Forum Discussion
When will TELUS improve the Optik TV platform?
* no Exit button on the remote, or easy way to exit watching a recording or when streaming * provide a Trash Can for recently deleted recordings with capability to undelete * improved voice search ...
TELUS_Support
Official Support Team
Official Support TeamHello again! Our dev team had some information for you regarding your original post.
* no Exit button on the remote, or easy way to exit watching a recording or when streaming
The back/exit button (reverse arrow under/to the left of the d-pad) should return you to the last place in the user interface that you were; usually it's the home screen overlay. You can also configure the PREV button in settings to bring up your last 4 channels/apps. If you're watching a recording and press the PREV button, you can get back to your last channel with 2 button presses. Video will be playing in the background while you navigate, so shows will continue to play while you choose something else. If the show ends, it'll return you to the last live channel.
* provide a Trash Can for recently deleted recordings with capability to undelete
We're looking at an emergency recovery feature, but for now there is unlimited capacity which mitigates that somewhat.
* improved voice search capability on the remote: e.g. saying "FBI" should pull up FBI, FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International...instead of YouTube videos
There are 2 implementations of voice search on the TELUS remote. Google Assistant, which searches across all installed apps incl. TELUS TV On Demand results. Secondly, voice to text which searches Live and On Demand results (as well as some 3rd party streamers such as Netflix, Prime Video, etc.) Voice to text is accessed via the magnifying glass on the Home screen.
* text search capability on the remote
A full keyboard on the remote would present significant accessibility challenges. The on-screen keyboard search can be found via the magnifying glass mentioned above.
* only 1 Stingray channel compared to Rogers Xfinity which has 60
You should have access to the following: Vibe (580), Loud (581), Retro (582), Country (583), Classica (585), Festival 4K (591), Now 4K (593), HITS (2045), Palmares ADISQ (2046) as well as Naturescapes (727) which is more of a screensaver than music videos. Your Optik TV subscription also incl. access to the Stingray app available for download in the Google Play Store, which has many different channels and genres.
* it's difficult to determine future sporting events by type
Usually the program info in the details page or in the guide has descriptors like 'NHL Hockey'. Also of note, program titles are determined by the broadcasters themselves.
* marking of recordings as watched
We recently introduced a progress bar to show whether a recording has been partially or fully watched in the recordings manager, recent recordings lane, and resume lane. This is currently available on iOS, tvOS and the web browser version, and is coming soon to Android TV and mobile, Fire TV and the set-top box.
* automatically extend recordings of live events (e.g. sports)
First-run sports are actually already extended for 60 min (90 min for tennis). While this doesn't help with rare games that go past even that point, we do have Restart capabilities, and always recommend recording subsequent programs just in case.
* manually extend timed recordings
Looking to add this in the near future.
* ability to keep recordings longer than 90 days compared to Rogers Xfinity which has no expiry
Already looking at this as well, though customer feedback and usage data indicated that unlimited capacity was more valuable than storage duration. While we can't speak directly to competitors' offerings, the Rogers website itself indicates that Xfinity actually only allows 200 hours for one year.
Hope that helps!
The whole point of an Exit or Stop button while watching a recording or streaming, is to not have the shows "continue to play while you choose something else" - so your convoluted explanation for workarounds is somewhat tone deaf. I don't see how unlimited capacity mitigates the lack of a Trash Can or undelete function in the slightest. The magnifying glass on the Home screen provides an on-screen keyboard which does seem to provide better search results than voice recognition from the on remote button - so thanks for that information. I have no intention of setting up a Google account on my TV boxes and it is annoying that I cannot remove the notification that keeps prompting me to do so.
KHRTELUS Team Member
There is an option to configure the prev button on your remote to take you to the last live channel. If you are watching a recording and you hit prev, it will take you back to your previous channel. Is there somewhere else you'd rather go to exit a recording? Back/exit lets you navigate the interface and prev takes you back to live TV...
As for the trash can, there IS a trashcan icon in the recordings manager, both at the series level and program level. Is your issue that the trashcan is emptied immediately? or that we do not yet have a 'delete after watching' prompt? Or both? The team is looking into both of these, but there is no ETA. I think the comment about unlimited capacity was intended to mean that if you have a tendency to delete things by accident or to change your mind, one (admittedly not perfect) solution would be to not delete anything.
My issue with deleted recordings is that there is no trashcan icon that I can see! Not deleting anything is a ridiculous suggestion! I tend to record at least 6 hours of TV per day. The number of recordings to look through would just become unmanageable! I would welcome a prompt to delete any recording after watching. Best flow would be, visually mark recordings as "watched" when exiting from the recording at the 95% completion mark, then prompt to Delete, Keep or Mark Unwatched where Delete would be the default. But almost anything would be a vast improvement.
I have to also add that in spite of your assurance that "first-run sports are actually already extended for 60 min", my recording of the Edmonton Oilers game on channel 100 CBC tonight prematurely ended at 9:53 of the 3rd period at the 2h 24m mark. So obviously your automatic extension is not working!
- KHR
If you want to send me a PM, I can have the dev team look into why recordings on your account are not auto-extending. The below is what I see on my devices; the last 3 NHL games had recording times of 3h 32m. The scheduled run-time was 2h 30m. All recordings are set to start 2 mins early and live hockey games are supposed to be extended by 60 mins. The Jets/Stars game had a scheduled run-time of 3h, hence a recording os 4h 2m.
