Telstra T-Box PVR (preview)

Well where to start, must not listen to sale's pitch from Telstra!! We got our first Ts**t last year(mid year) less than a month later it died unresponsive remote did all the bulls**t after many phone calls,sent it back, got a new one and was charged $159.00 for a replacement,It has taken 5 months to sort out the billing issue which resulted in getting phone disconnected!Suddenly we lost most of the channels, we can only watch 7,7mate, Abc,Sbs,and last night the Ts**t died again,checked the antenna connection and we get all channels by disconnecting the the Ts**t. I don't think this was well thought out at all as it very rarely works as it should, can't wait to ring so I can not understand the person I will be speaking to in Dubai....WTF Telstra

Don't waste your money. Because the TV networks do not run their programs to schedule and despite being connect to the internet, the T-Box does not recognise the live program times. So the TV recording function is inadequate, you will never record the full program. The movies is a rort, high prices for a limited library. Quicflix is cheaper and offers and huge library. We paid a small fee for the unit in store and are now also charged a monthly fee.

I've had Tbox for only two weeks. So far so good, however, trying to access my vuze library on my mac through the tbox, any ideas how to do that??? Tbox recognises Vuze, but I can't watch them through the tbox.

I too hate these T boxes, heap of trouble and crap. I cant get on to any channels and when I do they just drop out for no reason. Thanks Telstra, biggest con artists around

I have had no trouble with the T/box ,, I find it easy to use ( I didn’t have to read the user guide its that easy to use ,, I have had the t/box now for about 6 months and love it .. you must be doing something wrong if you don’t like it …

Terrible TBox. Had it one week and took it back. Nothing on this thing is appealing. If you have a state of the art HD telly its shows up as running mostly in 720 HD, not 1080. There is NO 5.1 surround sound, just stereo. It's slow to use and expensive to rent movies. (you can buy most of the movies for little more that $6) so why bother renting them. Just a total con job from Telstra.

The functions that the TBox performs overall are good. It would be a good product if Telsta bothered to fix the problems. The main problem I've got is the finicky control. It does not always register when you press a button, then it lags, then it spins through whatever you are scrolling. It's so-ooooo frustrating. For example, you click fast-forward to 2x, then to 5x, then to 10x but it stays on 5x, so you click again, and so on, then suddenly, it jumps to 600x. It really makes the product unusable. I don't mind the small control, but I wish the stupid thing would work properly.

Seriously, read these reviews and DO NOT BUY A TBOX (or T-Hub for that matter.)

Don't even think that the $35 + $11/mnth is a safe way to test this absolute failure of a device: I currently have two t-box's (plus two t-hubs, and three modems) ALL OF WHICH TELSTRA CHARGE ME FOR!!! I've been trying to return the majority of these items for months now, and the charges just keep turning up on my bill, unlike the return satchels which never turn up.

On that, I was trying to return both t-boxes: one was faulty (like so many Telstra products), the other one was just as useless as a t-box. TV tuner can't tune in to our "weak" signal out here (the TV has no trouble), Telstra IPTV is an absolute joke when compared to MeTV and Fetch.

The Telstra T-Box is complete rubbish. Had it for 12 months. Constantly had to perform hard resets. Movies never play perfectly. Vision and Sound constantly gets out of sync. Constantly reboots for no reason. Just look at it ... its a cheap piece of plastic crap with an even cheaper remote control.
Telstra customer service is appalling. Off shore telephonists speaking broken English pretend to type notes on your account when you make a complaint but when you call back next day THE NOTES DON'T EXIST.
We are returning out T-box and our T-Hub and our iPhones and going back to Optus.

Have had nothing but trouble since we got it 5 months ago, have rung telstra help almost everytime we use it..and get people with strong accents so we have no idea what they're saying. Movies freeze and have to re-boot the box continually. Feel so ripped and want to send it back..didn't work with adsl so had to go wireless, was not told that till after we got it. Another unwarranted expense but bit the bullet.

Telstra you suck so bad.

I've had a T-Box for about 1 month and I can say that it is a fantastic piece of equipment. It works perfectly, the interface is simple and easy to use. Now that you can even get a remote on your iphone. I have it connect via wi-fi and have no problems watching internet content or downloading movies. I really don't understand what everyone is complaining about. It is a great all round device and I can highly recommend it.

Telstra box or what ever it is called. Why don't you wake up folk and just face it. The whole thing is a con. You pay heaps for a service that does not work. You are lied to just to keep you feeling that perhaps one day things will be good. It is the biggest con trick in the book. Banks use it, polititions use it. A promise of something good, eventually. They keep you on a string until you give up and leave, but hey, there will be another sucker along soon. Wake up and see the lies.....virginmobile broadband. Optus. Telstra. Vodaphone. They all master the art of sly sales with a dose of lies. Well done a aust...................

TELSTRA
You got to be kidding about this t-box thing
Surely you would test every possible thing that could go wrong with these units before you would sell them as a saleable product.
The frustration you cause is undescribable ...shame ..shame..shame

Had all of these problems as well Tbox won't turn off, freezes, remote does not work have to turn on and off at wall constantly. Sent it back returned saying nothing wrong. I am ready to send it back. Would not recommend to anyone. The person whose TBox works obviously got the only one that does.

If you miss the last few mins iof a recorded program its not the fault of the T Box.

It is standard preocedure for many channels to shift the start and end time of programs.

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Received the T-Box last week and already called help line three times. First it was the registration. Then it got stuck on foxtel advert channel and now the remote stops working after five minutes. Absolute rubbish. And they said extra channels. What if I am over 40 and not interested in Fiooty or Rugby?
Then there is the set up of the unit. the programmer should be sacked. Why can';t you arrange your channels? I like channel 9, Go and Gem in that order which is not possible. Changing of channels are also a hastle, it just takes too long to load and the info flag stays on too long.
And why is the reset botton right under the unit? I set my T-Box in my entertainment unit and to rest the unit I have to pull the whole thing out so I can reach underneath.

And who's idea was it to only mak Youtube available? Why not the whole internet? Wouldn't that had a better potential to make money for Telstra?

My forty dollar generic HD settop box with recording capability works a hunderd times better.

Wake up Telstra. One of the biggest companies in this country with all necessary resources at you desposal and this is what you are marketing?

The telemarketer sold us this product when we switched to bigpond internet five months ago. Since that time the TBOX has malfunctioned twice and had to be sent back to Telstra for repairs. The first mode of malfunction was the unit kept locking up and rebooting every two minutes. We sent the unit back and got a replacement. The second malfunction ( two weeks later) was that the unit no longer responded to the remote control.

The TBOX also requires an active internet connection to be able to schedule TV program recordings. We also have a digital TV which obtains the TV program guide over the air and does not require an internet connection to do this.

The primary reason for purchasing the tbox was to record tv shows, but the unit is unable to do this without an internet connection.

looking at all of these reviews im a little baffled. the tbox i have has been running perfectly. it is hooked up to adsl2+ and downloads movies with ease. the tv quality of free to air is on par with if not a touch better than the HD sony HDD i also have set up. is mine a freak tbox??? id highly recommend this, especially when telstra gave it to me for $24...beats the sh*t out off the $1000 sony hdd which has been in for repairs twice.

I am struggling already for more than half a year to get those bloody boxes working. Support doesn't help me any more, I email them, call them and still nothing... nothing works with that box, nothing. And .... I have 3 they've been all replaced but still the same problems, going from freezing, remotes that don't work, sound goes off etc etc... just don't buy this, not worth it at all

I was considering the $109 a month deal from Telstra, which included the T-Box. Thanks to people taking the time to post their comments I have now decided to stick with my present setup.

DO NOT BUY A T-BOX
i'm currently up to my 3rd remote with them and i have had the t-box less than 3 months. don't waste your money the support team even agree that they are always in testing as there are constant problems with them. i'm about to return mine, but can not get a refund only a credit even though i paid for mine outright not on a plan.
like every other person i hate this thing- endless frustration!!!

I am amazed to see all the negative comments on the TBox. We had one installed with the FIOS (NBN) Internet, and it's been nothing but a dream, running on a large 1080p TV, and surround sound system all through HDMI. I'm not a Telstra fanboi (is anyone?) But this is a great device, the ability to watch internet TV from providers other than just Telstra would have drawn a 5 star rating from me!

The testra T-box has been nothing but trouble from get go. As the other reviewers have made very clear this product is A grade crap. Number one if you don't turn the T-box off a certain way it gets rid of all sound on your televition so you need to re set and turn it off at the mains over and over until it magically decides to work again. I just deleted recorded shows and my T-box has gone into meltdown my picture and sound has gone. Changing the channels is incredibly frustrating and takes so long that you miss the first half of the show and we've recently come to discover that when you try and record a tv show which i though was a major perk to this deal it misses about the last ten minutes of any program even though i have all my download space left. Get your act together telstra for once and make a product that actually works, we're paying enough for your quality rubbish after all.

We got ours two months ago, and it was easy to set up, and has been easy to use. Not sure if we have a new model or something, but it's really a good addition. Just press a button and our favorite TV series are recorded, so we can watch them when / if we have time. Nice to have extra sports content, and TV guide.

I perched a T box outright this thing looked like a cheep piece of crap and failed to talk to the remote within days even reseting the t box didnot work another remote worked but the T box kept droping the remote reseting worked but reseting up to 20 times in one day a new T box fixed this all was well untill it upgraded itself it now takes 2 to 6 houres to download one of the very poor selection , way over priced and only short term rental of movies and yes i have telstra's fast internet.what a piece of junk

**problem from day 1...... the little remote is hopeless so a telstra technicial says get a wireless keyboard put the usb on to the slot on front. so i buy keyboard and still no luck. now all the notes etc are not working correctly. i hired a movie i couldnt watch. not sure what to say but telstra should do some sort of upgrade to this box

The remote is very small and feels tacky for something to be used all the time, aside from that the interface is incredibly attractive and the features are great! From the simple ones like showing your suburb and weather to playing games on the new applications add-on. Tbox will also have an option for foxtel too. the bigpond channels are great as well especially the Bigpond Music Channel. Occasionally it freezes but hey for the price with all it's features, technology has been renown to fault, but you have to look at the positives too. The movies started off VERY poor..with the new releases all B grade, but now it has movies like Inception, Iron Man 2, The Blind Side and many more! Trial it at your telstra shop because there's no point in getting it if the interface and layout that is used all the time bugs you. ALSO it come with a free HDMI cable, which was strange because usually you have to buy one separately????

This product is a rip off.
Nothing works, not the recording, not the remote, I can receive the big pond channels, the movies that they offer ar low class horror and B movies what a scam !!!
Remote keeps on unpairing, freezes all the time, sound suddenly gone, you can't depend on the programming you lose parts of the program unless you modify the recording each time. Expensive piece of equiptment that doesn't work.

Other reviews have said it all and I have experienced most of the complaints noted. After 3 months I am ready to throw the thing out - unfortunately I made the mistake of paying for it up-front.

Biggest piece of S..t ever purchased along with telstra and there motems sick of ringing telstra which is a least 3 times a week