Tesco Freeview "Channel 0" Experiment

Interesting articles on the Technology for Tesco blog - they are planning to test a new service which you can actually be a part of, using "Channel 0". They plan to pioneer a new service in which you can connect through you television to Tesco's ordering services (You're probably better reading the article which explains it in a much better fashion below...)

Original Article: http://techfortesco.blogspot.com/2010/10/join-tesco-freeview-experiment.html

You can also apply to be a part of the trial, and receive a free Freeview HD box which you get to keep afterwards.

Welcome to 1998, welcome to Open....

Even the mighty Sky couldn't make this kind of thing work and that was before the mainstream adoption of smartphones and fewer people having Internet connections. Why would you shop through a TV nowadays when you could just pick up your Windows Android Nokia-Pad device and shop with a much better interface and without missing EastEnders?

I'll take your Free Freeview HD box, Tesco but I am not going to shop on my television. This is not The Jetsons.

Yep. I ordered a pizza once on my Sky box - and occasionally checked my bank account.

Totally agree - smartphone, tablet or netbook is the way forward for most. This MIGHT appeal to those without a computer or smartphone - but I doubt it. The UI and experience is likely to be dire.

If you actually read the article - it will not even take you away from whichever channel you are watching.

They are imagining you watching a cookery show, pressing a button and having all the ingredients added to your Tesco online shopping basket, or the shopping list on your iPhone/Android/Nokia Tesco App.

Seeing as it'll limited to only boxes which Tesco sell, I can't see this ever paying its own way.

I tried that once too. It took so long to enter all the details and navigate the various screens and menus that it would have been quicker to walk to Domino's instead and pick one up.

I actually had an 'Open' keyboard for my Sky box - only because I won it as 'letter of the month' in Sky Magazine! I hardly ever used it though... well why would I when I'm on the internet?

Agree with all the comments that this type of technology is tried, failed and superceded now.

It will have to at the very least take your concentration away from what you are watching.



It is certainly something I would have a play with if I happened to have a compatible box but I can't see it taking off in any big way. It is a well known fact that despite the popularity of the genre no one had ever cooked any recipe ever featured in a TV cookery programme. FACT!

Windows android Nokia-Pad-Berry, please.

Again - IT'S A TRIAL!

People said the same about 3D never taking off..

And with Open, remember you're talking about 8-10 years ago now!

Good lord Open... that takes me back, originally Sky didn't own it, they bought it later on.

I remember we switched to NTL Digital this time ten years ago and the amount of stuff they had on Interactive, with their preview channel promising how it would revoloutionize the way you shop and watch TV, to be fair what they had on there content wise was very impressive, but the software and hardware let it down, plus as someone else said many people find it more convienient going on their PCs and doing the shopping there, rather than having to mess about with a remote.

Fair play to Tesco for giving the idea a go, whether it'll succeed, who knows, but considering they're pretty much everywhere, and they have a very well established online shopping service that people know about anyway, I can't imagine this being a huge hit, but prove me wrong if you like.

I still think it's a pointless fad. You get a fuzzy, blurry picture, for which you have to wear a pair of sci-fi sunglasses in
order to view it as something you'd see in HD on a normal HDTV, but without the need to wear a silly pair of specs!

I could emulate that effect very cheaply tomorrow for maybe no more than a tenner, by going to Bury Market,
buying a cheap pair of shades, and wearing them while I watch something in 1080 HD on my Bravia HDTV!

At least the current 3D system doesn't require those awful cardboard specs with red and green lenses!


More like closer to 12 years ago. I remember regularly checking my old HSBC account on Open... in around 1999.

I miss Open....