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?

(i fear having to buy a new tv tbh)

sky arts, Freeview ch 36, are doing their paint-along thing again. 6-7 every day next week, from Monday

they used to do this over lockdown, 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon, model in one half the screen, one of their paoty contestants in the other doing a portrait, was very zen tv.

Curiously, That's TV (UK) - home of "You Rang M' Lord" and "Birds of a Feather" et al - is showing "Abigail's Party" right now, it started at 8.10 am!

just the way to start your weekend, guess they have Festen on afterwards, then mother! at lunchtime.

On the contrary, it's being followed by 5 hours of "You Rang, M' Lord" and 6 hours of "Birds of a Feather".

much the same effect then

it was in the listing as 'Play for Today'

but it seems to be a one-off as it's '80's Music' and more 'You Rang' next saturday, which is a pity because the Play for Today list has some good things in it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_for_Today

Yes, I've never noticed that channel showing anything other than old sitcoms... and 80s music.

They showed all of Monty Python last year.

Box of Delights on bbc4 tonight.

was thinking recently there's a world of those kids' things that they could show the way they currently show UFO and Space 1999 and the Prisoner endlessly. things like Children of the Stones, Changes, Lizzy Dripping, that thing with the Ugly Wuglies...

(in fact Talking Pictures already has a kids slot on Saturdays. tends to be things from Mike Reid's era though, about 10 years before mine)

Talking Pictures have been doing Ghost Story for Christmas repeats this week btw I just didn't get round to noting this

i did see Oh Whistle but it wasn't the good one

I might watch some on the catch up, happy enough to enjoy even the bad ones in the right mood

Started watching a Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western from 1968 on London Live called "Beyond the Law" ("Al di là della legge") when 30 minutes in it switched over to Italian - which wouldn't be so bad if it had subtitles but it doesn't... oh hold on, it's back to English... and now it's back to Lionel Stander talking Italian... and back to English.

... actually an Italian/West German co-production. At least they haven't started speaking German yet.

we've talked on here about Astrid In Paris the French cop drama on more 4 and it was strangely popular, to the point where they repeated the first two series back to back. anyway, they've remade it in English and it starts on ch4 tonight. Patience.

I know nothing of Astrid In Paris but I saw a trailer for this new series and my first thought was that it looked like a remake of a European detective series, I assumed Scandinavian.

(Astrid is autistic, sometimes uncomfortably so, fond of puzzles, helpful to the police... the two female leads also added to it a bit. it might be terrible. the original is probably on all4)

Talking Pictures is showing Doomwatch from 17th jan

(watched both episodes of Patience and she's too normal. Astrid, and all her group, was very obviously 'other', Patience just seems a bit socially awkward. it's not bad, but they've toned down the usp.)

yeah didnt like it anywhere near as much but luckily new astrid series 4 is showing from friday 24th on more4.

plus the young Patience looks nothing like her

but on the plus side: York looks nice. Clifford's mound in the latest episode. looking forward to the railway museum episode (which may not exist)

Giving my periodic Talking Pictures TV plus: Corbucci's The Hellbenders, featuring Joseph Cotten as a tyrannical confederate pater familias and diva of the Brazilian New Wave Norma Bengell as a saloon girl, 15:00 on Wednesday the 12th of Feb. Also: for the couples there's the original Fly at 18:35 on Valentine's Day; Vincent Price stars in an Italian production of I Am Legend (The Last Man On Earth, 23:55 on Thursday the 20th); Budd Boetticher's western masterpiece The Tall T at 11:45 on Sunday the 23rd.

plug, not plus

Blown Away, that US programme like pottery throwdown but for glass blowing, is back on Blaze (tuesdays, saturdays)

some nice things, but it's only half an hour so is incredibly rushed, and less about the art and more about the winning (and the breakages).

(also, being on Blaze it's surrounded by adverts for bollocks like Strange Evidence or Ancient Aliens)

Landscape Artist of the Year is also back. (and Pottery Throwdown itself, obv)

The Prisoner is back on, this time running on the latest nostalgia channel, Rewind (right after Police Woman).

banned video nasty The Driller Killer is on [checks notes] Talking Pictures TV next friday.

Driller Killer passed uncut by the BBFC in 2002 and has fallen into public domain (Talking Pictures TV often screen PD movies for obvious reasons).

Oh good, I look forward to watching it!

i've not seen it, i don't think. but i'm sure it won't live up to the hype (a lot of the outrage was based on the poster apparently).

the other thing that might be worth highlighting was the recent thing on bbc4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000gp8s/toxic-town-the-corby-poisonings

which is now the subject of a new netflix series (of the same name)

TPTV starts showing Supercar from tomorrow morning. given that Fireball XL5 felt a bit on the crude side of the things in used to I'm not sure this will be great, but i don't think I've seen it before

(Holding out for Joe 90)

on tptv next is a film starting Stephanie Beacham, Marlon Brando and... Thora Hird

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.z1XMLth7v7mLu99jqBFQmQHaFf?pid=Api

A great honour for Brando.

Tati's Playtime and Traffic on TPTV shortly (have the former on dvd, don't think i've seen the latter)

Parade, too, and Mon Oncle is coming up :)

i have been enjoying the cracker repeats on itv3

How does it hold up? I'm tempted to rewatch because I loved it at the time, but I worry that McGovern's writing might feel heavy-handed in 2025.

Feel like McGovern was always heavy handed on some level but like Alan Bleasdale good enough that it's part of the vibe

i am sure Cracker would be known to HR, let's say.

i'm not sure how much of it i saw originally, but i do remember the end of the second story (the bonnie and clyde one, bonnie having recently been in The Change as one of the eel sisters). cast is great. writing seems fresh, despite the years (reminds me of Happy Valley in a way)

oh, the one thing that did jar with me is when the three of them remembered their mum's co-op number. maybe generational thing. or a northern thing.

Is chris eccleston playing a liverpool fan a cracker episode. have a memory of a police interview scene where he starts chanting l-i-v, e-r-p,double o-l ,liverpool FC and have always thought it was from cracker but I may be misremembering.

He plays the police chief, Robert Carlyle is the Liverpool fan.

Ah thank you. I was remembering it wrong then.

That's the only story I really remember, I think it was probably the best of the lot.

that also rings a bell, a 32 year old bell. maybe i did see most of them.

Yeah a lot of it is Adolensence shit but marginally better acting and considerably better writing