Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

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Noops
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Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by Noops » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:14 pm

Freeveiw??? if only it were that simple and cheap to switch over. :roll:

Having found half the tv's in house had become redundent last week (and trying to put the enevitable off till realy required..) :? unless tuned to sky which was fine if we all want to watch what I/ Mags/Neil Jr/ Ava wanted to watch the same program :tired ?? However being away for the weekend :wink:and not missing the tv one bit its amazing what a couple of days in Achmelvich does for one.. :wink: However back to the real world and I desided on Monday to do something about the lack of avalible veiwing we had. I had an idea of a couple of digiboxes with the older tv's we had and off we would go, however Mags had other ideas... :? to replace the kitchen/bedroom tv's with new ones. :roll:

Off to Kinard Park hunting for what we wanted..the two freeveiw tv's oot o Currys we wanted were now sold out with none in till next week :roll:,where someone else had the same idea as Mags, time for a new tv and had the same answer... had a look in Comit, Tesco direct where an old woman was trying to work out if she neaded a box, arial and god knowes what ever the man was trying to sell her.... :roll: ,Asda, somewhere else etc ..and so on with what we wanted none available although it seemed to me everyone was after digiboxs arials etc, what an expencive CON this switchover is :| ... We found the Tv'S we wanted in a Currys in town where again another woman doing the same as us replacing a couple of tv's.

Both new Freeview tv's where plugged in and allowed to do their channel search and are up and running with all the channels, however BBC 1,2 and some other channels are unwatchable crap which is interfering with my veiwing of the tennis :thumbsup howver this is probably inprovable by a booster of some kind...yet more £££'s.

I know what I spent on Monday and still able not replace what I had :!: :!: and was paying a TV licance for :?: however in some areas and for some people the switch over has been an expencive pain in some people's back pocket... :? :roll:
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Alistair
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by Alistair » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:42 pm

Noops wrote:Freeveiw??? if only it were that simple and cheap to switch over. :roll:

Having found half the tv's in house had become redundent last week (and trying to put the enevitable off till realy required..) :? unless tuned to sky which was fine if we all want to watch what I/ Mags/Neil Jr/ Ava wanted to watch the same program :tired ?? However being away for the weekend :wink:and not missing the tv one bit its amazing what a couple of days in Achmelvich does for one.. :wink: However back to the real world and I desided on Monday to do something about the lack of avalible veiwing we had. I had an idea of a couple of digiboxes with the older tv's we had and off we would go, however Mags had other ideas... :? to replace the kitchen/bedroom tv's with new ones. :roll:

Off to Kinard Park hunting for what we wanted..the two freeveiw tv's oot o Currys we wanted were now sold out with none in till next week :roll:,where someone else had the same idea as Mags, time for a new tv and had the same answer... had a look in Comit, Tesco direct where an old woman was trying to work out if she neaded a box, arial and god knowes what ever the man was trying to sell her.... :roll: ,Asda, somewhere else etc ..and so on with what we wanted none available although it seemed to me everyone was after digiboxs arials etc, what an expencive CON this switchover is :| ... We found the Tv'S we wanted in a Currys in town where again another woman doing the same as us replacing a couple of tv's.

Both new Freeview tv's where plugged in and allowed to do their channel search and are up and running with all the channels, however BBC 1,2 and some other channels are unwatchable crap which is interfering with my veiwing of the tennis :thumbsup howver this is probably inprovable by a booster of some kind...yet more £££'s.

I know what I spent on Monday and still able not replace what I had :!: :!: and was paying a TV licance for :?: however in some areas and for some people the switch over has been an expencive pain in some people's back pocket... :? :roll:
Sorry to say the most frustrating part has been pressing the yellow key to get the message to go away telling me to retune my tv as the changeover is happening.

All done - no difference apart from we now have BBC Alba - which is great for nearly live football from time to time.

Hope the tennis works out - have you seen the Andy Murray is he British poll - at last count he was still 77% - until he loses of course - then he's Scottish :-)

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campbell
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by campbell » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:13 am

I got a call-out to re-tune our neighbour's TV a couple of weeks ago. She tells me she'll be re-booking me to re-tune again, possibly some time this week I believe?!

We are on Virgin Media cable so have missed all the excitement. We only have one telly too :thumbsup
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David
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by David » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:52 am

Ok, I have to declare an interest here - I work for the Beeb in the transmission department, so read in to that what you will. I'm not directly involved in the switch over, but have had some training to understand the issues.

Although it seems a simple task, the change to digital has been an extremely complex problem - there are just not enough frequencies and bandwidth to transmit both digital and analogue at the same time. Having both systems running together was essential to allow time for the viewers to purchase digital boxes and TVs. The solution was to share frequencies that where geographically separated and to transmit at reduced power to prevent interference. As the analogue was switch off (BBC2 first) more frequencies became available and the digital channels could be reassigned to their intended frequencies and the power increased.

Personally I'm surprised it has gone as smoothly as it has. The good news is that, when all the analogue transmissions are turned off, the digital signal will be ramped up to full power and the quality of reception (and the number of channel you are able to get) should improve over the coming weeks. So keep re-scanning from time to time.
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Noops
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by Noops » Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:01 am

campbell wrote:I got a call-out to re-tune our neighbour's TV a couple of weeks ago. She tells me she'll be re-booking me to re-tune again, possibly some time this week I believe?!

We are on Virgin Media cable so have missed all the excitement. We only have one telly too :thumbsup
Good luck with that, I retuned mine yesterday and just the same....having to watch/listen to the BBC news on SKY .... :lol: went to bed last night to find a new flat screen tv promptly fitted at the bottom of the bed :? with Mags sleeping :tired , it would appear that where the old tv stood (up high on top of somthing) which worked perfectly well for years :?: the new tv's picture is unwatchable because of the flat screen angle. :roll:

I give up................
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by Corranga » Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:17 am

We are planning to attempt a freeview HD only when we move to save some pennies (currently with Virgin Media cable).

I recently bought and plugged in a Humax Freeview HD box that I picked up for cheapness (not a pvr, but apperently a firmware upgrade and an external HDD makes it a single tuner recorder, which will be ideal as our TV has an in-built tuner anyway.

So, thought i'd give it a shot with our current house aerial...

Most channels seem fine but BBC1 and BBC2 are completely unwatchable.
In a proper comedy moment though, their HD counterparts are perfect :blackeye

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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by j2 lot » Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:40 am

Change over has been great for us - all TV were new anyway - having replaced the one in the kitchen just before switch over. Ditched Sky earlier in the year and got a Humax Freeview HD.
Finally got the HD channels in May when we had the switchover and can now watch F1 in 1080 :thumbsup and by ditching Sky we are saving ££ each month. Only downside is Sky haven't got the hint and constantly phone and letter us with 'offers' to try to get us back :roll:
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by Blaque » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:29 am

I believe the analog signal is being switched off today (22nd) around Tillycoultry (not sure what transmitter it's served by).

A few months ago my uncle (82) bought himself a freeview TV, and I went up and tuned all the digital channels for him.

A question for anyone in and around that area. Will the digital channels need re-scanned now that the analog is switched off? Or would some channels still be available, just not everything. He probably sticks to 123and4 anyway.

I'm just trying to save myself a 3 hour round trip mid week here, as it would be better if I could pop-in over ther weekend. But I also wouldn't like to think that he would be without his programs.

Sorry for the hijack noops.

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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by tonyg » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:01 pm

Blaque wrote:I believe the analog signal is being switched off today (22nd) around Tillycoultry (not sure what transmitter it's served by).

A few months ago my uncle (82) bought himself a freeview TV, and I went up and tuned all the digital channels for him.

A question for anyone in and around that area. Will the digital channels need re-scanned now that the analog is switched off? Or would some channels still be available, just not everything. He probably sticks to 123and4 anyway.

I'm just trying to save myself a 3 hour round trip mid week here, as it would be better if I could pop-in over ther weekend. But I also wouldn't like to think that he would be without his programs.

Sorry for the hijack noops.

Stuart.
He will probably have lost some channels and will need a retune (well i did in Aberdeen). Analogue is now dead in Scotland as of today.
He may well get some other channels better also - while the changeover was in progress i had crap signal on some channels (5*,5 USA and others - they were all on the same mux), now the analogue is off in Aberdeen they are now top notch after i retuned my TV.
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by glasgowwestie » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:34 pm

I'm on FreeviewHD+ and had lost most HD in the last couple of months, but just retuned and it's all back. Also now it is seamless, when before it would occasionally pixellate, jerk and drop out. So pretty pleased - even better if power will be boosted as David describes above. About to watch some tennis in HD, but would rather have some HD motorsport.
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by GBOBM » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:38 pm

I stupidly retuned my bedroom TV on Sunday (downstairs is Virgin) thinking I was getting ahead of the game and lost all of my channels except the BBC ones. It turns out they are in groups of channels so I tried to tune the other groups manually but couldn't for the life of me get them.

Found out that my signal is actually coming from different transmitters depending on channel and when they all swapped over this morning I retuned and all back to normal.
I've got one of those little booster boxes which I got a while ago out of morrisons and it works really well, making a lot of the channels that were previously unwatchable, fairly clear. :)
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by meatball » Wed Jun 22, 2011 7:11 pm


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kenny
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by kenny » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:23 pm

meatball wrote:this is all the channels that I can get!!!!
I expected better!

:lol: At least you get the Gay Rabbit Adult channel, should keep you busy on cold winter nights.

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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by j2 lot » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:32 pm

:damnfunny
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Re: Freeveiw how was your switchover .....??

Post by meatball » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:57 pm

:lol:

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