topic Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer in TV

Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Neil5459 — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 08:20:47 GMT

I understand that the EE TV boxes remain the property of EE and have to be returned at the end of contract, or accrue a non return charge.

It is also obvious that there are many 'new' boxes out there for sale on sites such as Ebay, CEX, Cash Converters etc.

What happens when the original user comes to the end of contract and is asked for the equipment to be returned. If they don't return it, or pay the non return fee, would EE block the MAC address of the device concerned, so rendering it unusable to the new 'owners?

I ask this because I need to replace an old BT Youview box, but don't want any of the EE TV subscription content- just the box itself.

Thanks

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

XRaySpeX — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 12:10:25 GMT

This EE kit is issued to users as a loan. When they leave EE but do not return such kit they are effectively fined for breach of contract but the kit remains the property of EE.

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Chris_B — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 13:47:06 GMT

@Neil5459 you also might find it that it doesn’t work as it’s tied into your EE broadband for it to actually activate and be usable. You need EE broadband and a subscription to EE TV.

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Midnight_Voice — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 19:34:59 GMT

@Neil5459

EETV isn’t enforcing anything beyond collecting the non-return fee at the moment.

Its difficult to believe that they haven’t put a shot across CeX’s bows - when all these boxes are hastily withdrawn from their shelves is the first point at which I’d start to worry about one I’d obtained ‘retail’

Suggesting that they might stop working, absent any action by EETV, is FUD; anyone running a non-EETV YouView box, no matter how obtained - retail, BT pre-Dec 2019, or whatever, knows precisely what they will and won’t do, in the absence of an EETV subscription,

And you needn’t necessarily put ‘new’ in quotes; I have a non-EETV Box Mini that arrived with the protector strip in the remote still intact, which I don’t think had ever seen an EETV warehouse, unless it had seen one with extremely lax security.

(I didn’t even want a Box Mini, just one of the new remotes, but when I tried for a remote on its own, I just got fakes, and not even Box Mini fakes. Another £7 got me the real deal with the Box itself thrown in 😛)

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Neil5459 — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 20:45:24 GMT

Thanks for that excellent explanation and clarification.

I also had a BT Youview box which I bought from Ebay and it operated flawlessly till the HDD died last month, even linking with the EE app to allow remote timer setting, and recorded content checking.

The replacement Panasonic PVR and Blu Ray combo I bought is nowhere near as capable so I am going to take a punt on an EETV Pro box without a contract.

Thanks again!

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

dave_sussex — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:42:29 GMT

Hi Neil,

How did you get on? My old youView box has just died and I am looking to replace it with something more current, but I don't want the extra channels over IP, just aerial channels and catch-up apps.

Thanks, Dave

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Midnight_Voice — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 11:06:38 GMT

@dave_sussex

Any replacement Humax YouView box will do, except for the DTR-T1xxx models, which are obsolete.

In descending order of attractiveness:- EETV Box Pro, DTR-T4000, DTR-T2xxx (BT or PlusNet), DTR-T2000

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

harrysnotter22 — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 03:58:54 GMT

I think it is indeed FUD, otherwise known as outright lies.

EE site shows the oval bt box pro and the new rectangular EE box pro, the latter with the warning that it only works with smart hub routers "EE TV Box Pro is only compatible with Smart Hub or Smart Hub 2". I've seen a user on the BT site having massive issues setting up his non smart hub router to work with the new EE box, so I tried to order the old BT pro box from CEX. They sent an EE box which looks like it came off the production line yesterday (I ordered grade B). I gave it a go and it works perfectly with my four-year-old Vodafone router.

So is it complete cowpat about only working with Smart Hub routers or was I incredibly lucky? With a company like EE I think I'd steer towards the former.

Also watch out for CEX, a company that doesn't even have a returns policy or indeed returns process linked on its website.

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Midnight_Voice — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 08:17:49 GMT

@harrysnotter22

I found this:-

https://www.bt.com/help/tv/learn-about-tv/bt-tv-boxes
which might be what you were talking about, though it’s on the BT site, not the EE one.

I think the context of the compatibility is to get the multicast over broadband; with a Vodaphone router, I d guess you aren’t an EETV subscriber, so you won’t get the multicast anyway, and so you are using the Box Pro as an ordinary YouView box. Which it will certainly do; but I hardly think BT or EE are going to go into the details of how you can or can’t use their boxes, except for the purpose intended, which is in the context of an EETV subscription.

Again, a link to the posting on the BT site would have been useful, or we can’t judge what that user’s router problem might have been, but it sounds like a one-off, not a pattern. I once had so much trouble with a BT router I couldn’t do my job, and I went out and bought a Netgear just to get me through the week while BT hummed and ha’ed about it….

As regards CeX not having a returns policy, one of our son’s friends who manages a CeX store asks how do you explain these?

https://uk.support.webuy.com/support/solutions/folders/80000692056

https://uk.webuy.com/site/terms

(Sections 4/5)

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

harrysnotter22 — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 13:15:10 GMT

🙄

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

harrysnotter22 — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 13:32:21 GMT

I'm not sure you really understand how multicast works here. All content selectable via the EPG is delivered via multicast. I'm not an EE subscriber but am able to access all that content via the EPG, so I am definitely getting 'the multicast'.

Re: Buying EE TV Box pro from retailer

Midnight_Voice — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 22:21:20 GMT

@harrysnotter22

I’m sure I don’t understand multicast all that well, but I do know it is very rare, and that even EETV only employ it on the Box Pro and Box Mini, and they don’t use it on their AppleTV box.

So you are perhaps thinking that any service delivered in an ongoing form - live, or as the jargon has it, linear, to distinguish pre-made programmes sent over the internet from football matches and the like - is multicast, But it isn’t; the onboarding to such services is the same as the onboarding to, say, a movie on catchup, just except that the start point is moving.

But you can pause and rewind such a service, breaking the synchronisation, and showing that really, your streaming session is as individual as if it was a movie on catchup.

But with multicast, the onboarding is different; while you still have, to a much lesser extent, your individuality, you can no more pause and rewind the multicast stream than you could pause and rewind a TV broadcast. It goes at its elected pace, and if you miss a bit, through a glitch or similar, you miss it.

The only thing delivered to a Box Pro by multicast from EETV is the EPG channels 300-600 and, if it is in IP Mode, channels 1-300, excepting the ones delivered over the internet other than by EETV.

You won’t be able to get any of those channel 300-600; won’t even see them in the EPG unless you are on BT or EE broadband. And if you try to put a Box Pro in IP Mode, you will get nothing.

You aren’t getting a sniff of multicast from anywhere. What you think is multicast is unicast, every last byte of it.

Don’t take my word for it though; see what the internet tells you. Reliable sources like Wikipedia only, mind.