Upgraded TV system

[Luvmyrotti]

Does Princess have a firm plan for when the upgraded TV system (on demand movies and such) will be rolled out to the fleet? We will be on the Emerald twice next year and we're hoping she gets the upgraded system while she's in dry dock this winter.

[Colo Cruiser]

Does Princess have a firm plan for when the upgraded TV system (on demand movies and such) will be rolled out to the fleet? We will be on the Emerald twice next year and we're hoping she gets the upgraded system while she's in dry dock this winter.

 

 

If they do they have not leaked the details.

They have been doing it when the ships were underway, at least they did on our Sapphire cruise.

We only know here on CC when someone comes back from a cruise and reports its.

This has been in the works since Dec 13. :(

[Pam in CA]

I keep hearing "by the end of the year" but I suspect it's taking a lot longer than initially thought. It took weeks to implement on the Sapphire last year and many passengers (like me) didn't have a working TV for entire cruises. I didn't really care but I can imagine the complaints setting it up during cruises with passengers onboard.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Pam in CA

[Sea Day Cruiser]

They did the Sapphire over a year ago. The Royal and the Regal were built with the on-demand system. Do any of the other ships have it? My impression has been that it was so difficult on the Sapphire that they decided not to do it on other ships. I hope I am wrong, but I haven't heard anything mentioned about it in a long time.

[Astro Flyer]

They did the Sapphire over a year ago. The Royal and the Regal were built with the on-demand system. Do any of the other ships have it? My impression has been that it was so difficult on the Sapphire that they decided not to do it on other ships. I hope I am wrong, but I haven't heard anything mentioned about it in a long time.

As I recall during the Diamond's renovation before being deployed to Asia the flat panel TVs & on-demand entertainment system were installed.

[sammybonny]

We were on the Royal last week and thought the on demand TV was great! lots of films available to watch .

We will be on Caribbean Princess next month, should I presume that it won't be available yet on this ship?

[eandj]

Altho an improvement from the older ships, the new system lacks the abilities that Celebrity has on their new class. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Princess didn't really do a better job at those. :confused:

 

Just adding old movies doesn't really make us want to turn it on. It's missing a ton of options.

Edited July 14, 2015 by eandj

[Thrak]

We'll be sailing on Coral soon. If it's been updated that will be great. If not we won't really care.

 

We sail on Island in June. Since they did their hack job on that ship I'm wondering if the may have updated the system at that time. I guess we will find out when we sail. Again, if it hasn't been updated it won't really be an issue for us. We really don't cruise for TV.

[getaway101]

When we were on the Royal in April the TV system was wonderful. Then we jumped ship and got on the Caribbean P and it was the old system. That cruise was a transatlantic and they didn't even have the TV guides like they used to. So after a long day when we crawled into bed it was hit or miss if you could catch a movie from beginning......saw all the Love Boat episodes though :rolleyes:

[SwissDave]

We were on the Royal last week and thought the on demand TV was great! lots of films available to watch .

 

We will be on Caribbean Princess next month, should I presume that it won't be available yet on this ship?

 

 

I think you can safely presume it won't be available. Certainly no sign of it 4 weeks ago.

[sandy999]

I thought the tv was great on the sapphire, but noticed that all movies looked like they were made for TV. I think the picture was stretched. Anyone else noticed this?

[Astro Flyer]

Just adding old movies doesn't really make us want to turn it on. It's missing a ton of options.

 

We rarely go to the movies so for us most of the movies were "new" with many less than a year old. It was also good that the latest movies shown on MUTS were added the next day to the cabin's on-demand system.

 

And none of the movies were as old as on our last RCI cruise which had movies as old as 25 years old & charged $12.95 to watch it. :eek:

Edited July 14, 2015 by Astro Flyer

[cruiserus]

We had to new system on the Diamond earlier this year. LOVED it! All lectures were available on demand within in few hours of the live event. Movies shown under the stars on in the theater were available the rest of the cruise on demand, and you could select from so many more movies, documentaries, TV shows...all when convenient to you. The movies were generally pretty current...no longer in theaters, but not yet out on DVD.

[Colo Cruiser]

We had to new system on the Diamond earlier this year. LOVED it! All lectures were available on demand within in few hours of the live event. Movies shown under the stars on in the theater were available the rest of the cruise on demand, and you could select from so many more movies, documentaries, TV shows...all when convenient to you. The movies were generally pretty current...no longer in theaters, but not yet out on DVD.

 

 

Diamond/Sapphire are the only ones retrofitted so far I believe.

[eandj]

I guess we don't spend a lot of time watching TV while vacationing. What we miss on the new Princess system compared to X is an up to date personal shipboard account and a wide variety of music. More interactive.

[Woobstr112G]

Does anyone know, who have sailed on the upgraded ships, if the TV's are similar to the ones on the Royal/Regal (albeit a little smaller)? The reason I am asking is these TV's do not accept external devices (i.e. portable DVD players) even in suites. This will be a real bummer for people like me who like to bring a small portable dvd player along with dvd's to watch while on the cruise. In the past (with the exception of the Royal) we enjoyed the provided dvd player when we sailed in a suite. When sailed in a mini, I brought a small playeer that easily hooked up to the View Sonic TV's.....

 

Bob

Edited July 15, 2015 by Woobstr112G

[Meanee]

Does anyone know, who have sailed on the upgraded ships, if the TV's are similar to the ones on the Royal/Regal (albeit a little smaller)? The reason I am asking is these TV's do not accept external devices (i.e. portable DVD players) even in suites. This will be a real bummer for people like me who like to bring a small portable dvd player along with dvd's to watch while on the cruise. In the past (with the exception of the Royal) we enjoyed the provided dvd player when we sailed in a suite. When sailed in a mini, I brought a small playeer that easily hooked up to the View Sonic TV's.....

 

Bob

 

 

It's not worth it.

 

While you can somewhat get it hooked up, remote has most controls disabled. If you have a decent phone (Samsung Galaxy series, or HTC), you can switch to different input using an app and infrared blaster on the phone. At the end, it wasn't worth it. TVs are tiny, can't see crap on them anyway.

 

My solution, I carry a laptop (Macbook Pro, killer battery life, good screen and sound) and a portable hard drive. I pre-load it with movies and TV shows before the cruise. When me and my significant other want to watch something, laptop works well.

 

I didn't really like the video system on Royal. Yeah, movie/show selection was good, but entire system was glitchy. Stuff didn't play. Box rebooted in a middle of playback. Movies were extremely digitized, with compression artifacts ruining the entire experience. I understand that they need to save bandwidth, but at certain point, quality became almost unwatchable. Instead, I used HDMI cable, unplugged their VOD controller, plugged in my laptop, and we were good.

[caribill]

 

While you can somewhat get it hooked up, remote has most controls disabled. If you have a decent phone (Samsung Galaxy series, or HTC), you can switch to different input using an app and infrared blaster on the phone. One person has posted they bring a universal remote and are able to use that to get to many features.

 

 

I didn't really like the video system on Royal. Yeah, movie/show selection was good, but entire system was glitchy. Stuff didn't play. Box rebooted in a middle of playback. Movies were extremely digitized, with compression artifacts ruining the entire experience. When we were on the Royal earlier this year we had no glitches at all.

 

 

 

see above in red

[Meanee]

see above in red

 

Yeah universal remote is another thing you can use. I used my phone, just because it felt more natural to me :D I am a techie at heart and work in a high-tech field, so my solutions are not always simplest.

 

As for glitches, I hope they fixed them. Our cruise was one of the first ones on Royal (December of 2013), and I guess they could be running reduced capacity on VOD system, until they can ramp it up. I am very sensitive to video quality, and can tell bad one right away. To me, it was pretty bad. My girlfriend didn't mind it.

[Woobstr112G]

It's not worth it.

 

While you can somewhat get it hooked up, remote has most controls disabled. If you have a decent phone (Samsung Galaxy series, or HTC), you can switch to different input using an app and infrared blaster on the phone. At the end, it wasn't worth it. TVs are tiny, can't see crap on them anyway.

 

My solution, I carry a laptop (Macbook Pro, killer battery life, good screen and sound) and a portable hard drive. I pre-load it with movies and TV shows before the cruise. When me and my significant other want to watch something, laptop works well.

brought a

I didn't really like the video system on Royal. Yeah, movie/show selection was good, but entire system was glitchy. Stuff didn't play. Box rebooted in a middle of playback. Movies were extremely digitized, with compression artifacts ruining the entire experience. I understand that they need to save bandwidth, but at certain point, quality became almost unwatchable. Instead, I used HDMI cable, unplugged their VOD controller, plugged in my laptop, and we were good.

 

I'm not as much of a techie. Can you expand on this please. On the Royal, I had an hdmi cable (for a blu ray player) I plugged into an hdmi input. While the remote was in fact disabled, I was able to change inputs via the TV. It did not work. Was there another input I should have used wherein it would have worked? Also when you talk about plugging your laptop, via an hdmi cable, to the VOD controller it did work which basically made your laptop basically a digital dvd player, this did work? I saw a bunch of plugs on the back of the TV and probably would have never been able to figure which one to use.

 

Thanks in advance for your reply and sorry if I've asked some dumb questions but it's all foreign to me.....:):):)

 

Bob

Edited July 15, 2015 by Woobstr112G

[Meanee]

I'm not as much of a techie. Can you expand on this please. On the Royal, I had an hdmi cable (for a blu ray player) I plugged into an hdmi input. While the remote was in fact disabled, I was able to change inputs via the TV. It did not work. Was there another input I should have used wherein it would have worked? Also when you talk about plugging your laptop, via an hdmi cable, to the VOD controller it did work which basically made your laptop basically a digital dvd player, this did work? I saw a bunch of plugs on the back of the TV and probably would have never been able to figure which one to use.

 

Thanks in advance for your reply and sorry if I've asked some dumb questions but it's all foreign to me.....:):):)

 

Bob

 

Bob, I simply unplugged ship's VOD box and plugged my laptop in it. I did not use another input. I remember it was quite a tight fit, but very much doable.

 

I wouldn't mess with other inputs. Chances are they are either disabled, or remote you get won't let you access them. So path of least resistance is to plug your player where VOD box is plugged in. After all, we know for the fact, that particular HDMI input works.

 

I am still curious why cruiselines limit inputs and so on. I've been to a number of hotels that have "remote plug" station near the bed. Plug in whatever you want at your bed, and it will show up on TV. Nice and easy.

[caribill]

I am still curious why cruiselines limit inputs and so on.

 

My guess is that a number of passengers would accidentally change the input and then be unable to view any Princess channel resulting in phone calls and complaints that the TV "does not work" following by having to send someone to "fix" it.

[Meanee]

My guess is that a number of passengers would accidentally change the input and then be unable to view any Princess channel resulting in phone calls and complaints that the TV "does not work" following by having to send someone to "fix" it.

 

Hotel TVs simply reset to their presets when they are powered off and powered back on. I would guess implementing this on a ship won't be a lot to ask for.

 

But at the same time, I am sure cruiseline has higher priorities. Oh well.

[loriva]

Does anyone know if any other ships have been upgraded in the past year with this VOD system? I tried searching on the Princess website, but could not find any information. We are sailing on CB in December and curious if it has it or will have it then.

 

Many thanks,

[Colo Cruiser]

Does anyone know if any other ships have been upgraded in the past year with this VOD system? I tried searching on the Princess website, but could not find any information. We are sailing on CB in December and curious if it has it or will have it then.

 

Many thanks,

 

No they seemed to have stopped updating the ships.

The Sapphire in early 2014 was the last one.

 

The only ships that have it that I know of are

 

Sapphire

Royal

Regal

 

Maybe someone can add any others that they know of.