Freeview Boxes : Classic or Dud?

I need to read the instruction book with my Sky+ box to see if it can do fancy searching stuff. It can record whole series and that, but if I don't actually see it in the TV guide, it doesn't go "yo, you're going to miss that thing you might have wanted to see". Or maybe it does and i just don't know how to work it.

Anyway, that's not freeview. Our freeview box doesn't work due to crappy aerial set-up in the house. Luckily a guy about five doors down from us has a van with "TV Aerial Repair" written on it, I just have to befriend him for some spurious reason.

I am scared to make mine rescan, since I currently appear to be getting Setanta Sports without paying Top Up.

It seems like you've got a non-spurious one already!

xpost

"hello, I've just moved in a couple of doors along from you, care to fix my aerial for nothing in a neighbourly kind of way?"

"hello, I've just moved in a couple of doors along from you. nice van. be a shame if something happened to it, eh? now, about my aerial."

Here's a "controversial" article about Freeview .. I can't say I really buy the guy's argument. I may not even grasp it in the first place.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/10/telebusillis_digital_tv_analysis

Our Freeview box recently broke (it won't turn on - yes, I've tried replacing the remote control batteries) and would like to know where CJ got a box that records for only £50.

yes, me too. i have seen cheap freeview boxes, less cheap recording boxes but freeview boxes that also record have, in my experience*, all been around the £200 mark. need a second digibox for the bedroom and may as well get one that records.

(* argos)

ok, they are coming down in price - a sony here for £80

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-SVR-S500-Digital-Recorder-Freeview/dp/B000FCQMFK

It's no Humax.

(that sony's a refurb, oops)

and humax ain't no tivo. 8)

We bought a fairly bog-standard freeview box (to replace an unreliable one which kept freezing up) from Argos about six months ago. We pay monthly for that top-up TV thing, so presumably our details exist on some top-up-tv-database somewhere .... because a couple of weeks ago we had a phone call from whoever the manufacturer of our freeview box was, offering us an upgrade to this spiffing new recordable one for just £50. My husband, being a sucker for gadgetry, said yes immediately and it arrived by parcel courier the next day. I can't remember what make it is, but I can check when I get home tonight if anyone's interested.

oh, the topup tv thing, that makes sense. they've switched to uploading content to recordable devices during the times when other channels don't broadcast and the content is then available for topuptv people the day after, like tv on demand. as far as i understand it anyway.

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/topuptv.html

Top-up TV is rub-a-dub, as far as I can make out.

bought a new set-top box to watch at christmas whilst parents monopolised downstairs tv. only the bedroom tv didn't have a scart-in.

tried it on parents' bedroom tv which does have scart-in. no dice - loop aerial, even one that's amplified, doesn't get a good enough signal for digital tv. i fear this will be the same for millions of sets come 2012.

anyway, got it home and tried to use it to replace the old itv digital box that keeps freezing up (sticks on bbc channels, which meant i lost about 5 hours of recordings over christmas, 5 hours of bbc7 rather than virgin1) but the tivo cannot replicate the remote control commands that it needs in order to turn over to the correct channel.

it will, i think, let me watch one channel whilst tivo is recording another, so not entirely useless. i will need to rejig wiring though as i know have more scart inputs than i have scart-in sockets.

argos are doing a wharfedale 160G pvr thing for £75 in their sale btw

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=1500000701&searchTerms=WDTR160

have no idea what it's like other than the shape and the price. 8)

I think I need to get myself one of those, but the thought of disconnecting everything and trying to work that into my existing set-up gives me nightmares.

i believe it should come first in the chain, then output to your DVD/VCR/whatever, which then outputs to your TV - i think?

My OnDigital box finally died last week, so I replaced it with the only cheap crap that Tesco had. It's bollocks. Audio keeps going out of sync, and you can only pull up now/next info for the channel you're watching!

Staggeringly, neither can the Humax PVR that is tied for "best" in all the reviews. But the Topfield TF5800PV can, as it just as good, and also has firefox-esque extensions you can download to it. So that's the one for me.

I can press "guide" on the Humax and it tells me all the channels (providing it has been on for a few minutes).

We now have a cheap crap Tesco telly that is digtal-enabled, but it is total shit, can't get a decent picture for most of the channels, whereas the Humax can get a good picture through the same (not very good) aerial setup.

Mind you, all I do is record crap and never watch it.

PS: What did you end up doing, Deano? Giving up and Watching To The Manor Born?

(Portal / Half Life 2 / babylon 5 avis on laptop)

um, Teletext Extra. meant to be a 14 day episode guide but what you end up with is (virgin broadband) adverts top and bottom and room for 5 channels worth of listings in the middle = so much paging up and down.

new set top box is sharing a scart lead and a plug socket with the dvd. bit of a faff but should be ok as i should never be using both at the same time. but unplugging set top box means having to sit through 5 minutes of setup every time i turn it on. oh um. it's 'interactive' red button indicator is also eye-searingly bright compared to the last one.

So, until last weekend I had all the 'normal' channels (bbc1,bbc2,itv1,c4,5) working tickety boo through the freeview box, suddenly itv1,4 and 5 give me "no signal' or "service unavailable" and when I re-tune they've gone altogether. What gives?

Reload your channels when it's quiet and the reception is good (i.e. not during a thunderstorm)

Somebody told me that I should "empty" the box first by unplugging it from the aerial so you that when you retune you get nothing and then turning it off for 15 seconds and then plugging it all back in to re-tune again. Do you think he was having a laugh?

I mean - how would that help?

I dunno, but there is a 'replace all' option that's best. I tried "add new ones only" once but it ended up a complete mess (BBC4 was actually ITV3 and loads of other type mixups)

Looking at to-days listings I can see that would be disastrous - sitting down to enjoy Masterpieces of Vienna and being confronted with The Two Ronnies. For shame.

You'd only know which one you were watching when the fat lady started to sing! (maybe)

Miss Elaine Paige is not fat.

She's not as thin as she was.

Rear of the Year 1984.

Weren't we all.

I'm getting really pissed off with freeview. The reception has been terrible recently and half the channels have gone including C4. Someone down my road reckons it's because they've changed transmitters or something - could that be true? If so does that mean I need a new arial or can I just get on the roof and point it in another direction. I emailed the freeview website and (quelle fckng surprise) no answr. If this is still the case when they switch of analogue I am not going to be happy.

Some of the channels are reasonable. Some go into pixel meltdown every 15 seconds or so.

What to do about it? I used to have a standalone Freeview box, now it's internal to the TV, which is a drag for reasons probably mentioned above. (quick check, nope: Basically, I can't record off the freeview channels unless TV is switched on and showing *that* channel)

Well, those channels have had a big shift-around.

The one that had grrls in not much, 'vibrating' while shaking mobile phones has gone.

And "Russia Today" has begun, a news programme that's on 2 hours each day, around 07:00

There's one called QUEST that's starting in May.

Still, I'd scrap the whole thing if it wasn't for BBC4.

Official.

http://zattoo.com/

^ Shit, that's quite neat. Never bothered to check it out before. It's also a way of catching the Gaelic sitcom my mate wrote for BBC Alba (no, really) ... assuming they show it again. (If BBC Alba is anything like BBC3, I imagine it's on a constant loop).

Obviously, I won't understand a word of it, but hey.

Mine are all working really well now. I watch BBC4, E4 and More4 and a surprising number of films on Film4. What the hell is on 5 these days?

30 Rock! or maybe it stopped again

using Zattoo more and more lately

What the hell is on 5 these days?

FUCK ALL. One of the things I occasionally have to do at work is write little extended captions for the TV page -- ie pick something and knock together four lines about it for any given night on each of the terrestrial channels. The only thing that stops it being anything other than a one-minute job is the fact there is never a fucking THING worth writing about on Five. Once you've done CSI a few times, you're on to plums.

Peppa Pig getting short shrift here

also The Shield (i still haven't seen it but i'm sure it's lovely)

Five shows a lot of Segal/Van Damme movies.

Dudes, Neighbours is on Five!

(also Highland Emergency, which no-one except my mum watches)

And also THE MENTALIST which is OK, if you like watching Cracker reimagined as glossy American drama.

Zattoo doesn't appear to have any of the additional ITV or Channel 4 channels, which is a bit crap. You're probably better off forking out £20 or so for a USB TV stick or something.

Dudes, Neighbours is on Five!

Thus my point is made. (I've always hated Neighbours. Even when I was a kid. Mind, I also hate fun.)

Don't think the 2 are connected.

Rejected Neighbour spin-offs:

Bouncer's Nightmare
Bertha Goes Bananas
The Mangles Christmas Carol

and not forgetting "Hello again, we bludgeon"

Actually I did see a bit of it and it looked very dreary. Alan Gorrie is like the main male lead in it!

Oh it's absolutely miserable. Like Slade In Flame for groupies.

I'm currently watching super rare Soho flick Night After Night After Night on tubi, with Jack May slumming it as a pervy old judge and Donald Sumpter stealing the film as a rapist who gets banged up for the murders just because he's a rapist.

London In The Raw was on after Flesh for Frankenstein last night and i recorded that as well. it wasn't the James Mason narrated one (The London Nobody Knows), but had some of the same scenes - the meths drinkers for instance.

Never clicked this thread before.

This whole time I thought Freeview Boxes was a band.

Keep an eye out for Primitive London, the follow-up to London In The Raw, for the amazing scene where Barry Cryer tells a voice over artist how to say a line. It's 100% the template for Toast Of London.

I saw it the other night!

The interviews with young people were the only good things in it though.

Worked on the DVD+Blu-ray release of that about 15 years ago... I wonder if I have a copy somewhere? Good old BFI Flipside.

This whole time I thought Freeview Boxes was a band.

Bitrate Decay at Taskerlands Mansion by The Freeview Boxes was a secret track on the first Ghost Box sampler back in 2005 iirc?

A lot of cinéma de papa coming to Talking Pictures TV: I haven't seen any of these, but La Mariee Est Trop Belle (Tuesday the 31st at 16:15 and then again at 01:35 on the 5th of April) is apparently a frothy confection with Brigitte Bardot and Louis Jourdan; Au Grand Balcon (14:00 on the 7th of April) a French take on Only Angels Have Wings; and La Fin Du Jour (13:45 on Tuesday the 14th of April) is 30's film directed by Julien Duvivier with Michel Simon in it, so obligatory viewing in my book.

For other tastes there's also Antonio Margheriti's Killer Fish (21:40 on the 19th of April).

> I hope they show these again because I won't be able to see "Flesh For Frankenstein", which apparently is the better of the two.

24th for Flesh, can't see the other one

they are also showing Space 1999 again. i think that's the 5th channel that have repeated it now.

i caught an episode of The Dustbinmen yesterday, because what i was watching finished and the recorder was on ch81 from recording Press Gang. it is strange. and bad. i don't remember a thing about it, have never even heard it mentioned anywhere.

I think it was a target of Mary Whitehouse back in the day.

The Lovers on the other hand is pretty entertaining - despite some excruciating sexual politics. Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox are like the cutest couple ever.

the french films on Talking Pictures. the last one i saw had HUGE subtitles, like taking up 1/4 of the screen. in this one they are tiny, probably as big as this text here (adjusted for distance) (La Mariee est Trop Belle with Bardot)

they are showing Eyes Without A Face soon though, which is good.

love the Billy Idol theme tune

(friday, 22:00)

The movies I listed far less easy to get ahold of than Eyes Without A Face - so likely they used the prints they could find.

more french things on now. french made for TV crime drama by the looks. this has the same Duplo subtitles, like the double height ceefax subtitles you'd get in the 80s.

I'd guess that's the French Maigret series they've been showing for a while

Murders In... 2015 it says

la fin du jour was on tptv the other day, never seen it before but it was marvellous. especially the guy playing the perennial understudy. didn't expect the Casanova character to go quite so dark either.

the guy playing the perennial understudy.

Michel Simon! One of France's greatest.

Anyway agreed, La Fin Du Jour is great. It almost feels like it's going to descend into corn towards the end but steps back from that elegantly.

Deux Hommes dans la Ville on tptv was a treat. small season of alain delon films.

yes I recorded that, watched the first half before work this morning, enjoying it.

This looks bad (CW:rape)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8pz1k4r2lo