With Fetch TV it’s not about their own content found on their Mini and Mighty boxes, but more the aggregation and the marriage of streamed content and free to air TV content into a manageable format, making it easier to manage your favourite movies and TV shows while also getting access to free to air sport, TV shows and movies.
One neat new feature of their recent upgrade, s being able to immediately identify ‘What’s On Now’ across a multitude of sports codes and events.
After improving their processor last year, Fetch TV has now moved to significantly extended the capability of their PVR’s, the move comes as the predominantly owned Telstra business is tipped to expand their Fetch TV content streaming option to all Telstra customers in coming months.
Last year Telstra bought into Fetch via a 51.4 per cent stake which cost them around about $50 million, including a provision for transferring Telstra TV customers to Fetch.
The major new software update which I believe was in progress prior to the deal being done takes streaming management to a new level.
What Fetch TV has delivered is a brand-new user 3.30 Acadia interface, which features a lot more capability than previous versions due in part to a total rewriting of the code.
Designed to be more user friendly I found the software incredibly responsive and fast; this is because the interface has been written using Lightning (a JavaScript platform) which offers a more responsive outcome, previously the interface was based on HTML pages.
It’s almost like AI is built into the software which is now designed to remember what you watch and how you watch content, delivering a more intuitive experience.
It also takes into account that multiple people in the household use the box, but don’t necessarily watch the same content.
For some in particular existing users who have got use to navigating using the old OS, the changes will be frustrating, but I highly recommend that you stick with it for a while especially relating to the ‘My Stuff’ pages.
My Stuff is often the start of a journey for many users, for example programmes you have recorded are stored here.
Now instead of one click to open content you are going to have to scroll to a new content management tab to access catch up shows, downloaded movies, news, and sport recordings.
Once you get use to the new My Stuff design it’s going to make managing content a lot easier
The main “My Stuff” page is your first glimpse at a quite different approach to content display with the Fetch TV 3.30 upgrade.
Gone are the horizontal only scrolling of content tiles, instead Fetch has introduced vertical scrolling that allow you to see a more structured view of your content.
Streaming content from the like od Amazon Prime, Paramount which is not the same app as you get via a Samsung or LG TV, as well as Netflix Stan or Disney+ are now able to be viewed as vertical lists of subjects or categories with the titles of each show displayed as horizontal lists that are easy to flick through.
For long time users of a Fetch Mighty box, all I will say is patient because it took me a couple of days to absorb the changes and then get use to them.
Change happens and they are not going to go away, and what you have is the best box out there for content streaming and viewing because the hardware is among the best there is available for a home streaming box.
The cream on the top is the new software offering.
As for the Menu this has been moved to the bottom third of the screen, as opposed to being in the middle as was with the old software, now it’s more a jumping off point to access other key Fetch capabilities.
One thing I really liked was the “Last Watched” menu as there nothing worse than going back to an app such as Amazon Prime and you struggle to find the show you were halfway through when you decided to retire for the night.
Missing are sub-menu, this has been replaced with a main menu of titles that the software’s AI believes you will be interested in watching.
Fetch who are not known for their sport offering because they have relied on Optus Sport and free to air TV, but despite this you can now feature live sport from across the free-to-air, streaming TV, and Subscription apps inside your new interface.
For a live event all you have to do is go to the “On Now” and live sport events streamed by Optus Stan, Seven, Nine or ABC Sport, will show up in an easy to manage interface, it’s a neat new feature.
The game in town right now is access to apps.
Samsung and LG along with Google have woken up to the fact that there is money to be made from apps, which is why you are seeing a multitude of new apps on your new TV.
What Fetch TV have done is aggregate all this content into one easy to manage interface using AI to instantly recognise which shows you are watching and then personalise the experience by identifying similar movies and TV shows you could be interested in…
Within the Apps menu on the main menu bar, you’ll see showcased hot shows and movies across the streaming and TV apps, but on the App “page” it’s far more personalised.
All the apps and content from them appear on the screen in a vertical design, arranged based on what you’ve been watching in the past.
Additionally, you can jump across to a more specific list of Streaming or TV apps to get to the one you want.
As for Sport you can now access this via the main menu page.
Conclusion
This is a seriously slick upgrade that delivers a really good modus operandi when it comes to managing a vast amount of available content.
Yes, you can buy the latest movies via your Fetch TV box but what this upgrade is all about is removing the complexity of navigating to not only the content you’ve identified for yourself but future content that you may be interested in watching.
9/10
