Freeview retune....

[happypaddler]

I may have been living under a rock recently - but I thought I'd have a quick research to find out exactly what is going on when they mess around with the freeview signal tomorrow. Whilst I'm at home trying to get my self back to full health I find myself watching TV a bit more than I used to. Any way, it seems that in November there will be a number of new HD freeview channels launched. So to accommodate, a number of channels (mainly BBC) are being removed from one set of transmitters to a new (from my reading lower spec) set of transmitters. Apparently some of us will find a drop of up to 33% in signal strength for many current BBC & ITV freeview channels. There are also a number of receivers which apparently will not work following the so called upgrade. So if you have a tuner which does not work after a retune tomorrow, I'd hang fire for a couple of months and buy a freesat HD box in November (when the new channels are launched) so that you will get everything again.

This goes alongside the little known BBC scheduled transfer to DAB (including stopping all transmissions on FM) of all its radio stations, in 2012 (I think it is scheduled for 2012 - it was outlined in the govt.'s latest communication paper - dealing with TV, Radio, Internet et al. earlier this year). New DAB radio for the car then?

TV tech is not my strong point, so I may be wrong on some counts, but... communication of the implications of these changes has not been forthcoming. I'm just hoping that when I go up to Leeds to see my Grandma and retune hers - its not a much bigger job than it should be - she is typical of her age - having not grown up with computers et al. Explaining it all to her requires a lot of patience...

[skellum]

I remember as a child in the 60s you were posh if you could get BBC 2 and later on super posh if you had a colour tv. In the 70s when I lived in South Africa there was no tv at all untill about 74/75. We used to listen to a lot of plays on the radio then ( Like radio 4 ) which when I think back was good for using your imagination as apposed to staring at some American drama were the good guy allways wins. At weekends for a treat someone would take it in turn to rent a Film & projector and all your friends and neighbours turned up to watch it.

We have  freeview on the tv in the lounge but now we will have to buy 2 digital boxes for the tv's in the dining room & bedroom. ( or buy 2 new sets )..... I just might not bother !..........

[CML-1591]

All i know is that the reminder pop up thing is REALLY STARTING TO HACK ME OFFF!

[Mick]

All i know is that the reminder pop up thing is REALLY STARTING TO HACK ME OFFF!

How do I remove the on-screen messages?

Leading up to the 30 September you may find messages appearing on-screen reminding you about the retune.

To remove the messages from your screen you need to press the yellow button on your remote control. If you don't, they will disappear after one minute. The on-screen messages will appear each time you change channel to a different broadcaster, for example, if you move from a BBC channel to an ITV channel. However, if you move from BBC One to BBC Two the messages will not appear again.

[Mick]

Oh, forgot to say,

Wonder how many freeview boxes are going to stop working this time?  Or send the channels all over the place like BBC1 up in the 800's etc.

Nothing like future proofing your setup to find out that when the switchover comes you have to pay again for equipment.   

They've already buggered one of my freeview boxes last time they messed around with the Muxes.  The lightning took my other one out.  Almost drives you to   don't it.  

[anglefire]

We've had about 4 boxes so far - they keep blowing up or are not very reliable - problem we have is that we are right on the edge of coverage - officially we can't get it - signal strength is around 50% at best.

We now have a freeview box built into a relatively new flat screen tv - together with DVD, Ipod dock, Freeview card slot thingy.

If its going to drop by 1/3 then we are knackered!

[alan1572]

So if you have a tuner which does not work after a retune tomorrow, I'd hang fire for a couple of months and buy a freesat HD box in November (when the new channels are launched) so that you will get everything again.

do you mean freeview HD box? as a free sat HD box will need a sky mini dish.

[alan1572]

We've had about 4 boxes so far - they keep blowing up or are not very reliable - problem we have is that we are right on the edge of coverage - officially we can't get it - signal strength is around 50% at best.

We now have a freeview box built into a relatively new flat screen tv - together with DVD, Ipod dock, Freeview card slot thingy.

If its going to drop by 1/3 then we are knackered!

Where are you? in 9 out of 10 casses, a wide band masthead amplifier sorts out a very weak signal, you can get upto 25bd of gain, normally 60db of signal will be enough

[Oldboy]

We've had about 4 boxes so far - they keep blowing up or are not very reliable - problem we have is that we are right on the edge of coverage - officially we can't get it - signal strength is around 50% at best.

We now have a freeview box built into a relatively new flat screen tv - together with DVD, Ipod dock, Freeview card slot thingy.

If its going to drop by 1/3 then we are knackered!

I thought they were going to increase the power after ditching the analog part. 

[alan1572]

it's meant to be going up by a factor of 10, which can bring it's own problems as too much signal is as bad as not enough

[Carlj]

So if you have a tuner which does not work after a retune tomorrow, I'd hang fire for a couple of months and buy a freesat HD box in November (when the new channels are launched) so that you will get everything again.

do you mean freeview HD box? as a free sat HD box will need a sky mini dish.

This is confusing me. HD freeview is upscaling existing signal (built in photoshop lol), freesat with higher bandwidth capacity copes with native hd signals...

[alan1572]

freeview hd will have a mix of upscaled and native HD, there will be limits to how much hative HD they can show, the hd channels will be simulcasts of SD channels

[Mick]

Haven't done ours yet.  Anyone had any problems? 

[CML-1591]

Haven't done ours yet.  Anyone had any problems? 

yeah, can't find the retune button or anything like that

[Mick]

yeah, can't find the retune button or anything like that

This might help. http://www.tvretune.co.uk/productmanuals/