BACKROUND
This review is based solely on the use of US and sports channels only over a one month period. That's all I watch or personally care about, and didn't bother either using or testing any of the other content that is offered. So as always, anything below is a direct reflection on that specific experience.
Eternal was run with both the APK and on a fresh install of Kodi 17.6 with no backround addons other Vader Streams and Ares Wizard used to auto set my advanced settings. Internet speeds generally tested out at 75mbps+ with IPVanish running in the backround, and on a wired connection through my 2017 Nvidia Shield or Gen 2 Firetv. While I don't consider myself Mr. Tech or anything, I am confident in my researching/tinkering ability enough that any trouble shooting done was both accurate and with every possibility exhausted to best isolate any non-Eternal issue.
My viewing times/habits are as follows: Wed - Sat I'd watch maybe an hour or 2 of ESPNs/FOXSPORTSs/MLB/WWE/NESN/NBA/NFL channels in the afternoon before work, then another 3 hours afterwards (usually 11pm est on) with some movie surfing mixed in. Sun - Tues I have completely off, so Eternal would be used or running in the backround most of those days. Red Sox games and UFC/WWE PPV's are also my specifically targeted sports interests. All in all I'd estimate that this review is based on roughly 70 hours of use as my co-primary IPTV source (with Vader Streams as the other and another service test sprinkled in here and there when I wasn't using those two).
SETUP/CUSTOMER SERVICE
Setup is standard as far as a Kodi install goes, from their own add source repo. Same goes for the APK, which was a simple matter of downloading it through an APK installer like Downloader and then inputing your log in info.
I'd rate overall customer service as below average nowadays, starting with the fact that none of the direct info needed for the above is even listed on their purchase website (unless I'm just missing where it is). No Discord chat that I'm aware of either, and my multiple attempts to join the facebook page starting day 1 all went unanswered. Which honestly wasn't a big deal for me, but for those that do need the extra level of hand holding you should probably plan on both searching/watching some Youtube to get yourself setup. Which still beats the old school way of waiting for ticket responses imo.
Eternal also only offers the option to pay by credit card. Which to me wasn't a con in that I'm the type who's concerned with hiding my identity...as much as i just don't like giving my bank or credit card info out online period. Enter my first venture into prepaid credit cards. Not too much of a pain, but I'm still docking them for hassle points since I had to go out of my way over my usual preference of Paypal to do it.
EPG
I didn't set up the full simple client EPG on my Kodi, which instead had Vader using it and saw Eternal with short cut links to all the channel groups I wanted. So can't really comment directly on that.
Outside a mostly adequate population factor, the full EPG on the APK was kind of a let down overall. Especially after being initially intrigued when I read they had fixed the scroll issue that plagues the old one. For starters, the fix there basically came at the expense of eliminating the ability to scroll backwards from what's currently playing. Which combined with the fairly condensed listing screen area ultimately makes for some fairly awkward looking and hard to visually follow load outs. That is also before even getting into the frequency in which the highlighted scroll box glitches out, which happens quite a bit (as I'm writing this it won't scroll around period atm). All in all it just makes for a very clunky experience, and I found myself abandoning it altogether early on in favor the Live TV section (which still had a box to the right at least usually showing the next show due on. Sometimes the next couple). No real issues to note while using the latter either, and if you can live without the full EPG it's an adequate fill in.
The sports section listings were a mess and frequently absent of any data. Want to know what channel the MLB game you want to watch is on? Get clicking through the 16 channels to find it. Even the times there was a listing, which again were also subject to the same awkard issues noted above mind you...they were mislabeled more then right. Although to note, overall accuracy was a *little* better on Kodi then it was on the APK, which would sometimes list what was on when the APK wouldn't.
One feature to note that I really liked with the APK was the option to go in and easily filter out all the channels groups i didn't want showing up. Definitely scores big points there for that, and especially in relationship of it helping to "dumb things down" so to speak. Even my mother didn't get lost clicking around this thing.
CHANNELS/QUALITY/RELIABILITY
Eternal's US channel selection is pretty par from the course and what you'd expect out of any IPTV service nowadays, although their movie channel selection isn't quite as extensive as something like GearsTv or Vader. They do have 40+ regional channels to note as well, which are pretty random (it's not the Big 4 in different cities) but potentially interesting if something specific you want is in there.
Picture quality certainly isn't at the top of the IPTV food chain, but is pretty surprising solid as a whole. You won't find the selective peak picture quality potential with some channels that you might find with a provider elsewhere, but most feeds are HD and I honestly don't ever recall running across a crappy quality feed during my time surfing around it. In fact I just clicked through all their movie channels in the attempt to find one and didn't...which is actually pretty stellar in my experiences since that's the first place I always expect to find them (granted and as noted above, there aren't carrying as many total).
Everyday viewing server stability was really a tale of two different halves. The first half of the month it pretty much performed what I went in almost expecting out of a service riding such a big wave of hype, while offering 5 connections at $10 and which weren't IP locked. Which saw easily overloaded servers with lots of drops/random buffering, and really just an overall unreliable experience where I almost decided to stop essentially roughing it and drop this testing altogether. Which isn't to say it was all bad, but as a whole it just wasn't really measuring up in any way to the other/better options I had previously tested...and certainly not standing out even at a "value" price.
The second half of the month fortunately saw quite the every day stability rebound though, to a point I'd roughly grade it as average for a popular IPTV provider, and for comparison's sake a tick better then Vader over that time period. The drops, buffering, and load issues are still there, but have been nowhere near as frequent. All of which I'm guessing is partly due to a combination of them recently closing the purchase option on their website to more then just off-hours US time, and frustrated customers who moved on to using something else for the time being. Regardless though as things stand at this exact moment I'm generally content most of the time, outside the unrelated to Eternal surrounding preference that it was being paired with a different service then Vader (the surface appeal of 5 connections on each played out a lot better in theory. Too much overall switching back and forth in reality, and instances where they were both having simultaneous problems with the same channel). As a further note, switching to the Kodi player sometimes eliminated the buffering I was otherwise getting on the APK. I know a lot of people hate Kodi and prefer the convenience of an APK...but yeah. As a whole Kodi's player was/is more stable.
I only tested one PPV which was UFC 225, and only caught the latter half of it. They had 2 feeds up, and the one I used was perfect up until a couple quick freezes during the main event, and overall provided me with a solid experience. Outside that the couple times I used it as backup for Red Sox games when Vader's feeds were struggling it stepped in and played them with only minor buffering/drops here and there.
As far as channels going down goes I didn't notice any during my sub on the ones I frequent. Couple times on random movie channels was it, which seemed to always be back up the next time I was randomly surfing around.
FEATURES/VALUE
CATCHUP - The first week it was mostly in a broken state, and 6 of the first 7 things I tried use it for wouldn't play. The following couple weeks after that it was pretty solid though, and I didn't run into any issues using it on the Nvidia Shield.
Channels covered by catchup are limited to 18 total US/Sports, that seemed like a targeted compromise to only include those with highly popular shows/content. Which I'm honestly still giving a big value plus on, and represents an approach I'd like to see more services out there adapt instead of not having it altogether. Other then PPV catchup, which almost nobody offers anyway, those select channels actually covered everything I personally needed it to (or more specifically, what I couldn't just find/get easily enough on Kodi or Terrarium TV).
VOD - This was removed shortly before starting my sub, which really is just following suit with a lot of other providers trying to avoid landing themselves in the same boat Set TV found themselves in. If you are on android go to youtube and search Terrarium TV. That's your VOD.
24/7 CHANNELS - Don't care for or ever use them, so can't comment on their current status here. But for testing purposes I just checked the 74 they have listed and none seem to be working FWTW. In fact some are even crashing the apk when i click on them.
ADDITIONAL CONNECTIONS - Apart from the basic $5 for one connection account, Eternal also offers the option for 3 connections for $8, or 5 connections for $10. No IP lock either, so accounts can be shared. Which in itself obviously offers a lot of potential face value. But as always, I'm going to also point out that this can be a double edged sword, and that the search for that type of value is going to always come at the trade off cost of consistent server stability. Instead of getting too caught up in the surface appeal there, keep in mind that the provider you might initially dismiss because they only let you run one simultaneous account stream in comparison also doesn't have up to 5x the people logging in to their servers off that one account. As far as IPTV and *you* the the viewer in front of your one Tv set is concerned...more isn't always better.
CONCLUSSION
As noted above, had I written this review 2 weeks ago I would have chalked Eternal TV up as an over-hyped service that had already oversold itself beyond it's flavor of the month run. Between it being solid enough the last 2 weeks though, and given the notable decline in subs being sold through their website lately, I'm willing to give it the short term benefit of the doubt for now. There certainly is value to be had here at the price tag, and the additional bonus of a catchup feature and upgraded APK is currently replacing my previous recommendation of TNT as far as the $5 services go. In fact a great way to generally sum Eternal TV up imo is as a poor man's Vader Steams. Same general stream stability at a lesser cost, but minus Vader's notable polish edge and some of their extras.
So overall I'm putting it down as a BUY. At least with a couple conditions. The first being you don't have it in your head that you are going to just buy a stand alone account of Eternal, slap it on all the TVs in your house, and live out some hassle free IPTV experience. Not gonna happen. As always I'm going to *highly* recommend this be run with a second provider. Secondly, you understand that Eternal is built on a very shaky foundation that shouldn't come with the expectation of sustained success. There is no big corporation money backing this stuff up or offering you some guarantee that they'll make every effort to balance spending on the other side to keep up with demand. More so then most it's not a matter of *if* an aggressive connection offering provider like Eternal goes down in oversold flames...it's a matter of *WHEN*. Enjoy the moment and while it lasts, and don't be that sucker crying foul down the road about still having X amount of time left on that yearly sub you bought in the attempt to save a few measly long term dollars. Month to month here. Period.
Where to buy: https://eternaltv.net/billing/cart.php
Youtube channel for updates and install guides: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl1mshyMa1f97O-YVlLK-Uw/videos
BACKROUND
This review is based on an immediate 30 day follow up to using Reloaded, which is run by the same group of people and uses the same channel feeds. US and sports channels are all I watch or personally care about, and I didn't bother testing any of the UK/CA content that is offered. So as always, anything below is a direct reflection on that specific experience.
GearsTV was run solely through Mayfair Pro APK. Internet speeds generally tested out at 75mbps+ while running IPVanish running in the backround, and on a wired connection through my 2017 Nvidia Shield. While I don't consider myself Mr. Tech or anything, I am confident in my researching/tinkering ability enough that any trouble shooting done was both accurate and with every possibility exhausted to best isolate any non-Reloaded issue.
My viewing times/habits are as follows: Wed - Sat I'd watch maybe an hour or 2 of ESPNs/FOXSPORTSs/MLB/WWE/NESN/NBA/NFL channels in the afternoon before work, then another 3 hours afterwards (usually 11pm est on) with some movie surfing mixed in. Sun - Tues I have completely off, so GearsTV would be used or running in the backround most of those days. Red Sox/Celtics games and UFC/WWE PPV's are also my specifically targeted sports interests. All in all I'd estimate that this review is based on roughly 100 hours of use as my primary IPTV source (with some Vader Streams and a random cheaper service test sprinkled in here and there when I wasn't using Gears).
SETUP/CUSTOMER SERVICE
Setup is about as easy as it gets. Download the APK, open it, put both your Gears and Mayfair account details in when prompted...done. There is also an option to download a more basic version of GearsTv to stream from your phone (although I personally didn't use or bother testing that feature).
I'd rate direct customer service from GearsTV themselves as a below average for a more established provider, with both a facebook group page and their own Discord chat. While having that Discord chat should suggest better then that on paper, I wasn't terribly impressed with it in comparison to what I see going on in some of the other ones I frequent. As while you will find your basic install help in there, it's not terrible active and lots of times I see people jump in without any live reps around to answer their questions. In those instance you might get a response back a couple hours latter, or more often not at all. It's basically there for the claim of having one more then it's surface claim of offering 24/7 support, and for what help they might offer you are probably better off just going through a reseller (mine was great) who has more of a reason to give a crap about you or your needs on a single sub level.
As far as fixing channels that go down goes, there is certainly a differing priority depending on on the channel. While any higher profile channel issue I've seen has been addressed asap, they definitely can take their time getting around to the more obscure stuff. Which adds up to great if you want to make sure your daily ESPN fix doesn't buffer, but not so great at times if that obscure channel like NESN is something you actually care about.
EPG
I said it with Reloaded and I'll say it again here. The Mayfair Pro EPG with the APK is hands down the best IPTV has to offer as far as EPGs go. Everything from accuracy to load times to scrolling speed to visual appearance is top of the food chain great. It even offers that extra level of polish of having thumbnail pictures of most tv/movie shows when you are surfing around it, which I personally found to be an extremely nice touch at times. Channel group management is also the best overall I've found, offering quick switches and without a need to exit out of anything with the simple click of menu button within the current section you are in.
Unlike pretty much everything else out there, sporting events don't require a separate section and are simply listed as their own channel in the guide. For instance if you want MLB they have a MLB Extra Innings channel within the guide section for sports , and clicking on it opens up a submenu listing right on screen of every available game and their scheduled times for the day. Same goes for NBA, PPV, ect. Again, a very welcome and nice extra touch as a whole.
All in all this makes for most user friendly experience I've found, and something which honestly (imo) can't be fully appreciated until you have it for a while...and then go back to not having it. Which in the name of wanting to test/review new services every month is my current situation (GearsTV expired a week back for me), and trust me...there hasn't been a day that's gone by where I haven't sat here missing it at one point or another.
CHANNELS/QUALITY/RELIABILITY
GearsTV channel offering is pretty much exclusive to US content (with some extra regional coverage, most notably Philly), and in this respect I'd rate it as top notch and fairly unequaled as far as overall variety goes. Whether it be those extra couple random movie channel you are not finding on something like Vader or Eternal, or the actual US feed itself instead of an English feed passing as one, chances are Gears is offering it. While there are some CA/UK channel listings, Gears go out of their way to note that neither is supported on their end (with a stated warning that they'll ban you for pestering them in regards to any CA or UK channel related issues).
Picture quality isn't at the top of the IPTV food chain, but is generally no worse as a whole then a lot of the other popular HD providers out there, and which of course can always vary by what specific channel you are making the provider vs provider comparison on. Most feeds are in HD though, although like pretty much every other provider you will at times run into your SD quality on a less then super popular channel. Very occasionally and in that select regard you'll get a pretty poorly cropped one at that.
What Gears does lack in peak picture quality it does make up for in unrivaled stability imo (which make no mistake and I can't stress this enough...outside a lot of overly boastful and fanboy driven claims there is no have your cake and eat it to solution to this out there atm. You **WILL** make a stability and buffering frequency trade off while hunting for better min/max picture feeds). Server crashes/downtime are almost non-existent from what I've gathered while keeping tabs over the last half a year plus. Overall channel stability as a whole and over an extended period of time is also probably the best I've ever experienced while trying pretty much every notably mentioned provider here on Reddit. None of which is to obviously say that you still won't run into your random drop or buffering of course but yeah...day in/day out consistency counts for a lot in my book, and for my own channel needs I was mostly satisfied with that overall consistency. Gear's ability to be relatively stable and remain relatively stable definitely sticks out imo among a lot of other popular great one month and terrible the next providers out there.
I tested 2 PPV's with Gears. One being a UFC event, the other being a WWE ppv. Both performed flawlessly and without a single hitch, and which followed up a similar experience I had with the two I watched on Reloaded the previous month. Speaking of which I slammed Reloaded pretty hard in that review for their MLB coverage being a complete joke, and on that front it actually rebounded quite a bit and into a mostly adequate experience in my second month. To an extent I used Gears for MLB more then I found myself using my backup (Vader), which despite the latter's 60fps offering picture upgrade was just having too many constant issues in comparison. None of which to say the rebound was a flawless one mind you, as I still ran into wrong listings and the occasional spotty or late starting feed, but for the most part it wasn't nearly the deal breaking experience it had been. Once again this didn't mirror my experience with the NBA coverage though, which was solid and didn't have any of those problems.
FEATURES/VALUE
*APK* - I didn't even bother to mention above about the basic Kodi install since this APK is easily the best, most user friendly, and highly polished one out there. As an android box based service Gears isn't your trying to save or stretch every buck provider to begin with, so any purchase there needs to include the extra $3-3.50 for the APK to complete the experience. Period.
*MULTIPLE CHANNEL FEEDS* - Gears offers 2 separate feeds on a lot of their higher profile channels, broken into a "1080p" and "Moble" listing. Quite honestly I never really noticed much of a difference in actual picture quality between them, but this did come in handy the one time I ran into any notable buffering with the service. Which occurred at the very tail end of my sub and lasted for 2 days. A lot of the feeds listed as 1080p were buffering, but when switching to the Moble listings they worked just fine.
*STABILITY* - I normally wouldn't put this down as as a "value" in a review, but I'm going to here. Especially considering the fact that in my current round of testing, that includes a sub of both Vader and Eternal, I'm on average switching between the two to find which is having the least amount of issues about 10 times a day (doing these tallys when I'm off work for the day and sitting around the house btw, and which got as low as 3 and high as 19). Which to me personally isn't the biggest deal in the world, especially with the multi room value I'm getting out of them as a whole, but has been for my girlfriend who got pretty used to turning on Gears once and almost never having to switch throughout the day. Her grumbling about it has gotten progressively worse lately too, so yeah...scoring Gears a convenience value here based on that.
The above said, no question Gears falls on the expensive side at $18.50 a month for a single line. As noted above if trying to save or stretch every dollar is your primary concern, and/or you are willing to make the overall stability sacrifice in the name of using multiple providers to min/max the potential feed quality you might be able to get on show/event you want to watch, there is probably better combo value as a whole out there to be had. But that also means you really aren't the type of user Gears is marketed at anyway.
On another note, and just to be thorough here, there is no official VOD. Which nobody really needs on the android box you'll be running Gears on anyway. Go to youtube and search "Terrarium TV". That's your easy to work VOD selection that will have anything being offered elsewhere and a lot more for free.
CONCLUSSION
For starters, I held off on putting this review up for a week due to the reported possibility that the owner was selling his share of the service (apparently to somebody already directly involved behind the scenes) to see how that shook out. Which apparently fell through, but doesn't really seem to be a cause for any surrounding concern. Well, except for the people with Reloaded subs thinking there is any logical reason in the world that they are now going to push ahead on a Mayfair APK. Won't happen and makes absolutely no financial sense with enough people still buying subs to both.
Secondly, and as was the case in my Reloaded review, I'm again going to give the GearsTV team props for having the best dev team out there imo, and for being different by taking more of a specialization approach then most providers do. I love the fact that they put functionality/polish of their product first, even if it means they won't attract as many customers that the much more typical and watered down "we have something for everybody!" approach would. Heck, coming full circle from when I first got into IPTV and going full blasphemy here, I even prefer the fact that you won't find many (if any) resellers offering free trials for this already well established provider. Or more specifically that they don't have a constant leech factor helping to potentially drag down the everyday experience for the people actually paying what amounts to be a premium.
So on that note and even taking into account the fairly high pricetag, I'm going to put GearsTV + Mayfair APK down as a **BUY** here for the majority of users out there, and especially among the tech challenged. Which I know combined with what was written in this review is coming off as overly positive, but I really did struggle to find any notable negatives with the month I spent using it. It was just a great overall experience as far as my expectations with IPTV go, and my favorite to date. My mother's as well...by far. GearsTV prides itself on a "it just works" motto, and that's the primary aspect it both lives up to and what you are basically buying it for there. It's also the only provider out there atm that I'd even consider running as a sole service and without a backup.
Direct purchase method (credit card only, and have to then buy Mayfair account elsewhere) - https://omarsvideos.com/acc/cart.php
Established reseller I used who includes the Mayfair account and accepts various other payment methods, including Paypal - https://srmronline.com/whmcs/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0
IPTV Known scammer he is using many different emails: [cpzquazo@gmail.com](/).... [fifrock0@gmail.com](/)
Well known thief: name: El Alaoui Harrouni Surname: Mohamed Amine Country: Morroco
Using skrill, reported already