Accessing catch-up with YouView disabled

[thesynman]

Hi,

I know this has been raised in the past, but the situation seems to have changed. I want to use the USB recording function on my new XR-55A95K. To do that it seems I need to disable the YouView app (Settings/Apps/select "Live TV & Catch-up"/disable). That's fine, but once it's disabled the catch-up apps (e.g. BBC iPlayer) no longer work. Sony's answer to this, via their support service, is "bad luck, if you disable YouView there's no catch-up".

Surely that can't be true?

Is there a way of accessing iPlayer etc. with YouView disabled? I know there is a git hub repo with an apk for this, but it seems that's no longer up to date or supported (I haven't tried it).

Thanks for reading.

[daveyh64]

Have you tried while the TV is in Digital TV mode (FreeView) to set a recording, and once set, switch back to Live TV & Catch Up (YouView) and access the catchup apps that way. 

[daveyh64]

Have you tried while the TV is in Digital TV mode (FreeView) to set a recording, and once set, switch back to Live TV & Catch Up (YouView) and access the catchup apps that way. 

Don't know if you can just a thought.

[royabrown2]

@thesynman 

Sony’s reply is wrong, and it was always wrong, as far as the BBC iPlayer and Demand 5/My 5 are concerned; the itv Player and All4, only, were indeed originally bound to YouView, and you needed the Hoshsadiq workaround to get them on the Freeview side, but this was not necessary for sets from 2020 onwards.

Another annoying restriction used to be that you had to have tuned in itv and Channel 4  on terrestrial TV for these two players to work, but this was also abolished, and you had the option of just putting in your postcode instead.

So I don’t know why you can’t get the BBC iPlayer to work. Have you actually tried it, and it doesn’t work (in which case, what actually happens?), or is it that you can’t see it anywhere (in which case, try Sony Select), or what?

[thesynman]

Thanks for your reply, @royabrown2 .

Yes, I've tried iPlayer with YouView disabled. I've tried launching it using the app icon, in which case nothing happens at all. I've also tried watching BBC1 and pressing red  - by that method I can get the splash screen but it never gets as far as the profile selection page. It all works fine when I reenable YouView.

Is it possible I'm disabling YouView "wrong"? I'm doing it by Settings/Apps/select "Live TV & Catch-up"/disable.

Thanks in advance.

[thesynman]

Thanks for your reply, @daveyh64 .

I haven't tried that, but even if it did work I don't think I could sell that solution to my wife! If there was a one-click way of enabling or disabling YouView I might get away with it, but the only way I know of doing it is deep down in the settings menus.

We use a Harmony remote, and I've considered whether it might be possible to set up activities to start the TV with and without YouView, but I can't see that there's any sequence of commands that would work reliably.

[LightFoot]

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@thesynman wrote:

Is it possible I'm disabling YouView "wrong"? I'm doing it by Settings/Apps/select "Live TV & Catch-up"/disable.

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Hi @thesynman   

There is no need to "disable" Live TV & Catch Up (YouView). You simply change your default TV App by going to Settings -> Channels & Inputs -> TV button shortcut-> Digital -> Select your default TV app for Digital -> TV (not Live TV & Catch Up).

I have never used Live TV & Catch Up on my A95K, and I use BBC iPlayer and all the other iPlayers all the time especially for BBC UHD content.

[HannahEd01]

Hi thesynman, did you try any of the suggested solutions? How did it go? 

Also, if you disable YouView you won't be able to use BBC, as per the YouView website, you need a YouView enabled TV: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/getting-started-with-bbc-iplayer/getting-started-tv

[royabrown2]

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@HannahEd01 wrote:

Hi thesynman, did you try any of the suggested solutions? How did it go? 

Also, if you disable YouView you won't be able to use BBC, as per the YouView website, you need a YouView enabled TV: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/getting-started-with-bbc-iplayer/getting-started-tv

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Sorry, @HannahEd01 but that’s quite wrong; see my posting above, where I explain that all Sony Android TVs have been able to use the BBC iPlayer and Demand 5/My 5 on the non-YouView side right from the get-go in 2015; only the itv Hub and All4 were restricted to the YouView side.

And even this limitation was removed from model year 2020 onwards, and we are talking about a 2022 set here.

I followed the link you gave above, to see if perhaps the BBC had got it wrong, and they haven’t, though I can see how you might have misinterpreted it from the text description.

But here it is, unqualified by any assertion about YouView:-

Manufacturer   Year     Model

Sony.

2022

XR-A95K series

This leaves only the possibility that disabling YouView on a 2022 set (in the way that you would switch away from YouView on pre-2020 sets), instead of just exiting Live &Catchup TV as you do on the later sets, disables these Players.

If so, that’s a pretty bizarre bug that would need fixing.

But we need to see what @thesynman reports back on this.