Freeview thread

If you can get a good analogue picture with a set top aerial, then in most cases you'll be fine with DTT too. You don't necessarily need a booster either.

My coverage isn't that hot at all... can't get Sky News or Sky Sports News (thank god), miss Sky News a bit though...

The analogue coverage is far better... do you reckon a booster will change things?

I daren't rescan because I'll probably lose more poor signal channels (i.e. it wont be able to pick them up so will leave them out of the EPG)... thats how I lost the Sky ones..

http://www.btinternet.com/~snowdonssalon/tmp/temp-peter.gif

Try performing an 'add channels' instead of a rescan. This should only add new channels to your lineup and not lose any old ones.

Bear in mind though that, afaik, only ITVD boxes have the separate 'add channels' and 'store channels' option. My new box only has a single option to find new channels, which works the same way as 'store channels' on ITVD did.

When will Price-drop start on DTT?

My reception of Price-drop will be better than Bid-up, as I always get the ITV/C4 chanels without a problem, but the SDN channels like QVC and TV TRAVEL SHOP most of the time have picture break up. I wish the SDN mux would get better and be like the other 64QAM mux thats the ITV/C4 one.

The FREEVIEW line up is looking rather good I think now. I only wish TV Travel shop was not there as I never watch it. I also have never put Sky Sports news on my DTT box but I think that has to sty otherwise people will moan about having no sport.

So Shopping TV has quite big presents on Freeview. Shame UKTV could not have another good channel on DTT. Never mind. I have Sky so why am I moaning. I should be happy with what I have got. Anyway.....

My opinon is it will start on Monday/Tuseday

It's possible that price-drop.tv is only a temporary addition to Freeview until More4 launches on the same LCN. Although I suppose it's possible that price-drop.tv will get bumped down to LCN 24 when More4 starts, as there will still be space for both.

Why do you say that?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to take issue here. It still lacks a strong general entertainment channel. It has too many shopping channels and news channels, it has no real sports channel (SSN is a sports news service and acting as a general barker for Sky)


Well if they're giving me presents...

I think they must be testing some sort of EPG switching thing at the moment because one minute I switch to channel 14 and it says Ch 14, then the next minute it says price-drop.tv

If they're still testing I don't think we'll see a launch today - maybe Monday.

Well that's not technically accurate - there aren't any shopping channels on Freeview itself (apart from maybe Sky Travel) - all the shopping channels are on multiplexes which aren't associated with Freeview and so it's beyond BBC/CCI control. However, I do agree that there are too many shopping channels broadcasting on DTT in general - bid-up.tv, price-drop.tv (soon), QVC, Sky Travel (kind of) and TV Travel Shop is far too much for a platform with limited bandwidth.

I think the number of news services is fine - there are only three (not counting BBC Parliament because it's not a news service) and each are quite different services. I think it's ridiculous that CCI approached Turner with the hope that they would launch CNN on Freeview - again, with limited bandwidth this would be a total waste.

Sports-wise the platform is lacking, but most of the hardcore sports fans will have Sky anyway. Sky Sports News is alright for updates and all the news channels on DTT carry sports updates too. With Setanta and CBM hoping to launch sports services we could easily end up with too much sport!

I think that entertainment-wise there is also a bit of a problem. UKBrightIdeas is a poor excuse for a channel and is most probably a barker for a new service when it is profitable. ftn is getting better, but is still in need of some decent programmes! The majority of Freeview viewing goes to ITV2 and UkHistory - both channels I find very good, especially UkHistory. Sky Travel looks to be evolving into SkyOneVeryLite anyway.

With the speculation that Disney and Turner may launch services soon, as well as More4 next year, the extended Teletext service offering holidays and and EPG and of course Freeview's own EPG, things are looking quite positive at the moment.

Price-drop.tv has now moved to LCN 24 next to sister channel bid-up.tv
I personally think that it's time to renumber the whole platform. It's silly that we have gaps in the lineup for channels which are only available in Scotland and Wales. Here's what I would suggest:

01 BBC One
02 BBC Two
03 ITV1
04 Channel 4
05 five
06 ITV2
07 BBC Three
08 BBC Four
09 Uk History
10 The Hits
11 TMF
12 (CC Space - TCM?)
13 (SDN Space - Disney?)
14 (Digital 3/4 Space - More4)
15 Sky Travel
16 Uk Bright Ideas
17 FTN [These two channels go at the end of this section, in case they ever become one channel, there will be no gaps in the lineup]

20 QVC
21 TV Travel Shop
22 price-drop.tv
23 bid-up.tv
24 [Channel 4 in Wales]
25 [S4C2 in Wales]
26 [TeleG in Scotland]

30 CBBC Channel
31 CBeebies

40 BBC News 24
41 ITV News Channel
42 Sky News
43 BBC Parliament
44 Community Channel

50 Freeview EPG
51 Teletext
52 Teletext Holidays
53 Teletext TV Guide
54 Teletext on 4
55 Fun2Play Games
56 BBCi

60 Sky Sports News
61 (SDN Space - Freesport?)
62 (SDN Space - Setanta?)

70... Radio services
701 Interactive
702 Interactive
703 Interactive
704 4Tv Interactive