A blast from the past; the UFAQ (Unofficial FAQ) for the initial YouView release in 2015

[royabrown2]

This document was first published by me in the YouView Community on November 4th 2015, last revised August 3rd 2016, and last tweaked August 20th 2018.

It’s rather out of date now, and much has changed since, unless you still have a set from those early years of Android, but with the YouView Community closing, and no longer available after the end of June 2023, I thought it worth preserving, in this most suitable place, as at least a historical document.

This Unofficial FAQ (UFAQ) covers a number of points for those who were thinking of perhaps getting one of these sets, highlighting the differences from the YouView PVRs, and some points for those who had one of these sets, and had just obtained the public YouView software release.

Both Sony and YouView published official FAQs at the time; this document goes off-piste from those, with its Q&As

UFAQ: (Updated 03/08/2016)

1. Is there WiFi? Yes!

YouView’s strictures about not using WiFi do not apply here. But you can still use a wired Ethernet connection if you would prefer that.

2. Is there DLNA? Yes!

It can see my WD Cloud device, which is in another room, beside my router.

It’s a bit odd with local devices I find, though, as connecting a USB stick just has it trawling the stick for files, which is seems to mix in with any other external sources it can find, so you are never quite sure what is coming from where, but it does do it. It is still not always detecting the USB stick, nor my WD My Passport Ultra USB hard drive on booting, needing it to be pulled and reconnected before it will show up. I thought these might be teething troubles which would be fixed in time, but not, it seems.

And it’s not entirely obvious where to go to access this stuff, as the Inputs list does not include the USB ports, even when something is connected and properly sensed. But you use the Video, Album and Music apps (the plain ones, not the Google-named ones) in the first two rows of apps.

You will find the apps move about, so the ones you use most (or perhaps just the ones you have used most recently) go to the top left of the apps list.

The Sony has only found a fraction of the files on the hard drive though, about 6 movies when there are about 30 on there, which my Samsung finds almost instantly. So I let the 'Loading' symbol whirl in front of me for as long as it wanted, as I thought maybe I had not given it enough time to find all the files, but it still only found the 6. I have no idea why - at first, I thought it might be an avi/mkt/mp4 difference thing, but the Sony is showing at least one of each kind, so it isn't that 😞

And when I did play a movie, the set showed this 22:9 film in 16:9, i.e. stretched vertically, and declined to let me use the aspect ratio button to correct this. The Samsung just gets it right straight away, with no need to change the aspect ratio. So no good at all, really, on the Sony.

3. Is there StretchyVision? Yes!

When setting up, everyone should go to Home/Setup/Display/Screen, and turn Auto Wide On. Purists should set 4:3 Default to Normal or Off, while those who want StretchyVision should set 4:3 Default to Wide Zoom. Which here is just a horizontal zoom to 16:9.

There is an Aspect Ratio control on the remote on which you can control things individually, but it is not auto like the above, and it can even turn Auto Wide Off (which I regard as a bug) and so is best avoided.

But even for purists, the Wide Zoom option brought up by the remote Aspect Ratio button is a 16:12 zoom which gives you round wheels that stay round while getting rid of the black bars, at the cost of expanding the picture vertically as well as horizontally, and then trimming off the 16/1.5 bits that would be above and below your 16:9 screen.

I do not know why there are two different things here both called Wide Zoom; another bug/UI issue?

4. Can BT and TalkTalk subscribers see their extended content on it? No 😞

It’s ‘retail only’ in operation.

5. Is there Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video, TED? Yes!

And in UHD where the content is available, on UHD Sony Android TVs.

6. Is there Now TV? No 😞

This stops the device getting a perfect ten on Apps provision from me. Dare we say ‘watch this space?’ Apparently not. But then again..... And it did indeed arrive later

7. Can I use a Google Chromecast with it? .....you don’t need one, as Chromecast is built in.

You don’t even need an Apple TV; even my iPad offers to link to the TV. And it can cast Now TV to the Sony, to get over the current (or permanent?) limitation above. As an Android device can do, as well.

The Sony TV, or at least Chromecast on it, has to be registered as one of your 4 Now TV devices, but when you are casting, the sending (initiating) device doesn’t. So I could cast Now TV from my Android phone perfectly well, but as soon as I stopped casting, it declined to play on the phone, as that wasn’t one of my registered devices.

8. What about Milkshake, S4C, STV, ALBA, UKTV Play, Quest, and Sky Store?

Milkshake content can be found in the Demand 5 Player. S4C and ALBA are in the BBC iPlayer, and you can watch them live there if you wish.

Those who get the STV channel will find that insult has been added to injury in that you still only get the cut-down itv Player choice available in the Hibernian regions.

ALBA, UKTV Play, Quest, and Sky Store aren’t present, and nor are they in the Google Play Store.

Though if you look for them there, you will find that like Netflix, the Store has the unlovely habit of putting up the exact string you are searching for, getting your hopes right up, and then showing you a bunch of stuff that isn’t it 😢

9. Is there Plex? Yes.

But you have to download it from the Google Playstore app, which is on the TV; Plex isn’t preinstalled. No biggie, though; it took me only seconds.

There’s a wealth of other apps you can download from the Play Store as well, though not every app available for your other Android devices will appear – e.g. no Now TV app shows up.

10. Can you record? Yes, you can now; but still only outside of YouView 😢

We have finally got recording outside of YouView, and support for the twin tuners these sets have, needed to make this really useful, in 2016. Since YouView recording is still in the future, assuming it is coming at all, you may want to exit YouView, make recordings, and return later.

11. Can you pause and rewind live TV? No 😢

Maybe this will arrive with the YouView recording capability,if it ever comes?

12. Can you exit and re-enter YouView at will? Yes, pretty much, unless you are a satellite service user

YouView is a Channel, rather than a mere App, so even though it presents as an App on the App bar, you can only run it from there, not exit it.

But you will also find YouView under Home/Settings/Channel setup/YouView setup
and there, you can elect to leave the YouView interface. Though this will warn you about what you will lose while you are away, including the use of the catchup Players (just the ITV Hub and All 4, though, really, as the Freeview side does have the BBC iPlayer and Demand 5).

If you exit YouView to use Recording on Freeview, you will (I’m guessing) set your recordings from the Freeview Programme Guide and (again I’m guessing) might have to stay out of YouView until the recordings are done.

Actually, while out of YouView, you will still see all four Players in the Apps area, but you will lose those Players that aren’t Apps in their own right. So if you try to start the BBC iPlayer or Demand 5 when out of YouView, these Apps in their own right will just run; but if you try to start the itv Player or All 4, these will ask you to start YouView first, and even offer to do that for you.

If you look for the itv Player or All 4 in the Google Play Store, then you will again hit that unlovely habit the Google Play Store has of putting up the exact string you are searching for, and then showing you a bunch of stuff that isn’t it 😢

(When I talk here about being ‘in YouView’ or ‘out of YouView’, by the way, this is not to do with whether there is any YouView furniture showing on the screen; it is to do with if I were to press Guide, would I get the YouView one or the Freeview one?)

To go back into YouView, just return to Setup/Channels, or click on the YouView App icon, and activate it again. It will encourage you to retune, but you can skip this Auto Tuning stage to save time, with no apparent ill effects, and it will have retained the tunings you did last time.

But if you are a satellite user, note that entering YouView actually deletes all your satellite tunings, so if you go back out of YouView, you do have to do the satellite tunings all over again. Unsurprisingly, satellite users are eschewing YouView unless or until this is fixed, if it can be.

13. Are there Favourite Channels? No 😢

Not anywhere in YouView, anyway.

But in the Freeview side of things, if you go to the Guide, and press the Action Menu button on the remote, then the option to create and maintain up to four sets of Favourite channels can be found there. (This option may be available elsewhere in the menu system, but this is the only place I have found them so far).

I haven't tried using them, so I don't know how this side of it works, but at least they are indeed there. The Sideview app (see lower down) references the four sets of these, so perhaps you can use them there, anyway.

14. Are there Reminder Settings? No 😢

Again, not anywhere in YouView, at present, at least.

But in the Freeview side of things, if you go to the Guide, and press the centre Enter button on the remote, then one of the options there is to set a Reminder.

Again, I haven't tried this, so I don't know how it works, and whether it is comparable to the YouView PVR Reminder feature or not.

15. Is there Channel Hiding/Reordering? Yes

But just Hiding actually within YouView. There, you can Hide Channels by pressing the yellow button on the remote for Edit Channels. From here you can choose which channels you want to hide on the Guide.

But when you are out of YouView, you can do both in the Freeview side of things. Go to Home/Setting/Channel Setup/Digital Setup/Digital Tuning/Programme List Edit (an option that is greyed out when you are in YouView), and you can both Hide and Reorder Channels there.

And the changes are preserved when you go back to YouView, as long as you don’t accept the retune option when you do. So this is a way to achieve channel reordering for YouView, even though you cannot do it directly within YouView.

This seems very stable, with YouView only seeking to reassert its default tunings if you retune there, or if you do a Factory Reset, which has to be followed by a retune.

By the way, it is perhaps not very clear in the Programme List Edit that you can move to a channel you want to Select by typing its number in, as well as Move one to a number once you have Selected it. This can save a great deal of scrolling.

16. How about doing this the hard way?

I mention this just for completeness really, given the above.

In the Technical Setup, and still accessible when you in YouView, there is a Programme List Transfer, and an Import, which holds out the hope of exporting the Channel List, deleting some and moving others, and then reimporting it.

But the exported list is a .xml file, not straightforward to edit by hand as you have about ten lists in different places to keep in sync, and with a checksum, which will need to be recalculated if any entries are removed, rather than just moved.

Sony provide an Editor for such files (available from their German site only, though the program is in English), but it is a bit of a bear to use, I am told by those who have tried it.

I have no idea what will happen if it is imported though, even if it is correctly edited. I suspect it would just be like the simpler method, above.

17. Can you cycle round two Channels (Previous Channel)? Yes!

There is a button on the remote for this, and it works, even in YouView. At least, if you stay in Television. I haven’t tried being clever with it, though, going in and out of the Smart functions and seeing what if anything it does after that, which is the issue keeping it off the YouView PVR, apparently.

18. Can you access the IP Channels 225 – 255? Yes!

All of them that are available, many more than you can get on a YouView PVR, and you won’t need the Red Button kludge. One more, indeed, than our Freeview+ TV can access, though maybe that is because that set is not HD. This additional channel is 245 Planet Knowledge, a rather nice channel I might actually go back to.

And higher up, this set gets all 9(?) BBC Red Button+ channels.

19. Is there a remote app for my tablet or phone? Yes!

The Sony SideView app is available on iOS and Android, and can be linked to the TV, and it has a remote you can call up, on which you can type, which is much better than trying to use the TV’s onscreen keyboard.

The Android version has a Voice plugin you can download separately, which integrates into an already-installed SideView so you can speak your commands. Allegedly, but I still haven’t got it to work 😢 There is no iOS version of this at present.

There is a second Sony remote, the One-Flick Touchpad TV Remote that comes only with the more expensive Android sets, and you can talk to that. You can buy it separately for about £50, and it will work with all the Android sets, even the ones that don't come with it included.

20. Can I use YouView without an aerial? Yes

But you have to have tuned in at least one channel before the YouView setup will complete. However, once this has been done, you can indeed then run it without an aerial. So tune it at a friend's house and then bring it home, or borrow an indoor aerial perhaps, or a piece of wet string.

But you will likely be one of a very small group of non-aerial, non-satellite users who just want to use YouView for the itv and All 4 catchup Players. No harm in that, though.

21. Are there software updates? Yes, and an update can include both TV and YouView changes

And like on the YouView boxes, the changes are on a phased rollout, though this is usually very quick. But unlike the YouView boxes, you can elect, in Settings, if you want to receive updates automatically or not.

I do get them automatically, and I have not seen any of the grief that some YouView box updates have caused - indeed, with these TVs, there is very little you could do in an update that would not improve them - but they can break the odd thing, so it may be worth choosing manual update, and waiting to see if an update produces no howls of pain, before applying it..

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