this potentially deliberate? How can other streaming services run perfectly with content that requires far higher levels of data transmission but the RTE app freezes all the time without fail.

Ten Pin · 02-12-2019 12:18pm

No idea but IMO this is what happens...

TLDR...RTE don't have enough server capacity.

Request for RTE player stream from RTE server redirects to whichever server is providing the ads and when the ads finish they redirect back to RTE servers...but their servers don't have enough capacity to fulfill all the requests and then redirects to the ad servers again but forgets that you have already seen the ads...same with fast forward...it's probably treated as a new request and you have to go back through the ads again because they forget where you were in the program (accidentally of course...)

It's like a Grand Prix where you get redirected to the pit lane on every lap because there's too many cars on the track, instead of widening the track they force you into the pits...which is an accurate description of the RTE player. Even when you do get on to the track it's full of potholes to make it more annoying.

The question is whether the ad overload is by accident or design but the pertinent question is whether RTE get paid for the endless ads even if no program plays...the suspicion is that they do which is a questionable policy and should be scrutinised....but that level of technical expertise probably isn't available in BAI so nothing will be done and someone will shout about commercial sensitivity to fob it off.

The fact that the player is a subject of discussion on current affairs programs is some indictment of the shambles it is.

RTE mentioning it in every ad break as a usable catch up service shows how little they care....it leaves them open to the accusation that it's just a means of harvesting ad revenue.

Never had any problems with TG4 player...how can they do it correctly...

Quackster · 02-12-2019 12:22pm

RTE obviously aren't paying for sufficient bandwidth at their end to serve the demand.

Much as I'd rather stay within the law and am happy to watch my quota of ads to help fund the national broadcaster, the quality of experience is so dismal that I've more-or-less given up on the RTE Player at this stage and watch the content where it's available on the BBC iPlayer or via torrenting instead.

EdmondShiels3 · 12-12-2019 9:43pm

RTE player keep buffering. Unusable.

KildareP · 13-12-2019 10:30am

Quackster wrote: »

RTE obviously aren't paying for sufficient bandwidth at their end to serve the demand.

Much as I'd rather stay within the law and am happy to watch my quota of ads to help fund the national broadcaster, the quality of experience is so dismal that I've more-or-less given up on the RTE Player at this stage and watch the content where it's available on the BBC iPlayer or via torrenting instead.

Same.

They stream everything locally out of Donnybrook unlike Sky, BBC or Netflix who uses a Content Delivery Network provider like Akamai (or in Netflix's case they went and built their own and Amazon Prime naturally uses AWS).

A CDN will scale to demand but naturally you pay to scale versus having a fixed cost circuit and a streaming server sitting in Donnybrook and once it's maxed out then that's that and unlucky to anyone new trying to connect.

Or, as seems to happen more often in times of high demand, the circuit and streaming servie is so under pressure it just fails entirely and everyone gets cut off.

Ads are probably served off another server or service to content so are better able to cope under demand which is why it's near flawless in streaming the ads but hit the content and it's goodnight lights out.

Elmo · 17-12-2019 11:10am

KildareP wrote: »

Same.

They stream everything locally out of Donnybrook unlike Sky, BBC or Netflix who uses a Content Delivery Network provider like Akamai (or in Netflix's case they went and built their own and Amazon Prime naturally uses AWS).

A CDN will scale to demand but naturally you pay to scale versus having a fixed cost circuit and a streaming server sitting in Donnybrook and once it's maxed out then that's that and unlucky to anyone new trying to connect.

Or, as seems to happen more often in times of high demand, the circuit and streaming servie is so under pressure it just fails entirely and everyone gets cut off.

Ads are probably served off another server or service to content so are better able to cope under demand which is why it's near flawless in streaming the ads but hit the content and it's goodnight lights out.

Netflix uses AWS afaik.

I could be wrong but I'd question why RTÉ didn't examine the idea of using AWS along with Netflix opensource software.

KildareP · 17-12-2019 11:12am

Elmo wrote: »

Netflix uses AWS afaik.

I could be wrong but I'd question why RTÉ didn't examine the idea of using AWS along with Netflix opensource software.

The navigation menus, website and frontend systems uses AWS but content is served via their own CDN OpenConnect.

mcquaim · 03-01-2020 8:05pm

Hi folks,

I was doing a bit of tinkering on this today and managed to get a working version of the RTE Player onto the Fire TV.

I only noticed today that we have two versions of the app for Android, one for mobile touch devices and another for Android TV. The latest version of the RTE Player APK for Android TV is 1.0.3. I wasn't able to find this anywhere as an APK but I did find version 1.0.1.

Anyway, I downloaded it and installed it on my 4K Fire TV and it is working fine, better than fine actually as the really annoying adverts don't seem to play on it when installed this way.

Anyway, I got the APK here:

https://aapks.com/apk/rte-rte/version/42841347/

Hopefully this works for the rest of you looking it also.

Cheers!!

tel2355 · 02-02-2020 2:26pm

Thanks mcquaim I have rte player now working on firestick. I see eastenders is not coming up when searched could this be due to it not being on the android TV version? It's finding it ok on my phone

tel2355 · 02-02-2020 2:54pm

Found it in category drama. Would not find in when searching.

mailburner · 06-02-2020 9:19pm

mcquaim wrote: »
Hi folks,

I was doing a bit of tinkering on this today and managed to get a working version of the RTE Player onto the Fire TV.

I only noticed today that we have two versions of the app for Android, one for mobile touch devices and another for Android TV. The latest version of the RTE Player APK for Android TV is 1.0.3. I wasn't able to find this anywhere as an APK but I did find version 1.0.1.

Anyway, I downloaded it and installed it on my 4K Fire TV and it is working fine, better than fine actually as the really annoying adverts don't seem to play on it when installed this way.

Anyway, I got the APK here:
https://aapks.com/apk/rte-rte/version/42841347/
Hopefully this works for the rest of you looking it also.

Cheers!!

thank you and thank god for boards

Now I can watch the rte player pain free

Dec4 · 06-02-2020 10:33pm

mcquaim wrote: »
Hi folks,

I was doing a bit of tinkering on this today and managed to get a working version of the RTE Player onto the Fire TV.

I only noticed today that we have two versions of the app for Android, one for mobile touch devices and another for Android TV. The latest version of the RTE Player APK for Android TV is 1.0.3. I wasn't able to find this anywhere as an APK but I did find version 1.0.1.

Anyway, I downloaded it and installed it on my 4K Fire TV and it is working fine, better than fine actually as the really annoying adverts don't seem to play on it when installed this way.

Anyway, I got the APK here:
https://aapks.com/apk/rte-rte/version/42841347/
Hopefully this works for the rest of you looking it also.

Cheers!!

Tried this but getting error message "Download not supported at this time"... any solutions?

Brock Turnpike · 06-02-2020 10:35pm

mcquaim wrote: »
Hi folks,

I was doing a bit of tinkering on this today and managed to get a working version of the RTE Player onto the Fire TV.

I only noticed today that we have two versions of the app for Android, one for mobile touch devices and another for Android TV. The latest version of the RTE Player APK for Android TV is 1.0.3. I wasn't able to find this anywhere as an APK but I did find version 1.0.1.

Anyway, I downloaded it and installed it on my 4K Fire TV and it is working fine, better than fine actually as the really annoying adverts don't seem to play on it when installed this way.

Anyway, I got the APK here:
https://aapks.com/apk/rte-rte/version/42841347/
Hopefully this works for the rest of you looking it also.

Cheers!!

Thank you!!

Dec4 · 06-02-2020 10:57pm

Dec4 wrote: »

Tried this but getting error message "Download not supported at this time"... any solutions?

Sorted...!
Used Downloader rather than Silk browser
Thanks again mcquaim!

BionicRasher · 11-02-2020 9:54pm

mcquaim wrote: »
Hi folks,

I was doing a bit of tinkering on this today and managed to get a working version of the RTE Player onto the Fire TV.

I only noticed today that we have two versions of the app for Android, one for mobile touch devices and another for Android TV. The latest version of the RTE Player APK for Android TV is 1.0.3. I wasn't able to find this anywhere as an APK but I did find version 1.0.1.

Anyway, I downloaded it and installed it on my 4K Fire TV and it is working fine, better than fine actually as the really annoying adverts don't seem to play on it when installed this way.

Anyway, I got the APK here:
https://aapks.com/apk/rte-rte/version/42841347/
Hopefully this works for the rest of you looking it also.

Cheers!!

Is it possible to get live TV with this version on the Firestick?

mcquaim · 12-02-2020 9:48pm

BionicRasher wrote: »

Is it possible to get live TV with this version on the Firestick?

Afraid not...

New RTE Player

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