TV or Now box?

[Jux]

Now that iPlayer is no longer supporting the Wii, we can't get old programmes on the tv (the Wii only managed BBC anyway).

We have a newish Toshiba in the kitchen. It was always a crap machine and we want to replace it.

We have an older but quite a good LG in the sitting room, attached to the Wii, a Freeview box, and a DVD player/recorder.

There is a Digihome 32" at the Co-op for about 160 quid, [[ t's a Smart tv which I rather fancy having, but I know that in the end we'll only use it for catch up and Netflix.

I could have the Digihome, get rid of the crap Toshiba, put the LG in the kitchen and the Digihome in the sitting room with all the paraphernalia. Or I could get a Now box for 20quid.

I have no idea how the Now box works, what inputs I need and whether the LG has them.

I have no idea whether Digihome are any good.

DH and I are approaching 60 too fast. Hearing is becoming increasingly hard! The Toshiba we want to get rid of has very definite shortcomings, it can't be heard over the sound of the kettle! except if you're playing a CD/DVD on it when the sound is much much much louder. I'll never buy anything Toshiba again.

So which do I do? Now box or TV?

www.amazon.co.uk/Digihome-32272SMHDLED-Smart-Freeview-Ports-Black/dp/B00QSE1EUM sorry forgot the link! It's unavailable on Amazon, but that's the one.

We have just jettisoned Sky TV and so currently have no television at all. Just using the TV to play DVDs ... I kniw I have to organise this situation.... But I don't know how people get TV these days, or if I need an aerial! Had Sky for 17 years and now totally out of the loop.

We have a dish, but it's for the attic flat where my brother lives, and we don't want Sky anyway.

We have an aerial on the roof and various sockets round the house we can plug into (we have an indoor aerial connected to the kitchen tv, you could get one of those - they're very cheap.)

Does your tv has an inbuilt freeview box? If it doesn't, you only need to connect a FV box and the tv, connect the FV box to an aerial and you'll have basic tv.

That's our basic set-up. We've added things like the cd/dvd player, and the Wii.

NowTV uses WiFi connection to your router (or mobile if you have a generous tethering allowance - not all mobile accounts allow tethering, and some have very low limits like 1 GB a month - I used 150 GB on my mobile last month!).

The NowTV box should come with an HDMI cable to connect to the TV and a mains power adaptor (and best to leave it on, as that's what they recommend - minimal power consumption). Once you've chosen which WiFi network to use (from a list of SSIDs it has found) and entered your wireless access key, it will initially take about 5-10 minutes downloading 12++ apps including the NowTV App and others for UK TV, etc.

You can buy a NowTV box direct from NowTV (Sky) online, box may still be 9.99 (and I think it was postage free). I assume they may still be doing "first month free" (which means you can sign up with a laptop, and then get a box...

But they have some dumb restriction on number of devices that can be added each month... anyway, you do need a username and password to even get the NowTV box to set itself up - no user details and it might not load even the "All 4" (channel 4 player), ITV player, BBC iPlayer and Demand 5 player Apps...

Argos, Sainsburys and Tesco may have boxes. Some good deals have been available such as box + 4 months of the Now TV "Entertainment" pack at 12.50 (half price deal last summer, the boxes sold fast in both Argos and Sainsburys, but I got one from each). My recommendation to my neighbour at Christmas was not to pay more than 15 quid (she got the Entertainment pack to watch Game of Thrones).

I have no TV licence so when ITV and so on started playing live TV I had to delete the apps in case TV Licencing come with a copper and a search warrant (I've told them they're not coming in unless they get a warrant for the last couple of years). The BBC iPlayer App doesn't show anything live (and doesn't even have radio), so it may not be a complete solution.

That Digihome box may "fill the gaps" (eg Netflix) - the NowTV box is manufactured by Roku for NowTV (so does not have Netflix or any other competitor film services - and normally Roku boxes start around 25 quid, so NowTV is presumably paying out some fee for each box.

NB the Roku App works on my Android phones as a remote control - so I have a 10m HDMI cable from my computer room (because NowTV box goes into a 3-way switch box to feed big or small TVs in the computer room {40" and 22"} or bedroom 42" TV) to my bedroom and can remote control wirelessly to change from YouTube to TWiT.TV, for example. The NowTV remote is infra red beam, so I keep that in the computer room.

(Just for clarity, I do watch a lot from TWiT.TV - visit the website and you'll see why :) )

Just re-read OP - regarding sound - pretty sure the NowTV box has low / medium / high in the settings menu.

After that you would either use the TV control to change volume level, or if you can find one going cheap (say at Richer Sounds) then you could have a TV "sound bar" that takes the sound component from the NowTV box and can amplify it rather than using TV speakers (which may not work too well, or get distorted if you push the volume up as the modern TVs have limited space for decent speakers).

If you have a big music collection, and wanted to watch blockbuster movies then some might go for a big 5.1 or 7.1 AV Amp... probably too expensive compared with the other kit being described...

But if you want the floor {and your stomach} to shake from the rumble of an engine or thunder in a film, the NowTV box is probably inadequate and you'd want a FreeSat HD+ or Sky HD box (to give you Dolby audio suitable for 5.1 speaker system).

Hi NetwordGuy, thanks for that! No, we don't want the floors shaking! We do want to be able to hear dialogue over the kettle in the kitchen, and we want to be able to hear mumbled dialogue (s eems quite fashionable these days) on either set.

I bought the Digihome this afternoon, and the Co-op guy delivered it an hour or so later. We've got it set up and it's great! The sound's fine so we can move the ex-sitting room set into the kitchen and get rid of the vile Toshiba.

We'r trying to avoid getting a sound bar, as there is soooooo much stuff hanging off each tv as it is. We just wanted to be able to make tea while still following the dialogue. Neither of us is actually 60 yet, so our hearing isn't that bad, it's just the Toshiba was dreadful. And now we can junk it, hooray!

Thanks for the initial review. Understand about the sound bar, but mentioned it because many TVs have poor speakers (mainly because the TV is flat) and it might have been an option if you needed higher volume than the NowTV box might produce (until I found the 'High' setting, I was pushing the TV volume up quite a way).

One thing I've noticed with some of the modern TVs is a lack of HDMI inputs as they assume users will have an AV amp before the TV and use that to switch from one video+sound source to another, whether it be "TV" (+internet) service, video game, or DVD.

Can I ask what the Digihome cost you, please? Just that it's OOS on Amazon and might have been quite a bit more than the NowTV box :)

Shame we are miles apart else I might have made an offer for the "vile" Toshiba (for use as a computer display) - I'm going to set up 4x 22" TVs to run from some netbooks I use to monitor different servers, etc. Then I'll have room for a separate screen for use with an iMac (I have one with screen problems, but an external dispay works fine).

Here's the sort of setup showing one Asus EEE netbook and a 22" TV driven from it (I like to be able to have web ages showing a good portion of text and when it comes to GMail, display dozens of messages, so portrait is better than the trend towards landscape for some of my needs (I have a few 17" laptops for when I need landscape mode)

WOW! Is that screen on the wall???? I want one!

The tv cost £159, lots more than the Now box! I didn't see your posts before we went out, and I just grabbed the tv as the Co-op tends to run out quite fast when it has things like that (we'll probably see it on the shelf for mmonths now, reduced to £50!).

It has 2 HDMI sockets.

It's not WIFI, but would be if we had a spare dongle; we did have a cable, luckily, so it's connected up to the world. I tried putting my laptop through it, and did get there eventually, but I can't remember how (my bro did it). The user interface for www is a bit clunky but works.

It also came with the audio-type cable thing in the photo. DH says it's not a typical audio cable, but it looks to be about what I'd expect if I wanted to connect an audio device to the tv.

It feels big, but at 32" isn't that much bigger than our others, which are 28" or thereabouts.

The picture is fantastic in comparison to what we're used to. Watching The Hobbit last night was a pleasure I hadn't expected.

The vile Tosh is apparently going up to my room, where I won't be boiling kettles. DD has spoken.

It is unlikely we will ever get somewhere near you, or I'd bring it to you. If you were selling a superb vintage guitar at a knockdown price (not a strat though), then dh might be persuaded to make the trip. I could bring that old Mac I still have (well, I think I have 3 of them, but one is pretty empty so I think it was used as a server).

Do you have a onderful vintage guitar, maybe one of Hendrix's, you want to get rid of for, say, 100 quid?

You can't see anything in that pic! I tried to delete it.

I've had a quick nosey round TWiT tv. I've found the closest thing to my much loved ergonomic mouse which is 100 years old. A snip at 99.99USD.