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dieselakita

After ditching the youview guide by disabling it and using the built in freeview guide I'm curious to know why the youview guide is favoured over the freeview guide and I mean by favoured the youview guide is part of the setup when you first get the tv and at that point thought it was the only one available thankfully it wasn't it was so slow at times I couldn't even switch to another channel the tv as froze because of it you can't record with it I was constantly losing internet connection so got no programme information among other things know I'm only presuming that all these problems were down to youview but as I don't believe in coincidences since I disabled youview all of those issues have gone

The freeview guide on the other hand I'm quite impressed with it it's quick easy to use and as some extras like programmes that are on later guide and the ability to be able to record with a external hard drive and I'm convinced the picture is more crisp but the best part of it is you can actually move the channel's in the order you like without using anything else there's no need to edit to a usb drive and do it by computer you just go into settings and do it there brilliant

So my only question is why even have youview as a option let alone been part of the initial setup my advice is don't use it because it's garbage disable it and use freeview guide

royabrown

If you look at what a YouView box can do, and how speedily, and consider that Sony never licensed the itv Hub or All 4, which YouView provides; and if you look at YouView’s backward EPG, with its seamless ability to just choose a past programme that’s available on catchup, and have YouView start the appropriate Player and play it for you, which the FreeView EPG still can’t match; and its ability to pause and rewind live TV; then you can see what attracted Sony to YouView as a UI for these TVs.

Where, between YouView and Sony, the responsibility lies for YouView never quite fulfilling its potential on these sets is a particularly closely guarded secret. Though those technically minded frequent posters here who have made detailed analyses of underpowered hardware and less than optimum firmware may have an opinion on this.

YouView Superuser, but not an employee of YouView, nor retained by them for this purpose. It's purely me speaking

dieselakita

I'm far from been a expert myself but for me the most important thing is how something actually performs rather than what it's capable of doing especially when you're using a premium device and my short experience of youview on the Sony android tv tells me is that it's not broken it just doesn't or ever will work based on the length of time youview as been a part of the Sony Android tv

stormyuk

@dieselakita wrote:
I'm far from been a expert myself but for me the most important thing is how something actually performs rather than what it's capable of doing especially when you're using a premium device and my short experience of youview on the Sony android tv tells me is that it's not broken it just doesn't or ever will work based on the length of time youview as been a part of the Sony Android tv

The Mediatek hardware in the Sony TVs is just rubbish to be honest, we blame Android TV a lot of the time but the hardware that it runs on is the biggest problem with these TV's, the software issues are just made worse by the poor hardware (although some are just bad software). I total agree with your that a premium product should not be like this.

As you have found disabling Youview is one of the first things to at least improve the TV performance. Youview is probably not the root cause of the issue though, but, its never going to be developed anymore on the TV it seems, so best to just ditch it and install the catch-up players themselves. I have a seperate Youview box and never use the reverse EPG to be honest I just search manually anyway (I actually use the TV for the catch up players, unless I want UHD iPlayer). So its no great loss imo.

I have noticed the very latest Sony models announced are finally getting an upgraded Mediatek solution but who knows if it will be enough but, they are still going with Youview. It will be interesting to see how long Sony stay with Youview as most TVs are now going with Freeview Play anyway.

royabrown

As you say, short.

But you asked why YouView is there, which I have answered.

As to why it is still there, you would have to unpick the complex legal agreement between Sony and YouView that put it there, as well as fending off all the people who rather like it - who, let us remind ourselves, rarely take to forums to say how happy they are with something.

But Sony and YouView will have usage stats, and I suspect it is no more than a tiny minority, of the technically inclined, who will have switched over to the Freeview side.

YouView Superuser, but not an employee of YouView, nor retained by them for this purpose. It's purely me speaking

laineyw

Hi I love my youview programme guide and I'm looking to purchase a 50 or 55 inch tv with it but I don't know which has youview as the built in guide.I'm so used to the convenience of it and don't want to change my viewing experience.Could you point me in the right direction please?