New BT TV Box Pro. Hardware mostly great. No premium channels.

[Wub]

I chose to get a BT TV Box Pro because it has masses of storage space and no recording clashes, both of which I wanted since my 7-year-old Humax Youview  box is getting slower and many of the functions like Pause have stopped working. 

I didn't choose it for subscriptions (there's a lot  of good content on Freeview). However, since I wasn't allowed to buy a box without them, I went for "Entertainment": there are a few TV series I'd like to watch. 

Problems:

(Not content related): Unlike an older Youview box there's no apparent way to tell it what the TV is. I can't use either Source or Mute button, even after rebooting the box and re-pairing the remote.  

(Content-related). None of the premium channels show up in the Guide.

I did get Netflix started, and it saw that I have a Basic membership with BT. So far, so good. However, when I typed my e-mail address in, it told me it didn't like it. I tried to go back a stage, and put my email address in, but then it asked for money and does not see I've paid up via BT. 

As for the other premium channels, I was on the phone to a nice Geordie lady who couldn't figure out my problems at all. I tried entering in a channel number directly when she prompted, but (without throwing an error) my channel guide went straight from 273 to 555. 

I tried to go into NOW Entertainment directly as streaming, but that had the same problem that if wouldn't pick up my BT subscription as valid and asked for money. 

I'm unwilling to pay twice, so would be grateful if anyone can shed light on this. 

Also, how do I use the yellow button to prune the channel list?

TIA, Wub

[NeilO]

Hi, @Wub welcome to the community and thanks for posting, I'm sorry to see you're experiencing problems with your new BT TV service. It sounds like there might be a problem with the subscription on our side and I'd like to help you get that sorted. 

I'll send you a private message in a moment so you can send over your details to the moderation team and we'll be happy to help.

Thanks

Neil

[Wub]

Update. The engineer came and went today. He fixed the Volume and Mute buttons which I'd just guessed wrong about how to set it up. 

As for the subscriptions, he factory reset both the Hub and the TV Box Pro in an attempt to fix it. This deleted all my recordings and programmes set to record, but had no effect on my subscriptions problem. He explained that the problem was at BT's end and they hadn't sent me a "welcome to BT TV" email activating it. 

When he'd gone I thought I might as well chase up BT support, only to find my ancient landline phones could not work (incoming or outgoing) on the new set-up, but the nice Indian person on the chat said they will send me DECT/VOIP phones that will definitely work, and after a couple of days I'll chase them up about the TV problem when I've got the landline phone. I think I can't ring BT support from a mobile without it being prohibitively expensive. 

[Wub]

Problems still persist, and no-one seems to have answered me on here. 

In addition, the man who came to fix my Box Pro subscription issue not only left the problem actually unfixed (still not showing...) and all my recordings/set recordings deleted, but the landline hasn't worked properly since. It worked for a short while plugged into the phone socket on the back of the Smart Hub 2, then failed completely. Got told Digital Voice would fix this.

Someone sent me Digital Voice handsets, which have not worked even once since they were set up ("Unable to make or receive calls..." despite the broadband being on blue and reasonably fast so it's probably working).

I was meant to have various meetings with engineers or phone calls which seem to have fallen through (so far nobody has dashed round to fix things) or I've made an arrangement there's no record of in the system. One woman stated that there was no fault in my set-up so someone would fix any problems remotely in the next couple of days (if it was as simple as that presumably they'd already have done it if only to get me off the phone...). 

Luckily, I got a text today saying that an engineer would be round tomorrow to fix all this, and the man on the "faults" team today confirmed that. 

The Box Pro is quick, with plenty of room and four tuners so no recording clashes. I'd be perfectly happy with it if there wasn't the bug with subscriptions. 

The landline issue is a big problem, expecially since I'm old enough to use my landline at home and my mobile out and about.

[biohazardx9 · Accepted solution]

Hi Wub

BT are slowly moving towards digital landlines used via broadband. it seems as though thats on your account and not setup properly.

As for the TV, yes definitely not activated. BT simply needs to 'activate' or 'refresh' their end. You will of course need to reboot your box and they will appear (at the bottom of the TV guide as well I might add)

Hope you get it resolved.

it has four tuners but these are only for the freeview side of the box, it has two 'virtual' tuners for the internet channels (all the stuff from now tv).

So you can...

record 5 and watch another (4 freeview+1 Sub, watch another sub or record 2 sub + 3 freeview and watch another freeview)

Record 6 (all 4 freewview + 2 sub whilst watching from on demand or a recording including chase play)

as well as other combinations.

[Anonymous]

Be interesting to see if there are more tuners that are not active yet considering BT's plan to deliver Freeview channels (or some, or different ones), via Multicast rather than an aerial.

If you have a choice for example of recording blurry SD ITV3 via a Freeview aerial or ITV3 in HD via Multicast, I know what I would prefer. The more channels delivered that way in better quality the more problematic just 2 tuners could become.

[Wub]

Thanks! The more clueful engineer (tested everything, including trying a spare Hub and taking out the legacy phone cord from the wall that I used to use for the not-working-very-well cordless handsets, but did not factory-reset the Box Pro and lose all the stuff after checking the firmware is up to date over-the-air) clarified that the problem is at BT's end, that the broadband is working as well as the high speed and blue light imply, but that both Digital Voice and the television subscription have not been activated. He can understand why I raised a complaint about all this as I've been complaining about the TV subscription and the landline not working for some time (the Box Pro arrived on the last Wednesday in April, and the set-up's been working from then without subscriptions, but the landline hasn't worked properly since Bank Holiday Monday when the previous engineer arrived, but he seems to be fairly sure that there's nothing broken in the wiring set up just outside the window, everything's coming in perfectly, the speed's great, but subscription and Digital Voice both need to be activated. 

I'm getting rather tired of being told "wait 48 hours and your problem will be solved by being activated remotely", especially since both engineers seemed to be certain that once the problem was kicked upstairs and "activated remotely" it would be fine, yet through the interminable and probably expensive calls to customer support, nothing has yet happened. 

[biohazardx9]

@Anonymous

As its virtual, I'd assume there's no limit. Would just be a software change.

However this would definitely depend on your broadband bandwidth.

Essentially it just streamdumps to disk, so it could be scaled to 8 tuners easily but you would need the bandwidth to do it especially if you add bt sport ultimate into the mix.