TELUS TV Feature Updates - Ongoing

[Optik-Kate]

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. 

Q1 2024 (WIP):

• Recording improvements: Series recording on news-related programs
• Guide filter selection such as “my favourite channel” remains after turning the TV off and on
• Search results are now expanded to include third-party streaming apps availability in the program detail page
• Optimized search functionality via content type and cast member names
• Default focus on home - requiring only one click of the “back” button to return to the last watched stream
• User experience and design improvement on Apple TV and iOS

Q4 2023:

• Additional 4K channels on the TELUS TV Digital Box and Android TV devices 
• New and Live tags in the TV Guide
• Increased Cloud Recording duration to 90 days
• Pay Per View events are now available for purchase
• Recording improvements 
• Unviewable recordings can now be deleted
• The recordings manager now shows the newest recordings first
• Bug fixes related to recordings going missing
• Bug fixes for sports recording auto-extension 
• Surround Sound is now available
• Dismissing the “next episode” prompt is now working correctly

Q3 2023

• Chromecast - cast from TELUS TV+ mobile app to Chromecast-enabled receivers
• Game Zone - a dedicated zone on the Telus TV Digital Box with over 180 free and simple-to-play games using your mobile device as the controller 
• Resume from your Apps row on the home screen to resume shows from Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video and more

Q2 2023 

• Playback Performance Toggle - A new option in the Settings menu aimed at improving video playback on older Android devices (mobile/tablet).
• Pause Live TV for up to 15 minutes on the TELUS TV Digital Box and TELUS TV+ app
• Restart a show from the beginning that aired up to 30 hours in the past

• Profile improvements
• Recordings only show in individual profiles
• ‘Recommended for you’ personalized by profile
• ‘Favourite channels’ and ‘Favourite movies & series’ by profile
• Live Sports recordings are automatically extended; 90 minutes for tennis & 60 minutes for all other sports

Regards,

Your Friendly Neighbourhood TV Product Development Team.

[rlybelch1]

Is there any plans to bring 4k channels to the TELUS TV+ app on Apple tv? I dont have any of the TELUS boxes and id love to start using the 4k channels. Thank you!

[Optik-Kate]

Hi @rlybelch1, it's on the roadmap, but I can't provide any timelines at this moment! 

[broadcastguy]

How about decreasing the compression/increasing the bitrate of the Live TV content? It’s looking very soft for something released in 2023. Surely you can give those with the ability to use more bandwidth an option to improve the picture quality. What I see and have seen with this new Evolution product is extremely disappointing, especially as someone working in the broadcasting space.

[Montell]

Yup I still think the old optik system looked better, both fibre and hardwired when I compared.

[kjb5000]

What additional 4K channels? And any update on improving the picture quality?

[KHR]

Added to TELUS TV Digital Box:

Inultra

LoveNature

Nasa

Revel TV

Stingray Naturescapes

Stingray Festival

Stingray Now

TravelXP

All 8 of these, plus the 3 4K Sports Channels (SN4K, SN1 4K and TSN4K) added to the TELUS TV+ app for Android TV.

Individual availability of the channels may depend on your subscriptions. 

[Flash54321]

Not being able to give a timeline for updates is absolutely ridiculous in 2023. It feels like I’m paying to be a product tester.

Your competitors all have the functionality that your customers expect but for some reason this product launch was rushed without what should have been basic features.

[Rocky3]

I have to somewhat disagree about competitors having the functionality.  Unless we have a subscription to each of the others and operate similtaneously we really do not know. Friends with Shaw complain as much as we do here, as with Eastlink customers.

Everyone is reducing service to maintain a price point. All providers are switching to an internet based TV with cloud recordings. This is in its infancy.

My biggest pet peeve is the basics we got used to are missing from this new platform. you have to read the older posts to find your issues were reported 6 months ago without solution.

[Montell]

I want to say thank you for making android tv more similar to your telus boxes adding 4k channels. I have a nvidia shield, its more powerful, more robust, well developed piece of hardware then telus optik box. Users should be able to use devices like this and not lose features  from the telus cheap android box. 

I was just about to send my telus android box back to telus which I was provided free of charge along with a second also free.

But then I noticed there's no PPV channels on the android shield tv? Why is it always something missing? Just give us the same experience on any android device, please stop just putting things on the cheap telus android box, nobody wants to use them, telus is renting me them for free, I would love to send these back, but theres always something left out with you guys when I try to use another android device that is more powerful and works better.

Where are ppv's on other android tv devices??? There all android tv devices, just develop on these devices in unison...

Hopefully if you add ppv channels to android tv I can give you my boxes back you gave free to me.

[KHR]

Hi @Montell,

While the underlying code is all Android TV, development on the TELUS TV Digital Box is always going to be a bit ahead of Nvidia Shield, Sony TV and Chromecast with Google TV. Because TELUS controls the on-screen start-up experience and hardware, feature implementation is usually somewhat more straightforward and doesn't always involve lawyers. Some 3rd parties consider PPV and movie rentals as 'in-app' purchases, with comes with all sorts of fun. 

All of that said - we are working to bring Pay Per View to the TELUS TV+ app in the future.    

[Montell]

Thanks that makes sense. I guess just from an end user perspective though, I was hoping these android boxes telus wants us to use were more of a "just in case" option for elderly or others who somehow dont have a smart device already in 2023.

To me the future is your app's, not in cable companies supplying boxes like its the 90's. I hope development on the apps themselves becomes a main priority, that is where the world is going. Everyone has there favorite, apple tv, shield tv, google tv. Telus supplied a cheap, fairly slow and under powered android hardware option that many end users dont want to use, its another device they need to add and setup.

You guys are also battling issues already sorted on things like an nvidia shield such as the colorspace issue. Nvidia shield properly outputs rec .709 color space for Standard def, and HDR BT 2020 for HDR. This forum is littered with complaints about that with your android box that still seems to be pushed on users for features.

I have a friend with shaw, Friday I told him 4k is now available on android tv, he said ok im switching to telus, Im tired of having a cable company box as a separate device, just let me use my nvidia shield or apple tv, I dont want a cable company box,or there devices, its more remotes, more crap in my living room.

Then I gave him the bad news as he is a big boxing fan and PPV at times is only available for some big fights through cable providers, that PPV is missing. He said I guess its not time to switch yet then.

I hope telus see's the advantages here to putting the priority into the app, not having to reinvent the wheel, waste resources on android hardware and try to fix things like the colorspace issue which have already been hashed out by major companies like nvidia on the shield. I hope the app on main stream devices becomes the development teams priority in the future. Everyone has one already in there homes and it means less headaches for telus to support. And telus rented me two of these android boxes for free, I doubt its making much money.

[Nollind]

When I first saw these new digital TV boxes being offered, I want to transition my older Optik box over to it because of the capability of the cloud recordings and the ability to watch those recordings on mobile devices. But when I noticed it only offered Google Assistant for smart home compatibility, I decided not to transition to it. I've used Google Assistant extensively in the past and had nothing but issues with it, especially in terms of playing music. Now that my wife is dependent upon it (as she's not that tech savvy), I'd rather not move back to Google Assistant.

Will Amazon Alexa compatibility be offered in the future?

[Nollind]

Hmm, no edit feature for posts?

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Now that my wife is dependent upon it...

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Meant to say, "Now that my wife is dependent upon Amazon Alexa"

[Rocky3]

top right corner of your post, a down arrow pull down menu, edit

[Nollind]

That's actually the first thing I did. Tried it two or three times. No edit option there whatsoever.

Today however when I look at both of my previous posts above, they show an edit option on the drop down arrow.

[Optik-Kate]

Hi @Nollind , we currently do not have plans to expand to Alexa, but I will log this request and let the development team know the next time we revisit device expansions.

[Orion1488]

How about just making the features that are supposed to be there now work properly.  None of the 3 boxes in the house or the app allow a choice between profiles.  They have all just suddenly disappeared.  I went onto the Admin profile on the one box that did have the profile choice and there was no option to get out of the admin profile.  Have done a factory reset twice on all the boxes and still no way to access the profiles or even to create or edit profiles.  

[Kwallz]

Will there be a way to custom set recordings, specifically, I want to record canucks games only, not every hockey game for every team that comes on tv. I was able to do that with Shaw.

Will there be custom recording extensions sometimes I want 30 min sometimes I want 2 hours. Was able to do this with Shaw.

Will there be function to adjust fast forwarding and re winding. Currently if you press and hold it just fast forwards so fast you can't tell where you are or where you have gone, other devices you can press fast forward 1 time for slow, 2 times for medium 3 times for fast and 4 times for really fast, would be nice to have control of fast forwarding. This was a normal function on Shaw

Will there be a way to set our own preferences when we turn on the tv ? I would like to be able to turn on to tv and watch tv, not get dropped into an android app screen that's hard to navigate away from. I am paying for regular cable tv and want that to be my first option, if I want apps or on demand I would like to choose that myself not be constantly forced to it. That was normal for Shaw as well, really missing this.

The voice assistant only seems to search for things on YouTube. If I ask for a show or a person it searches and only gives results for YouTube, it won't bring up anything from the tv guide, or Netflix or any other app I have. This is pretty useless to be honest. Shaw blue curve would always bring up every option from every platform - Netflix / crave / Amazon etc.

Many things need some work, or else much easier navigation and better instructions I feel like many of these things above should be customizable and use changeable, but I can't seem to find any information on how to do any of this.

[Nollind]

Wow, thank you for relaying these issues with the Telus TV Digital box, as I’m now doubly glad I didn’t “upgrade” to it and stuck with our older Optik TV 4K box instead, since it still has all of the TV features you mentioned.

[Kwallz]

Yea, I wonder if there is a way to "downgrade" to the older better setup . . . I'm pretty disappointed 😪