Years late Foxtels iQ box embraces the internet
Finally delivering the full Foxtel experience over the internet, the Foxtel iQ5 is traditional pay TV’s long overdue attempt to fully embrace the streaming age.
For decades, signing up for Foxtel required a set-top box, hooked up to a cable connection or satellite dish with expensive installation fees. This put it out of reach of many Australians, including some apartment dwellers.
Foxtel’s iQ5 finally brings the full service to people without cable or satellite connections.
The arrival of streaming services like Foxtel Now, Kayo and Binge meant anyone could watch live or catch up Foxtel over the internet. Yet the iQ set-top box remained only available to satellite and cable customers.
A “personal video recorder†with a built-in hard drive, the Foxtel iQ can record two pay TV channels and one free-to-air channel simultaneously. It performs time-shifting tricks like pausing and rewinding live broadcasts, as well as letting you watch the start of a movie while the end is still being recorded.
This once seemed like magic, especially for those of us who remember fighting with VHS tapes. Yet, for many, time-shifting is a bit redundant in the streaming age. These days almost everything is on demand, assuming you’ve got half-decent home broadband.
Enter the new $199 Foxtel iQ5 with 1 TB of upgradable storage, arriving just in time to solve a problem which for many people no longer exists. It offers a full Foxtel service over satellite or the internet, as the pay TV giant migrates customers away from the HFC cable network, now owned by the NBN.
One of the iQ5’s big selling points is access to Foxtel’s 4K sports and movie channels, which aren’t available via Foxtel Now streaming. They’re also denied to cable subscribers and only available to iQ4 owners via satellite.
Streaming has other advantages, such as a slicker implementation of the “Start Over†feature. Tune in half-way through a movie or TV show and you can press the red button instantly jump back to the start. Alternatively, press record and the iQ5 automatically adds the missing section to the start.
As with the iQ4, the iQ5 has built-in Netflix, in begrudging acknowledgement that Foxtel needs to co-exist with its new age streaming rivals. You’ll also find ABC iView, SBS on Demand and YouTube, with others coming including Vevo, Amazon and the other major free-to-air catch up services.
The box is also a Chromecast streaming point, but it doesn’t work with all Chromecast-compatible apps, so you can’t fling video from Disney+ for example.
Foxtel’s iQ5 wants to be your complete entertainment hub, with improved personalisation and recommendations, but chances are this line-up pales in comparison to the streaming services on offer via your smart TV.
Worse yet, the iQ5 supports high dynamic range and Dolby Vision, but it’s not yet enabled (Foxtel says it’s coming “in the futureâ€), so Netflix originals like Lost in Space will look better on a 4K TV’s built-in Netflix app than when coming from the iQ5.
There’s one more major blow to the iQ5’s bid to be your one entertainment box to rule them all. Along with pay TV channels, satellite subscribers also receive the free-to-air channels via satellite; which is handy if you don’t have great free-to-air reception. That’s lost when connecting via the internet, instead you need to plug your aerial into the back of the iQ5 if you want to access free-to-air broadcasts.
If you want to watch Foxtel’s 4K channels and time-shift, but can’t sign up for satellite, then this is the iQ you’ve been waiting for. But if you think the idea of a time-bending personal video recorder seems blasé, then you probably won’t be impressed with the Foxtel iQ5.
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Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian technology journalist and co-host of weekly podcast Vertical Hold: Behind The Tech News.Connect via Twitter or email.