I'm not sure sure I have done the quoting right so please forgive me.
Black Hole said:
The BBC iPlayer team were quite clear in their response to me and it was very polite and informative, they said "I've checked your Humax model, FVP-5000T, unfortunately it hasn't been certified for use with the iPlayer app. This means while the app may work on the device, we can't guarantee a good user experience. We only support devices which are certified so you may experience issues with BBC iPlayer on uncertified devices." Which I think is fair enough.
Humax and the other hand - apart from instructing me to "delete cookies" and perform a Factory Reset, achieved nothing. They denied that the FVP-5000T had any problem and said that it was certified to run with iPlayer. On being pressed, they recommended that I use a Smart TV or Chromecast dongle. But still did not admit and problem with their box - just that it was out of production.
So pretty much what I said then. "Not certified" means limited capability no longer able to keep up. "Was" is true – it was iPlayer-capable
in the past. And why would you expect any manufacturer to expend effort and cost revising an obsolete unit? It did what it was supposed to do when sold, and for a reasonable time thereafter. No third-party manufacturer can accept responsibility for standards changes outside their control.
My reply:
When I said "They denied that the FVP-5000T had any problem and said that it
was certified to run with iPlayer" the
was was in bold for emphasis - ie the Humax team were assuring me that the FVP-5000T
is still certified, not that it
used to be.
My box is only 3 years old - that's not old technology by anyone's standards. Suppliers are (I think by law) be required to maintain what they sell for much longer than 3 years. The problem is that neither BBC iPlayer nor Humax are prepared to take responsibility for what they have supplied. The BBC team have said that my box is not certified by them and Humax have refused to speak to even the iPlayer team - I did ask them to!
This is entirely a software problem in my opinion that could be fixed by either Humax updating their firmware properly or the BBC team updating their iPlayer app. Both of these remedies are within their remit and I would think not be beyond their capability to do - but they won't - and Humax won't even talk to the iPlayer team.
To say "It did what it was supposed to do when sold, and for a reasonable time thereafter. No third-party manufacturer can accept responsibility for standards changes outside their control." is not true as they are making no effort for a piece of kit that is less than 3 years old, which I would say ids not a "reasonable time thereafter" - so it is not a fair comment.
Tony