IVI Review

[PopcornNMore]

Now that I have had the new IPTV service “IVI” (ivi - Watch Live Internet Television) installed for the past week this is my opinion of the service.

CONS:
•Unlike what they advertise, I have found that an internet connection of at least 3mbps (download) is required in order to take full advantage of the service. Anything less causes channel changing to be very slow and the video automatically goes into LD (low definition) mode making it nearly unwatchable.
•Channel identification is not displayed when changing channels.
•Some computers require that the firewall settings be changed in order for the service to work.
•Best viewed when the size of the video is reduced to post card size on your monitor. Going full screen is viewable, but not always clear.

PROS:
•A good start to where television viewing is headed that might someday make CATV and satellite obsolete.
•An awesome package of channels including (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, Create, RTV, ION, THIS, KONG-TV and others).
•A low monthly price of only $4.99 plus 99 cents for DVR features.
•Nice to have on a laptop or desktop for viewing TV programming.
•A good easy to use channel guide.


CONCLUSION:
I think I’ll cancel the service within the next week or two before the free 30 day offer expires. However, once the quality of the service improves and additional channels are added this might be worth looking into again.

 

[marco916]

Interesting site

:up Looks like a promising service, I wonder if they are getting the channels via another cable service or over the air, they look to me over the air channels and just feed Silicon Dust style to the customer. I wonder if they will provide international channels in the future. This service reminds me of Livestation.com

 

[stonecold]

I have a interesting take on the SD vs LD vs PD and bandwith issue.


1. Friend house has 1.5 mbps 128kbps service and gets solid SD picture quality

My self often get LD on 16mbps comcast connection / while getting a solid strong SD on a 3mbps dsl connection / but again having issues with a 50mbps fios connection

So what do the 1.5 and 3 meg connections have in common. other then the fact they are dsl services, it is that they both run off Level 3 back bones and Fios and comcast connection dont.

 

[marco916]

Are you doing allot of Torrent downloads by any chance or serving as a host site? being on Comcast, they have a habit of chopping down your bandwidth, bandwidth throttling seems to be popular with Comcast. I would have a QOS "Quality of Service" check done by Comcast to verify things look good out to you.

I have a interesting take on the SD vs LD vs PD and bandwith issue.


1. Friend house has 1.5 mbps 128kbps service and gets solid SD picture quality

My self often get LD on 16mbps comcast connection / while getting a solid strong SD on a 3mbps dsl connection / but again having issues with a 50mbps fios connection

So what do the 1.5 and 3 meg connections have in common. other then the fact they are dsl services, it is that they both run off Level 3 back bones and Fios and comcast connection dont.

 

[mike123abc]

More likely IVI has a limited distribution backbone, perhaps just set up with L3. I suspect if the service survives they will add other net connections to their data centers.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Ok, I don't know what IVI did, but the channels look AWESOME tonight. If this keeps up I just might remain a subscriber.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

PQ does look good, although I am wondering why wwor in New York is airing WWE Smackdown in SD tonight.

 

[stonecold]

I made sure that no one was using the comcast connection as it usually just me on that connection everyone else on on the fios connection. could not keep a steady SD picture. Kept going to LD I am going to email them as it getting annoying.

 

[whatchel1]

2

PQ does look good, although I am wondering why wwor in New York is airing WWE Smackdown in SD tonight.

2 possibilities on that. 1. WWOR missed getting the HD feed. 2. The Op on duty isn't paying attention and didn't switch it from SD to HD.

 

[stonecold]

I got a email back for ivi, they did apologize for my issues they are working on getting it corrected. They noticed issues in some parts of the country with poor preformance of the pq , they told me they are adding more servers to more data centers shortly.

Yes it appears most o there servers sit on L3 backbones.

 

[televisionarchives]

Trying the service now. Not bad . Fun to watch Seattle and New York locals again. This will be neat to see on my iphone. Now they might have some legal troubles. They showed NFL games on Sunday.

 

[Vorg]

I looked at their "channel lineup" and we already have most of those via ATSC local broadcast. It's the basic network group, some doubled up on location source. We have the PBS channels. That movie channel "This" we have and it's not impressive. Nothing there worth $5/month. Everything new on networks gets repeated on Hulu the next day and on the network web sites. So if you are in a location that can't get them, it's already on the web for free.

 

[kikenovic]

I'm currently on vacation outside the US. I just confirmed Ivi uses IP geolocation (they don't seem to care my billing is in Indiana, just like Netflix), only the international channels appear in the guide. I have to use my company's proxy for the NY,SEA,LA channels to reappear in the guide. The performance through the proxy is pretty much the same I get in the US without the proxy.

 

[Chris36]

I wanted everyone to know they added the Chicago Locals. I'm so happy there are a few sations that have classic TV shows its better then TVLand.

 

[primestar31]

I wanted everyone to know they added the Chicago Locals. I'm so happy there are a few sations that have classic TV shows its better then TVLand.

ME, METOO, Retro, and Thistv are all there, and I like watching them. However, the best shows are all on late at night, and I can't figure out anyway to dvr through their interface app you have to load. That feature isn't built-in either.

Anybody been successful in installing any dvr software that can do this? I have 3mbps speed, and it's typically herky-jerky to watch it, and I can deal with it so far. Seems to me that speed should be good enough for SD anyway, it is for other net stuff. But, if I can't dvr shows, I'm going to cancel after the first month is over. Also, I DID get charged right away on my credit card. I did not get a "month free" like they claimed.

 

[Chris36]

I didn't get charge the first month. I know the record feature is coming in the spring. Sorry that you didn't have a good experience with them.

 

[primestar31]

ME, METOO, Retro, and Thistv are all there, and I like watching them. However, the best shows are all on late at night, and I can't figure out anyway to dvr through their interface app you have to load. That feature isn't built-in either.

Anybody been successful in installing any dvr software that can do this? I have 3mbps speed, and it's typically herky-jerky to watch it, and I can deal with it so far. Seems to me that speed should be good enough for SD anyway, it is for other net stuff. But, if I can't dvr shows, I'm going to cancel after the first month is over. Also, I DID get charged right away on my credit card. I did not get a "month free" like they claimed.

I didn't get charge the first month. I know the record feature is coming in the spring. Sorry that you didn't have a good experience with them.

Since they charged me up front for an entire month, including an extra .99Cents for being able to pause, etc, there's no way of dvr'ing shows, AND it thinks that my 3mbps internet is too slow, therefore almost always setting it to the lowest quality, I'm canceling this after the first month.

It's just not there yet quality wise, and I can't stand the "herky-jerky" judder of the picture. I'll stick with my WDTV Live device, Playon premium, and Hulu, etc. That's a MUCH better deal, and the picture is nearly flawless.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

But you don't get live network programming on your WDTV Live device which is the entire point of IVI.

I have IVI and I like it, I watch a lot of ME TV and ME TOO from Chicago.

 

[primestar31]

But you don't get live network programming on your WDTV Live device which is the entire point of IVI.

I have IVI and I like it, I watch a lot of ME TV and ME TOO from Chicago.

I love ME, and METOO and RTV. However, I now have almost all of those old shows complete runs as files on several hard-drives, and play them through the WDTVLIVE, so I don't really have any need to stream them. Yeah, it took a long time of transcoding them from DVD or old VHS, but I can watch them anytime I want, and it beats streaming!

 

[patrick80639]

I've subscribed to ivi TV for a month now and love it. I have a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection and haven't had any issues with streaming or PQ. I'm from Chicago originally and it's awesome they have virtually every local channel from that market, including independent WCIU. They have so many channels, I'm seriously considering dropping the superstations pack I have with E*.