Requests

How do you work out if a Freeview box is Interactive?

(April 2005)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
YE
yellow_hello
I'm getting a bit confused when I'm looking at the descriptions of Set Top Boxes. Some just say "Interactive", which is what I want, but can it be described any other way?
I've seen 'Digital Text' and 'Digital Teletext', but does that only mean that Teletext on ITV1/C4/five is avaliable, or does that mean that I could get BBCi for instance?
Please can you give me some assistance because none of it makes sense to me, hehe!
yellow.
AD
Adam
yellow_hello posted:
I'm getting a bit confused when I'm looking at the descriptions of Set Top Boxes. Some just say "Interactive", which is what I want, but can it be described any other way?
I've seen 'Digital Text' and 'Digital Teletext', but does that only mean that Teletext on ITV1/C4/five is avaliable, or does that mean that I could get BBCi for instance?
Please can you give me some assistance because none of it makes sense to me, hehe!
yellow.


Digital Text, Digital Teletext, Data Services and Interactive are all the same sort of thing. Oh, and there's no 'Digital Teletext' on ITV1 (yet) or five.
GM
nodnirG kraM
Yeah the absolute bottom-of-the-range boxes won't allow you to access services such as BBCi, Teletext, 4text, and presumably BBC Parliament.
RO
rob Founding member
nodnirG kraM posted:
Yeah the absolute bottom-of-the-range boxes won't allow you to access services such as BBCi, Teletext, 4text, and presumably BBC Parliament.


Goodmans GDB2 one of them. I don't recommend you get one of them.
GM
nodnirG kraM
rob posted:
nodnirG kraM posted:
Yeah the absolute bottom-of-the-range boxes won't allow you to access services such as BBCi, Teletext, 4text, and presumably BBC Parliament.


Goodmans GDB2 one of them. I don't recommend you get one of them.

Unless of course you have absolutely no need for interactive services and simply want straight-forward digital terrestrial television.
TE
tesandco Founding member
Quote:
Goodmans GDB2 one of them. I don't recommend you get one of them.


Well you must have a different version of the GDB2 (possibly faulty?) to what the rest of us have, as it should work fine with the interactive stuff... unless you've somehow ended up with a box that's been in a warehouse for a loooooong time and has the original version of the software. (though even that had interactivity AFAIK... just the whole thing was pretty much unusable)

The last version of the software they sent out for it over-the-air does randomly crash, and has done since the move to 7-day EPG (this can only be fixed by updating via serial cable now, as Goodmans aren't doing any more OTA downloads for the GDB2), but it should still have working interactivity.
RO
rob Founding member
tesandco posted:
Quote:
Goodmans GDB2 one of them. I don't recommend you get one of them.


Well you must have a different version of the GDB2 (possibly faulty?) to what the rest of us have, as it should work fine with the interactive stuff... unless you've somehow ended up with a box that's been in a warehouse for a loooooong time and has the original version of the software. (though even that had interactivity AFAIK... just the whole thing was pretty much unusable)



When I had it, I couldn't get the BBC News Multiscreen, and it kept crashing and switching off at random moments, so I got an Alba box, and it works a treat!

Oh, and I purchased it from Argos for £39.99
GM
nodnirG kraM
What does it do for channels such as BBC Parliament and 703 Multiscreen? I'd assume it would need some intelligence to find the correct audio stream, so if it were dead to all things interactive surely the two channels would show mute pictures of the three interactive streams with no MHEG overlay to hide the irrelevent picture.

No?
RO
rob Founding member
nodnirG kraM posted:
What does it do for channels such as BBC Parliament and 703 Multiscreen? I'd assume it would need some intelligence to find the correct audio stream, so if it were dead to all things interactive surely the two channels would show mute pictures of the three interactive streams with no MHEG overlay to hide the irrelevent picture.

No?


BBC Parliament comes up with the text based bit, but there's no picture from the channel. 703 works (I think) albeit very slowly.
EH
Edward H
rob posted:
nodnirG kraM posted:
What does it do for channels such as BBC Parliament and 703 Multiscreen? I'd assume it would need some intelligence to find the correct audio stream, so if it were dead to all things interactive surely the two channels would show mute pictures of the three interactive streams with no MHEG overlay to hide the irrelevent picture.

No?


BBC Parliament comes up with the text based bit, but there's no picture from the channel. 703 works (I think) albeit very slowly.


You need to update your box! Update 123
RO
rob Founding member
gum boy posted:
rob posted:
nodnirG kraM posted:
What does it do for channels such as BBC Parliament and 703 Multiscreen? I'd assume it would need some intelligence to find the correct audio stream, so if it were dead to all things interactive surely the two channels would show mute pictures of the three interactive streams with no MHEG overlay to hide the irrelevent picture.

No?


BBC Parliament comes up with the text based bit, but there's no picture from the channel. 703 works (I think) albeit very slowly.


You need to update your box! Update 123


erm, as I said in a previous post...

Quote:
When I had it, I couldn't get the BBC News Multiscreen, and it kept crashing and switching off at random moments, so I got an Alba box, and it works a treat!

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