Freeview Boxes : Classic or Dud?

No, but then it's just worth it for Radio 6, ocasionally.

Digital Radios is a better thread.

Dud for ropey BBC/ITV bitrates, the shopping channels (only funny the first time), the wasteland of ITV2 and the creeping menace of Top Up TV (I don't have an old OnDigital box so I can't see these extra subscription services - which are eating into channel-space, goddammit*), the plethora of EMAP-owned trash radio.

(* - OK, more to it than that, but, y'know...)

Jury's out: BBCi (I'm waiting for June...) and TMF/Hits channels (one could get sick of even "Hey Ya"), BBC3 (comedy on weeks before BBC2 - which I still can't help thinking of as a taster for its real analogue broadcast... the endless looping repeats on BBC3 don't encourage any kind of timeslot loyalty and by the time of BBC2 screening I can't remember what I have/haven't seen; the rest of its programming is without merit).

Not matter how many times I retune, I can get E4+1 perfectly but I've completely lost the reception for E4, Channel 4 and ITV etc.

ftn seems to have been replaced with virgin1 which is showing Deep Space 9 5 times a week (opposite Daily Show unfortunately).

Tivo is currently listing 50+ episodes of takeshi's castle, all of which i've seen before. i deleted the Season Pass thing only to have them all reappear due to Takeshi Kitano wishlist thing. will have to delete them all individually...

bbc radio channels seemed to rejig last week sometime - needed a channel rescan to pick them all up again. annoying - missed start of dirk gently.

I heard a couple of Radio 4 trailers saying that you'd need to rescan around October 2nd, the other week.

(note to self: remember to listen to Dirk Gently whilst in the car tonight)

Our box spazzes out and demands a rescan once every week or two. It happened again yesterday and afterwards we were missing bbc 1 and 2.

I seem to be rescanning every other week, what with C4+1 and Virgin 1 and the BBC radio stations moving about. It's quite a to-do and I worry about how the old folk cope.

Also, ITV2 never seems to provide any programme guide information anymore. Luckily, I couldn't care less.

One of our Freeview boxes started demanding a rescan every time it started up, for a couple of months, before dying completely.

What I don't understand is why you can't search for a show title on these things. The schedules are just stored as text in some database sitting right there inside the box - why not let me search for "Kath and Kim", show me the results, and then let me select "Record All"?

We recently got a new freeview box which can has about 100+ channels on it, can record programmes, and can pause TV shows (even live ones) for up to 30 minutes. It's amazing! and it only cost £50.

The schedules are just stored as text in some database sitting right there inside the box - why not let me search for "Kath and Kim", show me the results, and then let me select "Record All"

er ... you can pretty much do that with ours (some kind of two-year-old humax thing that actually rocks a lot harder than i think i realise, given that it does all the stuff CJ's new thing does and i just take it for granted). you can certainly search for programmes by name, and it's piss easy to set up a repeat-recording schedule.

Yes well that... makes sense

Everyone should have a Humax.

i want the one that can output to my computer.

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?

fireball xl5 was a bit hokey and sexist but the things that were always good, like the vehicle designs and general model making, were already there.

M Hulot's Holiday on Talking Pictures TV at 19:00 on the 9th of July. Also, for the Umberto Lenzi completists in the house, Sandokan: Pirate Of Malaysia at 14:50 on the 8th.

july!?

Yes. Bit early to set your DVRs I realise, but I received the spreadsheet today and it's unlikely I would remember to give the heads up closer to the date.

That gives me enough time to decide if I'm an Umberto Lenzi completist or not.

I've never got to see The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea tho it's a book I'm very fond of, thanks Talking Pictures

Fell, either way spellcheck

i figured sky arts was just endlessly repeating the first 4 seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents but noticed today that it's s06e04 so I've missed a truckload (which they will repeat, endlessly)

I've never got to see The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea tho it's a book I'm very fond of, thanks Talking Pictures

Started watching it but the Sailor took forever to show up and when he did it was an almost comatose Kris Kristoffersen.

i was maybe a bit drunker and more distractable than i'd realised but i'll try to stick it out on demand or something

it's on again tomorrow at 9

Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter is quite a juxtaposition

mudlarking on the thames. London Live. does what it says on the tin really. cheap tv, head-mounted camera, first person view, often of nothing but the ground. lots of buttons, lots of coins, lots of broken clay pipes*, the odd foot high Nkondi in the shape of a dog...

*all these clay pipes still hanging around after hundreds of years - the disposable vapes of their time.

(pipes were 1700-1770 apparently)

Secrets of the London Underground is back, and about camden this week. hadn't realised it was bombed during the war.

TPTV just showed the episode of The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, "Strangler's Web", which had Pauline Boty, the pop artist in it. much bigger role than the Maigret episode they showed around christmas.

TPTV have had a couple of screenings of Sam Fuller's Underworld USA this week - would recommend if it comes round again.

Saw on Monday night (I think).

repeats of repeats of the Twilight Zone on legend has just shown the one in the first series where it breaks the 4th wall and it's probably the most effective version of that i've ever seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_of_Difference (oh, richard matheson)

(although probably the highlight of the entire first season happens in episode 1...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH2S4kg2tY8

forgot to mention that I saw a film on tp the other week I think was called " the day the world caught fire" about the west and Russia conducting nuclear tests at exactly the same time unbeknownst to each other causing environmental changes that lead to the end of the world. told from the pov of a British newspaper. p enjoyable dialogue.

Excellent film.

Edward Judd's crack at film stardom!

iirc there's an early michael caine uncredited walk-on part in that

val guest as well

Down to the Sea in Ships, on very early this morning, like 3am, hadn't heard of it but taped it on spec. Whaling drama about a grandad and his grandson, full-sized boat, full-sized whales. an example of what TPTV does the best, i think.

(i'll now look it up on imdb and it'll have 6 oscars)(oh, lionel barrymore, dean stockwell as the grandson...)

Portrait Artist of the Year back on sky arts (ch11) from today. there was a special beforehand as well - PAotDecade which was a lot of the previous winners doing Judy Dench

Legend has just finished its second run of Twilight Zone series 1 and started on series 1 again. come on...

a lot of the previous winners doing Judy Dench

Who says tv has become sexless!

tptv has 'rich and strange' on 9th of november - a pre-war hitchcock i've not seen before (or, indeed, heard of)

It's great and important and jazz

think there's an early brian de palma on tptv next Friday that I've never seen.

funny things:

kes is on tptv and then on film4 the following night.

a kiss before dying also on twice, on tptv and somewhere else

Small Films documentary on bbc4 tonight. prior to that a couple of episodes of bagpuss including one i don't recognise, Owls Of Athens

didn't make the connection until the documentary that professor yaffle from bagpuss is basically cliff clavin from cheers

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0056478/

this was on tptv this morning. Anna Karina talking English in a comedy starring Bob Monkhouse and Hattie Jacques. it's after A Woman is a Woman but before pretty much everything else. it's quite bad, she's just about saving it.

(oh, it's called She'll Have To Go in the UK at least, 1962)

Bob's Burgers from the beginning on itv2 from Monday

my 12-yr-old freeview box has taken to turning itself off when i'm using it and turning itself on when i'm not

i'd upgrade obviously except there's a whole bunch of stuff recorded on it that i want to salvage if possible (no clue how tho)

the hitachi problems chatbot just laughed when i asked them abt it

some pvrs have an "export" feature that'll let you move stuff off the internal disk onto a random usb drive. mine needs a disk specially formulated and will only do sd recordings, not hd. takes stupidly long and you end up with raw .ts files but...

i fear my humax will eventually die and there won't be a decent replacement

Talking Pictures, 10:45 tonight, "The Death of Adolf Hitler", 1973 TV play, with Frank Finlay playing Bruno Ganz, looks like it might be worth a look.

just before that, ie now, Hammer House of mystery and suspense. Dirk Benedict, Burt Kwouk, Brian Clemens, Val Guest

one of the 3 times Michael 'Mr Bronson from Grange Hill' Sheard played Himmler, not to be confused with any of the 5 times he played Hitler

oh HHOM+S is different from the thing i used to watch before Match of the Day which was HHO Horror. only 13 episodes of each.

Stumbled across "Revolver" on London Live last night: 1973 Italian crime thriller, directed by Sergio Sollima, music by Morricone, starring Oliver Reed(!), what's not to like! I'd recommend catching this if it's shown again, which it almost certainly will be.

Yeah that's a good one, Sollima a very underrated director in the Italian genre stable. Love the French vocal "Un Ami" on the soundtrack.

Reading that Oliver Reed was increasingly pissed and difficult as the filming proceeded and he does look kind of red and puffy. He's great in it though. I always like his acting anyway.

> if it's shown again

22:00 tomorrow, 4th sept

Sergio Corbucci western, "The Mercenary", on London Live at 10pm tonight. I'm wondering what I missed on Tuesday now.

London Live ued to show a ton of lesser ealing movies as matinees, which was very handy, and dodgy london gangster movies in the evening, which was less so

they are also good for things like sapphire and steel and space 1999

and (german) music documentaries on the slits or the clash or tangerine dream

but being regional none of this ever makes the listing magazines so you have to rely on the epg.

They basically had an unannounced Jean Rollin season too a few years ago. Which was, er, interesting.

Sounds like London Live are licensing stuff from some of the boutique movie labels - 'Revolver' was issued by Eureka not that long ago, and Indicator are currently doing a series of 'deluxe' Rollin discs.

"The Mercenary" was great. It had one of the funniest and most ridiculous fight scenes I've ever seen. Also a Mexican stand-off between a gay Jack Palance and a guy dressed as a clown.