Great offer Sky Now TV box - £9.99 delivered

[tek-monkey]

I've known about this one for a few days now, but didn't post until I was sure what I was getting. Apparently mine has now been delivered, but from the buzz on the net I thought I'd fill you all in anyway.

Essentially sky are selling the Roku LT for £9.99 delivered, but have cut some channels from the store. Essentially just the other paid streaming channels, and who can blame them for not subsidising someone elses business? Anyway, it is a beermat sized box that lets you watch TV Now on your TV without a sky box. You can get passes for sky movies for a month, daily sports passes etc.

If this was all I'd avoid it TBH, but you can get a 6 month pass to sky movies for £15 (register here: www.nowtv.com/totalfilm) and I think you can watch them on 2 seperate boxes at once too. There are also about 50 free channels you can use (http://www.strayed.co.uk/2013/07/29/now-tv-box-full-list-of-available-channels/), most are shite but there are a few good ones in there. To top it all off you can sideload plex to it, and access your own media server. This to me was the main objective, and why I purchased on the off chance, and after a bit of discussion with the plex devs and some people who got boxes early they've managed to get it on there.

So effectively £10 for a plex streamer, then a further £15 for 6 months of on demand sky movies. Seems like a bit of a bargain to me, if thats what you're into.

HUKD Thread: http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/now-tv-box-10-inc-1615409?page=36#comments
Plex thread: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/75573-plex-on-the-sky-now-tv-box/
Buy it: https://shop.nowtv.com/

 

[db]

i was reading this when it was first posted on HUKD, hoping that some bright spark could root it/get some kind of media streamer on there - impressed it took so little time! i've got an apple tv, but i'm going to get one of these for the other tv.. hard to say "no" for a tenner!

do i have to sign-up as a nowtv customer or anything when buying the box? or can i just click "continue without account" and go ahead and buy one?


edit: whatev's, totes just ordered one

 

[tek-monkey]

Don't sign up! Well, you need to eventually, but not yet. There are a few free trials around at the min, and a few decent paid ones. I'm looking at the 6 months sky movies for £15 myself, so £2.50 a month.

I'll let you know how I get on tonight, but it seems like 15 minutes or so and you can have plex up and running easily.

 

[tek-monkey]

Just got home, and next door passed me the parcel. Will set it up in a min

 

[tek-monkey]

All up and running, plex installed and working fine. Its an old version though, so I'll try and get the newer one together and post the files here when I'm done.

Signed up with the 6 months film offer, seemed worth it.

 

[tek-monkey]

Here is what I've just posted on the plex forums, in case you want the latest version:

I just downloaded the project using the windows github program then renamed the manifest template to just manifest. Zipped it all up and sent it to the roku, appears to have worked as when I got downstairs there was a screen showing changes in v2.66 (I think!).

I've uploaded the file to my dropbox: https://dl.dropboxus...294622/plex.zip

 

[Perrier]

nice work tec

just ordered and downloaded the file from dropbox , I will give you a shout if I get stuck when it arrives

 

[Darren]

Excuse my nievity what is Plex ? also i am fully kitted out with Virgin Media but i also have a Go Flex home cinema that i copy AVIs to and watch on my TV but it is a bit pants as it does not support DTS , but would there be any point in me getting one of these to stream from my pc instead of using my Go flex, i already have Sky movies and Sports.

 

[Perrier]

in short, plex is a media server, this can be used to access media files on your pc and view them on the tv . handy if you have a secondary tv that's not connected to sky , virgin etc in your bedroom or kitchen for example.
( there may be other uses, but that's what im planning to use mine for.)

I have a similar type of setup for my main tv, its a WDTV live but cost a lot more than a tenner .

im sure tek will be able to give you a better explanation than me though so hopefully he will reply soon.

 

[Withnail]

... github...

Excuse my snowiness, but is this some sort of Audi driver forum?

 

[tek-monkey]

Excuse my nievity what is Plex ? also i am fully kitted out with Virgin Media but i also have a Go Flex home cinema that i copy AVIs to and watch on my TV but it is a bit pants as it does not support DTS , but would there be any point in me getting one of these to stream from my pc instead of using my Go flex, i already have Sky movies and Sports.

I'd be wary getting it just for plex, as TBH I suspect they will stop it working in future updates. Not positive, but Murdoch isn't known for giving out freebies! That said, is it worth cancelling your sky movies sub and using the £2.50 a month one on this box instead to save a few quid? You can use 2 of these at the same time, so sky movies in 2 rooms at once.

That said, I'm getting another 2 pretty much just for plex! Worst case scenario once the cheap sky movies goes I can chuck them in a cupboard and they owe me nothing, best case plex carries on working or even they work out how to flash the original roku firmware to it. For a tenner a box I think its worth the risk for me, which contradicts what I said above....

As for plex, its some media server software for your PC. It can stream to lots of different devices, from other PCs to androids/iThings to TV boxes etc. Its pretty damn good, I can access my entire library from pretty much anywhere. I rarely choose to, but thats not the point! Install it on the PC, tell it where your media is and it will transcode on the fly too if the device can't play the original file type.

I wrote a guide somewhere on setting up a server with all the tools I use to get metadata etc, I'll try and find it.

EDIT: Hmm, can't find the guide. Found a post about what I use, but not how to set it up. http://www.staffordforum.com/xf/index.php?threads/automated-downloading.10282/

 

[tek-monkey]

Excuse my snowiness, but is this some sort of Audi driver forum?

I believe so, it turns out the reason they are such ignorant drivers is that they are also writing software at the same time.

 

[Darren]

I'd be wary getting it just for plex, as TBH I suspect they will stop it working in future updates. Not positive, but Murdoch isn't known for giving out freebies! That said, is it worth cancelling your sky movies sub and using the £2.50 a month one on this box instead to save a few quid? You can use 2 of these at the same time, so sky movies in 2 rooms at once.

That said, I'm getting another 2 pretty much just for plex! Worst case scenario once the cheap sky movies goes I can chuck them in a cupboard and they owe me nothing, best case plex carries on working or even they work out how to flash the original roku firmware to it. For a tenner a box I think its worth the risk for me, which contradicts what I said above....

As for plex, its some media server software for your PC. It can stream to lots of different devices, from other PCs to androids/iThings to TV boxes etc. Its pretty damn good, I can access my entire library from pretty much anywhere. I rarely choose to, but thats not the point! Install it on the PC, tell it where your media is and it will transcode on the fly too if the device can't play the original file type.

I wrote a guide somewhere on setting up a server with all the tools I use to get metadata etc, I'll try and find it.

EDIT: Hmm, can't find the guide. Found a post about what I use, but not how to set it up. http://www.staffordforum.com/xf/index.php?threads/automated-downloading.10282/

Thank you for the information, i actually pay hardly anything for Sky movies and Sky sports because i have 2 Tivo boxes and 2 normal boxes plus 120mb internet and talk anytime phone i have a great deal if i was to cancel the movies and sports i would not see any difference in my bills, it maybe worth buying one of these boxes to either stream to my tv in my bedroom from my pc or just to sell on at a profit, however i do have a LG smart tv that is wifi enabled and looking at the Plex link you added i see something to do with that so i may just look into that if i can figure it out, thank you for your help.

 

[tek-monkey]

Dare I ask what you pay for all that? We're trying to cut down our ever increasing media bills, seems like virgin up the prices every few months! Come October I'm switching to BT, a youview box will do me. All I really need is a 60Mb line, plex does everything else I need and my home server gets my content.

The plex app does seem to be available for LG TVs, so yeah I'd take a look at that. I wouldn't get one of these to sell on as they are available for a tenner direct from sky, saying that some dodgy bloke has put some on ebay saying the RRP is over £100!

 

[Darren]

Dare I ask what you pay for all that? We're trying to cut down our ever increasing media bills, seems like virgin up the prices every few months! Come October I'm switching to BT, a youview box will do me. All I really need is a 60Mb line, plex does everything else I need and my home server gets my content.

The plex app does seem to be available for LG TVs, so yeah I'd take a look at that. I wouldn't get one of these to sell on as they are available for a tenner direct from sky, saying that some dodgy bloke has put some on ebay saying the RRP is over £100!

I have sent you a PM, i joined Plex and downloaded the desktop app i have added my folder with my films in but how secure is it ?

 

[Darren]

Sorry no edit button if i wanted to share these films with friends i take it they would just need Plex and an invite this sounds good although i am still concerned as to how secure it is.

 

[tek-monkey]

From what I can tell, nobody can get access without you giving it to them. I've granted access to my mum, but only the TV and movies folders. You need to sign into your myplex account to get remote access to your server, and TBH I've never tried to hack it.

 

[tek-monkey]

Just ordered another

 

[Darren]

I bought one purely for streaming from my pc although after i purchased it said i had to signup for sky sports or movies for the box to work i hope this isnt the case.

 

[tek-monkey]

I believe there is a 30 day free trial, but there certainly isn't a fee for creating a now TV account. It may want your CC details so that it can charge you if you do buy something though? I went for the sky movies pack, so had to pay anyway.