paulr

Just looking at the channels available,no MTV,Sky one etc.Only thing that seems any good is ITV2 for alternative Champions league football.Are you better off with the basic cable package (ntl) or basic SKY?

jowl

Having bought a bog standard Freeview box, I would say you'd be better off with a basic Sky package.

However, I bought a hard disc recorder that had freeview built in. The things is much better...faster digital text, great picture and 7 day EPG. I use it much more than my bog standard unit.

Having said that, apart from ITV2, the odd Sky Sports news and sometimes a film on BBC3 I don't watch the 'new' channels that much.

Warwick-hunt

i got it for my brothers christmas present last year, he can't get a look in, his three year olds got it on ceebeebees? all the time,

i think you can get freeview and upgrade other channels for a fee?

paulr

Second question.
I'm on NTL phone and broadband.If i opt for the tv as well,in practice what does it entail.Is it just routing a cable and adding a box,can you feed it upstairs,but then the box to change channels is downstairs?
Can you put the box upstairs?

paulr

One-off or monthly?

mannyo

Monthly checkout http://www.topuptv.com/ for all the info, you need to have either an old itv digital box, or one of the new breed of freeview boxes that has a card slot. Ealier ones didnt have them.

Richard Askew

Also check out www.freeview.co.uk to make sure you can pick it up in your postcode

Worked fine in Surrey - went to install it this afternoon out in the sticks of Worcestershire and it doesn't work cos we're not in a Freeview area


****

Thank the lord for Sky Digital

Which is broken at the min - double ****

paulr

topuptv £7.99 month.
You may as well get cable from NTL if you can that is.

paulr

ntl £20 for the basic channels incl phone rental (which is£9.50)

SCOsazOBY

ive got freeview, had to pay £70 for a new ariel to get it though but now ive got it i wont be without it

The music channels are great and ya can buy buy buy on bid-up, price-drop, qvc and channel22

It eases the pain of foking out for a tv licence

paulr

Explain.

RON

Putting your postcode into the website is not a gaurentee that it won't work, we shouldn't be abl;e to get it, but we've got three boxes!! and all of them work fine!!

yoza

Good for nothing.

gsm1

For the £50 odd you pay it's worth getting but there isn't a great choice of channels. I think they are now offering subscription channels via the digital terrestrial system but not sure which.

Leslie

I think the basic Sky package is pretty good value with the vast choice of the better channels and you also get all the BBC/ITV/Channel5 on it as well via the satellite.

They also have a system which allows you to change channels in another room.

Les

gsm1

I don't know if anyone else has this problem with their freeview box but my Nokia, from the old On-Digital days, has to be reset quite regularly. Many times the sound will be lost altogether or the if you scroll up the channels too quickly it goes crazy. The response to selecting and changing channels is very delayed and a real pain. Digital Terrestrial teletext is also a joke - it's so bloody slow it's just not worth bothering with.

paulr

gsm,its because the tv companies regulalry change the channel/bandwidth of programs to get the best quality.The newer boxes make this adjustment auotamatically,the older ones dont cope so well unfortunately.
Your best bet would be to get a new freview box.

TelBoy

My telly has integrated Freeview, and although i use it occasionally, it's certainly not first choice, largely becasue of the hassle of finding programme schedules. It's ok though, but i wouldn't pay for what it provides.

brickboy

Worth it for the music docs on BBC3 & 4, for the two music channels and for CBBC if you've got kids.

Worth getting a twin SCART freeview box if you've got a video / DVD set up, otherwise the cabling gets complicated

andyr

I'm now on my 4th Freeview box and wonder if anyone can assist ?
1st 2 boxes (each was a different make) went back as after a while they would respond in some random manner to using the remote or if left untouched for a few hours when I changed channel the box would appear to go into standby mode.
So off to John Lewis I went and got box number 3, made by Thomson, £60, worked fine barring the fact that
a)If I ran it through my multi-way SCART (which the others would do ok) I got no picture
b)I got picture break up on a number of channels

So off the Lewis's again, new, different box, this time a Panasonic.
Lovely picture, works ok through the milti-way SCART but still on some channels (Ch5, UK History etc etc) I get break up.

Signal in our area is not great I think but as the 1st 2 units had no picture problems (just they were crap in that they only worked for a couple of weeks before playing silly buggers) I am living in hope that I can get a decent Freeview picture on all channels somehow.

Aerial is a pretty big attic one.
Might better quality co-ax cable/connectors help here ?
Are there models that are known to be good in weak signal areas ?

paulr

You are supposed to have an outside aerial.

marky1

I have to say I think it is pretty terrible, most of the channels on it are junk.

class_A

Better than analogue if you can't put up a dish or get cable

I had Sky at my old address and whilst we did watch a good number of the channels, the picture quality wasn't the greatest. I wish they'd give more bandwidth to actual programming instead of the crappy games and shopping channels.

fast bloke

basic freeview is worth it if you have kids - non stop cbeebies is a godsend for mid term break

other than that there isn't a huge amount to watch on it

andyr

Agree that most of the extra channels are just 'filler' however the picture quality for those that I don't get break-up with is good plus there's digital radio and occasionally (just occasionally tho') the channels in addition to terrestrial have something worth watching.
Channel 5 on terrestrial is a really poor picture for me and Freeview should resolve this but this is one of the channels that suffer break-up so I'm still no better off.
Annoying thing is that 2 out of the now 4 boxes were great WRT picture quality on ALL channels but the boxes themselves went faulty. May have to try yet another make/model.
Also might go out and buy a higher quality co-ax lead/connectors.

andyr

Bought a higher quality gold terminated co-ax cable in Comet (was supposed to be £20 but it scanned at £1.94 so thought it worth that.
Plugged that in replacing the std wall socket to Freeview box cable and picture is perfect now !
Either the original was faulty or it required the higher quality new one to resolve interference etc but it works so I'm leaving it alone now.

davegtt

just had ntl fitted, almost every channel is cr@p even the simple channels like MTV they play 1 song every 10 minutes and the rest is adverts.... so Ive left the misses downsairs watching rubbish whilst I play on the net