TVision Mini Review

Ordered TVision today since DirecTV wouldn't re-up my promo, so I'll do a little mini review. Not going to take a bunch of pictures or anything like that though, too much work .

Based on what I know so far:

* You need a set top box at each TV
* No contracts
* Currently no ads in the guide or UI
* 8 tuners on the server
* Server has to be hard wired (but I'll be using an AC bridge), clients connect to the server through a hidden wifi network (but I won't be testing the clients)
* 400 hours HD local DVR
* The server can output HD and 4K directly, so if you have 1 TV, you only need the one box
* UI supports profiles and voice and recommendations, etc.
* Data usage:

HD = about 1.8GB/hr
4K = about 7.7GB/hr
Home Screen = about 5 - 6GB/hr

* Only 2 4K channels now. FSN and Nasa, but they have 4K PPV and On Demand. HDR is supported.
* Locals are similar to cable where they provide you with some of the sub channels as well (at least in my area, so no need for OTA)
* No concept of packages. It's $90 flat rate for TMobile customers + $10/box. So $100 for me plus taxes. Supposedly the taxes will only be on the $10 portion. They have all the premiums which are extra of course.
* TMobile recommends 50Mbps for the service, I have 1Gbps, but as noted above, the server will be running on an AC bridge, so that port will max out at about 500Mbps.

I've visited 2 tmobile stores to check out the service, and at both, the PQ sucked if I'm being honest. The sales people at both locations gave me the same story: We have slower internet and every device in the store is on it.

They offer an 21 day money back guarantee if you don't like the service.

You can theoretically order the service on the TVision web site, but it doesn't work with Chrome+Ghostery. I disabled Ghostery and I was able to get a few steps further, but it still didn't accept my order, so I had to call in.

That's all the info I have for now...

 

I asked about any promotions and stuff like that. Nothing right now, but they said when they spin up 5G, they'll be bundling deals there. The no contracts is a big deal to a lot of people. I wouldn't sign up to a streaming service with contracts, that's for sure. The key selling point of streaming for a lot of people is to sign up for a month or two, binge, then move on to the next service.

In regards to the price, I don't believe TVision has had any price hikes since launch. Which is more then we can say for T & DirecTV. TMobile seems to keep their prices pretty steady on other services, so fingers crossed. ATT TV doesn't seem to carry any sub channels for locals. I'm not really sure which one of the T services you are talking about since they have a bunch with almost identical names lol. When you were comparing the price, did you include all the extra fees? I checked one of the services and it had about $11 of fees tacked on from the advertised price when I got to the cart, and that was a first yr promo rate.

The channel selection is larger on Tvision from what I can see. Although the premiums seem to be more expensive.

 

In my area, it shows the specific locals like Cozi. You can consider it a skinny-ER traditional package delivered over the internet with traditional hardware. As a comparison, my DirecTV bill is $130 since they aren't re-upping my promo (so far) vs. $102 on TVision, so quite a savings there. The box is being delivered Friday, so I can't comment on the PQ yet.

My issue with Youtube is that the basic package doesn't carry all the channels I want, not to mention the weird DVR behavior. To get all the channels I want via OTT, I priced it at at LEAST $70+ and I wouldn't have PBS and I'd need 3 providers. So yeah, I could probably save another $20 - $30, but managing 3 OTT providers sounds like a huge PITA I'm not ready to deal with yet lol.

Another selling point is the supposedly fixed pricing. We'll see if that holds up if I keep the service. Definitely better then $7+ hikes every year on DTV and some of the OTT providers have jacked up prices 25%+ in one shot.

 

Got the Tvision box today early enough in my lunch hour that I hooked it up real quick.

* packaging is nice -- I've had some DTV shipments where the contents were almost spilling out -- triple boxing here with all the TMobile branding everywhere
* set up is super easy -- plug in the ethernet and hdmi and power and you're done. the box came pre-activated and pre-configured with a profile for me
* UI has more modern features then DirecTV, but only played with it for 15 mins or so
* box boots up in a few seconds vs DirecTV equipment

That brings us to the PQ... real mixed bag here... some of the channels were very good, much better then DirecTV I would say, but out of the 5 channels I played with real quick, I'd say at least one of them -- Lifetime -- was TERRIBLE to the point of being unwatchable.

I'll give the service another chance tonight / this weekend since the internet is overloaded during the day with people wfh, but if the Lifetime PQ is what is now, I'd say I'm going to return the box.

 

Seems to be the main Lifetime channel. Lifetime Discovery seemed much better. I'm getting full speed on speedtest though, so I'd say they just have a lousy feed for Lifetime. I looked through some other channels and that seems to be the worst one. I called up tech support and well, lets just say crappy tech support people aren't exclusive to DirecTV lol. She claimed my box was showing bandwidth issues... weird that the 4k channel worked great lol. Google Fiber speedtest shows 540Mbps right now where after hours its closer to 900+.

 

I have a good AC router. Although to be fair, I am running the box through a bridge (which is exactly the twin of the main router and they are set up to bridge on "exclusive" 160mhz channels) because I have no way of getting an ethernet cable to the living room, but I didn't want to reboot my cable modem and router right now since its during business hours.

Honestly, I'm skeptical I'll see a difference after I reboot everything since the 4K channels were working and its only a few channels here and there, but if the box is reporting bandwidth issues to TMobile I'll give it another chance just to be safe.

I may even try to hook a laptop up through the bridge to make sure I'm still getting ~500Mbps at the bridge since that's the max on AC.

 

Well. Crap. TVision seems like they're giving me West Coast feeds for stuff like USA, History, etc. where DirecTV gives me the East Coast feeds. Gold Rush would air here at 6pm, but on TVision its on at 9pm. That would be a second deal breaker for me after the PQ I think.

 

So I rebooted my cable modem and router(s).

PC hardwired into main router which is hardwired into the cable modem: 844mbps down
Laptop hardwired into bridge: 380mbps down (ch100), 423mbps (ch104) -- so I'm pretty much maxing out AC

 

Ya... I'm out... that was fast lol

1) as posted above, I hooked up my laptop at the bridge using the same exact port / ethernet cable and it maxed out AC @ 400Mbps, I had a chance to look at other channels and found more with crappy PQ. If my laptop can get 400Mbps on speedtest, I don't know what else to tell tmobile, they're either overly compressing stuff or have bad feeds.

2) giving me the west coast feeds for nationals is a deal breaker I think, while I live in california and "should" be getting the west coast feeds, for the cable channels, that totally screws up my schedule. I eat dinner @ 5ish, work out and am ready to watch some tv by 7. The 3 hr shift is something I don't want to deal with.

 

I realize there is overhead and latency with wireless. If I upgraded to an AX router, I'd get closer to the hard wired speed, definitely not going to do that lol. I don't have a long enough cat 5 cable to try hardwiring the box.

Not really worth messing with it anymore if the time shift is going to screw me up.

I'll probably try hit up loyalty again and see if they'll bring my bill down.

 

Ya, I'm not ready to pull the trigger on a 1st gen AX router. I pulled the trigger on a draft AC bridge and an early AC router and both were garbage. Right now both my main router and bridge are Linksys WRT3200ACM, so a high end AC router.

I read the AX reviews on Smbforum and they don't seem to be quite ready for prime time yet, although the Netgear RAX80 looks really cool. But for $300+, I don't want to be a beta tester. I've reported a few bugs to Linksys like parental controls not working on bridged devices and they never fixed it. Had to find a workaround instead.

I can do Amazon Prime 4K, Netflix 4K and also stream movies over DLNA over the bridged connection with 0 hiccups or pixelation as well.