T-Vision

[CycloneSat]

Has anybody tried this out where it’s available? They’re boasting 175+ channels. I like how it has an actual, physical hard drive instead of using some Cloud DVR mess like the others. A bit slower, but at least it doesn’t automatically delete your recordings after a few months. Even has 4K channels included. Might switch over to this if the DeathStar continues to not make improvements to DIRECTV.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Has anybody tried this out where it’s available? They’re boasting 175+ channels. I like how it has an actual, physical hard drive instead of using some Cloud DVR mess like the others. A bit slower, but at least it doesn’t automatically delete your recordings after a few months. Even has 4K channels included. Might switch over to this if the DeathStar continues to not make improvements to DIRECTV.

Never heard of it-

 

[Bobby]

It looks good in an overview but.... There is a $10 fee for every TV location, the temporary cost is $90 then goes up to $100. I don't see what, if any, costs are for the Premium packages and Sports, etc. I happen to have 3 TVs. Straight up I see it costing $130 plus whatever those extra packages might cost. DISH still looks pretty good to me....

 

[harshness]

Seven major cities plus Longmont, Colorado isn't anywhere near me.

There's oddly a bunch of reviews on Amazon.

 

[FLEABttn]

I tried it last October. Video quality was great. Stream stability was really good as well. The hardware itself sucks, had to power cycle the box once a day because it'd lock up. Missed 5-10% of DVR timers. It didn't have any trick play, so only fast forward and rewind for the DVR (no 30 second forward/10 second back). There's probably been software updates since that maybe have addressed some of this but I'd have no way of knowing.

 

[NashGuy]

I tried it last October. Video quality was great. Stream stability was really good as well. The hardware itself sucks, had to power cycle the box once a day because it'd lock up. Missed 5-10% of DVR timers. It didn't have any trick play, so only fast forward and rewind for the DVR (no 30 second forward/10 second back). There's probably been software updates since that maybe have addressed some of this but I'd have no way of knowing.

Yeah, I feel like what you're saying sounds like a number of other first-hand reports I've read of T-Vision (formerly Layer3 TV). The service launched in the first few cities about 3 years ago and it apparently still has quite a few bugs...

 

[CycloneSat]

Yeah, I feel like what you're saying sounds like a number of other first-hand reports I've read of T-Vision (formerly Layer3 TV). The service launched in the first few cities about 3 years ago and it apparently still has quite a few bugs...

Hopefully Telekom fixes this soon enough, this has a lot of potential, just needs cheaper prices and better reliability.

 

[NashGuy]

Hopefully Telekom fixes this soon enough, this has a lot of potential, just needs cheaper prices and better reliability.

Well, before T-Mobile rebranded Layer3 TV as T-Vision, they were talking about launching their own OTT streaming TV service that would work on phones as well as in homes. As the teaser video suggested, it wouldn't require contracts or bulky, expensive bundles. So it looked at that time like they were buying Layer3 for its tech platform and to get their foot in the door with cable networks and would then create their own new service that looks more like YouTube TV than Layer3. But they still have yet to do that. All they've done is keep Layer3 pretty much as it is, except rebrand it to T-Vision.

Granted, T-Mobile's plate has been full trying to get this Sprint merger to happen while also preparing to launch 5G. But I wonder if they end up deciding that it doesn't make much sense to try to launch yet another streaming cable TV service. The market is already crowded and the economics look increasingly unfavorable to companies who don't own any of the content that they can include in the package. IMO, they should just scrap the whole thing and strike a deal to offer a free bundle of Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ (in lieu of free Netflix) to their customers. And then those who want live cable TV can pay an upgrade amount to add the live TV service to Hulu. They could even offer a free customized Android TV streaming box and remote to T-Mobile customers who purchase Hulu with Live TV in order to give them a more traditional cable TV user experience (like AT&T is doing with their new AT&T TV).