When Microsoft announced at this year’s Gamescom that the Xbox One will gain the ability to record Live TV programs (2016 for three countries initially) I have to admit this was one of the reasons why I purchased the Xbox One TV Digital Tuner now, so I could be ready for it. Granted you will need an external hard drive to use this feature, but this is no different from say a standard TV set with optional PVR support.
The Xbox One TV Tuner options don’t stop there though, as after all most modern TV’s have the PVR function built in so what makes the Xbox One variant any better? Well with the Xbox Tuner you will soon gain the ability to not only record programs to the hard drive, but you can also stream them to your Windows 10 Desktop/Tablet via the Xbox App and even download the recorded programs for offline viewing afterwards. Thus you can watch them on the fly on your Windows 10 tablet for example.
You will also be able to schedule TV recordings via Xbox Live so you don’t have to be sitting by the console to do this.
Microsoft also states that you will be able to continue gaming while the recording is taking place. However to prevent issues this is why you will need an external Hard Drive on your Xbox One.
Design & Box Content
In the meantime the Xbox One Digital TV tuner does provide a few additional features that are available now - ones that help justify the relatively small asking price (just £21.85 when I bought it). Most notably is the ability to stream Live TV to the Xbox SmartGlass App (Windows Phone/Android (BETA)/iOS/Windows 8/10 Desktop).
Before I go any further with the features I just wanted to mention what you got in the box. It's not a vast amount to be honest, as you simply get a Quick Setup guide and Accessories Product manual. Other than this you will mainly find the TV tuner itself.
The TV Tuner is pretty small I have to admit measuring just 15 x 14 x 5 cm and weighing 177g. On the one end of the Tuner you have an attached USB cable (approx. 1m in length) while on the other end you have the connection for your Portable Digital TV Antenna or the Antenna from your wall outlet.
Its size does mean that you can pretty much add this to the Xbox One without even noticing it’s there!
Setup
For most people you won't have an issue setting up the Xbox One TV Tuner. However my problem with the Tuner was that I had previously setup my Virgin Media box to go through the Xbox One's HDMI-IN Port. This meant that the OneGuide info (EPG) was still in place for the latter. To cut a long story short I had to remove this before I could use the Xbox One TV Tuner properly.
Note: I removed the Virgin box from the equation anyway because it still felt like a disparate addition, whereas the Xbox One TV Tuner is designed foremost for the console and you can tell.
Once the above was sorted, the setup process going forward was straightforward...
Steps
After turning on the console and inserting the TV Tuner into a spare USB port a Notification will appear asking you if you want to set this up. Holding down the Xbox button will then take you to the TV setup wizard.
You are then given the choice of either Freeview or Freeview National. I choose the latter as I thought it would give me the most channels.
After this you can get it to scan for compatible TV channels and being Freeview this also pulled over some HD channels as well. In total I was impressed that my ageing TV aerial managed to pull down 137!
The next stage is to set your OneGuide up, which basically requires you to enter your postcode so it can pull over the correct TV guide for your area.
Note: The OneGuide system can be brought up with Kinect voice controls or your controller (though the Xbox Media Controller will also work with the TV Tuner).
You also get the ability to reserve 4GB of your console’s hard drive space for Live TV pausing. Thus you can pause, rewind and forward up to 30 minutes worth of Live TV. So if you need to get up to answer the phone or go for a cuppa you can and then return later to continue from where you left off.
Watching Programs & Quality
Once this is done there is one other tweak that you may need to make and that's to head to the Xbox One's Settings option and enable 50Hz support (if you live in the UK). As the PAL broadcast does not run at the consoles native 60Hz. While it won't cause any damage you will notice an effect on the image quality/motion if you don't change it (especially with fast moving scenes). Note: The TV's 50Hz option does not change the gaming side, as this will still run at 60Hz.
With this tweak and setup process complete you can then start to Watch TV (via the TV App). The picture quality depends on if you are watching in SD or HD of course. However I did find the quality on the whole i.e. in terms of colour reproduction, was great! It was certainly a lot better than when my Virgin Media Cable box was plugged in via the HDMI-IN.
Channels are mainly accessed using the aforementioned OneGuide (which is your EPG listing all of the available programs). Mind you there is also a mini guide that takes you to a condensed version of the full OneGuide, so you can get a snapshot of the TV listings.
The OneGuide can provide information about the program itself or what's coming-up next and a press of the A button (or by using your voice if you have the Kinect) will take you to the Live TV playback controls where you can enable subtitles, pause Live TV or change the aspect ratio (this is done via the settings button).
The controls work pretty much the same as the standard Media Apps on the console, so there is no re-learning required. Using your voice though can be a little fiddly to start with, only because you have to learn all the commands, but it does prove a useful option when you get the hang of it! it certainly puts the Kinect to use, that's for sure!
As I mentioned earlier I got 137 channels to play with (most of these are popular ones such as BBC HD, E4, Film 4 etc), however if I'm being picky it can be a bind to scroll through all of these and most certainly switching between channels or the OneGuide could be faster.
Thankfully you can set channels as your favourites in order to build up a custom guide or find programs to watch quickly via the consoles Home screen. Plus you can set the console in how to handle duplicate channels i.e. ones on SD can be removed if they are on HD (the preferred way of viewing).
Multitasking
As with most Xbox One Apps you can also snap the TV app to the side - if you want to watch your programs at the same time as browsing or playing a game.
However my favourite use of the TV tuner so far is the ability to stream content to the Xbox One's SmartGlass App.
The ability to do this via the Windows 10 Xbox App is handled via the main streaming option now (look under connect). However the app used to display the OneGuide info via the main menu - when my Virgin Cable box was attached - but now the Xbox One TV Tuner is installed, for some reason, it does not.
This should return when they bring the PVR function to the console or it could be that as I am using a Windows Insider Preview version and something has gone wrong, but it did mean I had to download the separate Xbox One SmartGlass app to get the most from the TV Streaming.
On the plus side once streaming started I could happily watch TV on my PC or via the Smartphone. With the Smartphone I was also streaming TV and viewing content from the IGN App (on the console) at the same time! Apart from the odd buffering issue (given that I was running on a slower wireless connection) streaming was still pretty good and I could therefore see a lot of uses for this streaming support moving forwards. Especially if your other half wants to watch TV while you game or vice versa. Now there is no need to run the TV in a snapped window.
The only snag is you can’t stream a TV program to your smartphone and watch a different TV channel (on your console) at the same time, as there is only one antenna.
On the Windows 10 PC side the viewing window is also limited i.e you can’t adjust the window small enough without losing the picture. It did not seem to have an always on top setting either.
PC Streaming Quality
Again the streaming quality is dependent on your Network connection or if the channel is SD/HD (plus the quality setting itself plays a part - which can be adjusted from best quality to low). However on the whole it managed to stream HD content to the computer without too much of a problem. SD was not so impressive, as it did look a little pixelated at full screen. In fairness unlike a TV my monitor is viewed close-up and at this range you do tend to notice more issues if the streamed quality is not as good.
Mind you on a positive note when streaming on either PC or smartphone you still have the ability to pause Live TV through the SmartGlass app. The only downside is that you will get some buffering if it has to catch up for more than a few minutes – nothing major mind.
Start-up
You can set the console to automatically switch to the TV tuner on start-up. This way you can remove the Home and gaming aspect completely - useful if you other half is not a fan of having to wade through several options in order to get to the TV.
Summary
Granted while you have a digital TV tuner built-into most modern TV's, the Xbox One Tuner does provide a converged solution so you don't need to swap between the TV/Console all the time. It also provides older TV's with a lot more multimedia options. Streaming TV to my smartphone was a great touch and the ability to pause Live TV likewise. Plus the number of Freeview channels found was impressive (quality from the console was top draw to). For sure the PC Xbox One SmartGlass app could be a little more intuitive, but when the PVR function comes to the table this will elevate the digital TV tuner even further, as you can record programs and then download them to your Windows 10 PC - via the Xbox App - for offline viewing later!