Holidaying with my TV BOX PRO..?

[Mr-Gravel]

Got to go visit the relatives for next to three weeks %@#&!. Don't want to miss my favourite TV programs whilst I'm away, so I thought take my TV Pro box life support machine with me, problem solved?

1)  I'm in the England down south but will be holidaying in Ireland right up next door to Northern Ireland.

2)  The property I hope to stay in has a tv aerial but also has very fast fiber internet connectivity.

3)  My life extending tv pro box is currently setup using the TV aerial and not IP mode.

4)  Is it possible to setup and connect the box in IP mode (internet only) through the fiber broadband connection to view UK youview TV channels?

Now, apart from not telling the other half, what problems might I run in to?

[Andy005]

Firstly @Mr-Gravel , switching to IP mode will result in losing any recordings you have on the box. It will only work with BT broadband and I suspect that once the box detects your location it wouldn't work anyway.

You could use the apps on a phone/tablet but you'd probably need a VPN for some or all of them.

[DarrenDev]

The TV Box will automatically assume the identity of any broadband line that it's connected to. If you connect to a non BT or EE line, it will lose all IP channels and some of the apps.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Mr-Gravel @DarrenDev @Andy005 

Ask the relatives, now, if they can get Freeview channels from Northern Ireland on their TVs or not.

Many people in Eire up near the border with Northern Ireland get these.

If so, and you take your Pro box, a retune will get you continued access to Freeview.

As regards apps, services like Now may notice that you are not in the UK or NI, and decline to work. And Now will always decline to work over a VPN, so that’s not a way round it either.

And certainly, EE TV will cease to work.

But nothing would be irrevocably lost, as long as you avoided retuning the box without an aerial attached, thus forcing it into IP Mode. (And even there, we might hope that a Pro box, detecting no suitable broadband service, would revert to the behaviour of earlier YouView boxes, and stay in Aerial Mode, reporting just that no channels were found).

[DarrenDev]

@Midnight_Voice it takes a factory reset to switch between IP and aerial modes.  If it detected no IP channels, it'd need to factory reset itself to switch again, at which point it would forget that it previously found no channels (as it's been wiped), and thus try IP mode again.

The box relies on the customer making the right choice - connect an aerial or not.  It'll honour that decision, regardless of outcome.

Regarding the Freeview channels near the border - there's no point taking the TV Box Pro regardless.  If they get them, then they can be watched on their TV.  No need to take the box for that.

[Midnight_Voice]

@DarrenDev 

You lost me there (not hard 😢).

If I have a Pro box in Aerial Mode, and I pull out the aerial and retune it, will it just tell me that it found no channels?

Rather than factory resetting itself and going into IP mode?

As regards your last point, I’m guessing that you don’t get tangled up in family dynamics 😛

[DarrenDev]

Sorry, I misunderstood your previous message.  A box in aerial mode will remain in aerial mode unless factory reset - retuning won't cause it to switch.  So yes, you're right in saying no risk there.

[naylor2006]

You will be much better served getting an Amazon Fire Stick and just having it to travel with, this is what I do, or get yourself an Apple TV if you want something a little nicer to use (other devices are available).

Earlier this year we went to Centre Parcs and it happened to be during a week where football fell on 4 of the 5 evenings we were there, NowTV and Discovery Plus via the Firestick plugged into the TV's HDMI port was excellent. Plus you also have most of the access you need to free to air content via on demand provided @Midnight_Voice 's concerns dont come to fruition regarding location.

Taking the box with you is a much larger device and has multi challenges as already explained by the other folks.

[Mr-Gravel]

Firstly, nobody has offered any advice on how to handle the other half when the luggage is unpacked and there in all it's glory is the tv pro box safely rapped up in that big fluffy towel thats only taken out for visitors or holidays...and no one knows how it got there?    Ok, someone mentioned family dynamics etc... so point duly awarded.

5)  Reading between the lines of the views expressed, the tv pro box might be Geo-location restricted and Broadband provider content restricted.  Meaning, if i connect it to the fiber broadband in Ireland, reset the box (lost of all recordings), choose IP mode (no aerial connected),,,, but the box will still not receive content from BT/EE server network because the box is trying to connect with a non UK ip address and/or non BT/EE broadband ip address?

[Midnight_Voice · Accepted solution]

@Mr-Gravel 

Yes, it’s a certainty that IP Mode won’t work unless you are on BT or EE broadband. Nor will the IP channels that EE TV provides. So that is out.

Geo-restriction is very likely, but not certain.

Better to take a mobile whose EE TV app has been pre-paired with the Pro box, which stays firmly at home in the UK, and use that to remotely set recordings of anything you would otherwise miss - you can’t do this in advance at home, given your length of stay.

And take a smart device with you, Roku or Firestick, in case it is usable. No need for a big fluffy towel, you can tuck one in your underpants (the packed ones, not the ones you are wearing. Although….)