November - last edited a week ago
Dear Neighbours,
We’re experimenting with different formats to assure you we’re listening and working on improvements to the TELUS TV platforms. We have frequent releases designed to tackle the platform's immediate and long-term stability, and we’ll do our best to keep this thread up to date with each new release to celebrate our wins together.
Please note this is not an exhaustive list; minor customer-facing fixes and non-customer-facing backend work are not included.
Q3 2024:
Q2 2024:
Q1 2024:
Q4 2023:
Q3 2023
Q2 2023
Regards,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood TV Product Development Team.
March
That looks like a typo, the newer 4K equipment will continue to be supported past 2024. I will bring it to the attention of the correct folks and have it updated. Apologies for the confusion.
March
So let me get this straight. I have 2 "old" Optik boxes in my house, one that is hardly used. I'll have to pay an additional $10 for the privilege of having a 2nd box? And because I'm on the Essentials TV plan, I have to pay an additional $10 for the privilege of being able to record? Huh?
Will there be a way to tell Telus I don't want the ability to record and to tell them I don't want a 2nd box? I'm not paying $20 more a month for inferior technology and service when I'm sitting here on single strand copper. I really, really regret signing a contract last August.
March
Have you been told this or is this an assumption?
March
Hi @KTown
When and if you are upgraded, you will be presented with options for functionality, equipment and pricing. If you want to opt out of certain equipment, you can do that at any time. If you don't want the ability to record, you can opt out of that at any time as well (for example, you can return your PVR and opt for a Digital Box without harddrive).
Further, you seem concerned about the pricing changes. As an example, our current pricing structure for new customers is:
TELUS TV Digital Box rental price: $10/month
Cloud PVR: $10/month
Core package: $35/month
TOTAL: $55/month
The legacy pricing is:
Optik 4K PVR rental price: $20/month
Recordings: included
Essentials package: $43/month
TOTAL: $63/month
The new pricing structure is less expensive AND offers more flexibility.
I hope this helps.
March
I pay $43/month for my essentials package with one HD PVR and one wireless HD box and don't pay any rental fees on either. So this new hardware initiative will cost me at least $12 more a month.
I'm on 50mb/s single strand copper (not even bonded pair) so supporting two 4K boxes is not feasible. My connection struggles with 2 people streaming HD content and another person browsing. And as far as I'm aware there are no plans to install fiber on my block.
It looks like in my case that after 12 years as a customer, Telus will be losing a customer even if it means paying the penalty to break my contract.
March
I'd strongly recommend reaching out to our customer service representatives first to discuss your options rather than deciding simply to cancel. They have tools and discounts at their disposal to ensure that you're satisfied with your bill. Even though the newer 4K PVRs and boxes support 4K video, only ~12 of the over 400 channels on Optik TV offer content in 4K resolution (I believe only 1 or 2 channels in the Essentials is in 4K). You could upgrade your equipment and only ever watch HD channels and nothing would change bandwidth wise.
If you're not paying rental fees on either of your current boxes, you have either purchased the boxes outright or you have an offsetting discount for being on a service agreement. If you have equipment discounts, these would still apply on upgraded equipment.
March - last edited March
Just to point again and this has been an issue for awhile. Telus and I believe every major cable company is offering the first week of mlb extra innings free for users.
Works fine on the old optik, on the new optik platform you get nothing other then asking us to subscribe.
I am not sure why this is still an issue on this platform, why we never get free previews on this platform that the old optik users get??
April
April
Hi @Montell
I can't comment on what other telcos offer for free previews, but capabilities, pricing and reliability certainly all vary. The TELUS TV Digital Box (and the TELUS TV+ app) are based on a different back-end platform which doesn't support free previews the same way as the legacy Optik TV platform.
I know the response won't be satisfactory, but free previews are on the development roadmap, however they are lower in priority than items like video quality and HDR/SDR switching. If there is programming or content that matters to you, you are welcome to subscribe.
April
April
April
April
You used to be able to see what was currently in free preview but according to Telus, "there was a business decision to pull the free previews page on TELUS" so not easy to find any further info...
https://forum.telus.com/t5/Optik-TV/Free-Previews-List/m-p/145277#M13797
April - last edited April
I currently have UIW8001 PVR and 3X UIW4001e. They work pretty well. The old saying, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" comes to mind.
From all of the reviews and comments here and elsewhere, such as DSLReports (https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r33851979-ALL-Comments-Experience-New-Telus-TV-Digital-Box-TelusTV-...), these new boxes sound like a step backwards, not only in terms of functionality and also picture quality. I've been with Telus long enough to highly suspect that customers will pay more for the priviledge of having less functionaly and worse picture quality.
Considering that 4K TVs are common and 8K TVs are becoming more common, it's not reasonable to expect that customers will be satisfied with poor picture quality on their big and expensive TVs.
This makes me wonder if Telus is serious about staying in this business. Eventually, charging more for less will catch up with you. Unless Telus is intentionally trying to kill the TV market, these new TV boxes sound like a mistake.
April
I see the new Telus TV Android boxes getting a lot of flack here, and I personally don't think it's entirely deserved.
Full disclosure, I worked at Shaw for 12 years, and via the employee discounts had every iteration of their TV boxes. This includes Rovi, HD Guide, Gateway, and their new X1 boxes both QAM and IP based (Bluesky/Bluecurve TV, now called Ignite TV under Rogers). I'm a big fan of the Comcast X1 platform, so my basis of comparison is that platform.
I've had the new Telus TV Android boxes for a few months now, after not having cable for a year. Prior to the year without cable I was on Shaw Bluecurve (now Ignite TV) which is the syndicated Comcast X1 platform. I feel like I'm quite particular with picture quality, and quite honestly I don't notice a difference between the Bluecurve boxes and these new Telus TV boxes. In the past Telus has struggled with picture quality particularly when compared directly to Shaw, but I was pleasantly surprised with these new boxes. Not sure why/how others are saying the picture quality is worse, but my experience has been very positive in this aspect.
The guide/UI is a little clumsy, and this is where I see Telus has the most opportunity for improvement. I don't like having to hit the back button 10 times to get out of Netflix, and the guide can be a little slow to load when the box first turns on. Having seen multiple iterations of tv boxes launch at Shaw, I know that development is always ongoing and most of those platforms had a less than that stellar launch (I'm looking at you, HD Guide). Keep in mind that Telus is actively developing for this platform so I would expect things to improve substantially over time.
I got Telus TV in time for the Superbowl and was very happy to be able to watch it on TSK in 4K. It looked fantastic. While these boxes aren't about to win awards for most outstanding anything, I feel like they're better than their reputation on this blog (and the Telus subreddit).
My 2 cents anyways.
April
April
Yup, using 2 4K TV's and one non-4k. Guess I'm lucky I don't have this issue.
April
April
That I'm not sure. These TV's are 5 or 6 years old, and I don't see anything in the options in the settings about HDR. So I'm guessing they don't have HDR.
April
April
Best of luck... Waiting for my contract to expire but another 13 months to go 😢