Freeview retune

I'm not sure how many people here have freeview, but I was wondering, out of those that do, did you manage to get your reciever retuned on or after the 30th September?

After having been advised about it for many weeks through the TV and the internet, this afternoon, at about 12:15, I did the ever so complicated task of pressing Menu -> First Time Installation -> Yes, in order that the receiver may be retuned to receive the new channel list - a process I have have done numerous times over the last 5 years to update the list whenever there has been a new channel.

Now I've just seen on the news at ten, that so many people are having difficulty 0.o.

Was just reading on another forum a bloke posted saying after re tuning his box he lost half the channels that he had before.

I find that sometimes when retuning freeview the channels get arranged very strangely, and I have to do it again to get them back to more logical channel numbers. Who wants BBC on channel 101 for example!

I've not retuned mine yet. I have freeview tuners built into 2 of my TVs and a DVD Recorder, as all new hardware is now finally coming with digital tuners as standard.

I live in an area where we only get freeview in bad weather and it's sunny at the moment so I can't retune.

I seem to have lost ITV4 (the man's channel), but gained ITV2+1 (the ladies' channel).

It's sort of like having your tonsils removed and an extra appendix put in - neither are pre-requisites for leading a full and happy life, although at least ITV4 occasionally shows good films.

And what the hell is 'Quest'? I was expecting a whole channel dedicated to CNN's Richard Quest, but sadly I was disappointed.

It is channels like Rabbit and SmileTV that i don't really get the point in. Fortunately I still have ITV3, 4 and Channel 5.

I don't know how the channel list works so I'm not sure what could cause channels to be in the wrong place, but everything seems to be fine here.

I rarely even watch any of the other channels on freeview. I have my Mum's PVR set up to record Heartbeat every day from ITV3, but that is about it.

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Originally Posted by Cortona

And what the hell is 'Quest'? I was expecting a whole channel dedicated to CNN's Richard Quest, but sadly I was disappointed.

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Is it a channel dedicated to the Lightwave and Amiga rendered Sea Quest DSV?

It's of course a channel dedicated to Sierra's seminal adventure series Space Quest, King's Quest and Police Quest. Duh!

It'll probably just be something boring like the rest of the TV.

Probably. Would you believe it if I told you I cancelled my satellite subscription and haven't received any TV signals at all here for over three years now? Not joking. I realised I hardly watched anything at all and it was just throwing money out the window. So got rid of it all. And don't even miss it. Well, not much.

I wouldn't pay a subscription for TV.

My Mum says that the only reason she pays for a colour TV license is because I watch it, but even then, I could manage fine without it. In fact, if my Mum didn't pay it, I probably wouldn't bother.

I subscribe to Sky still and wouldn't like to be without it as freeview offers hardly any worthhile extra channels over the original terrestrial 5. About the only useful ones are Sky News, BBC News, Dave (for the Top Gear repeats) and maybe sometimes BBC3 and E4. Oh and 5 now they have switched off their terrestrial broadcasting. Can't be doing wit missing Neighbours! :lol:

Harrison, you forgot to mention BBC4, undoubtedly the best digital channel. In the last couple of months it has shown a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, shed-loads of Beatles stuff, Jonathan Meades' surreal travelogues, everything Charlie Brooker (Screenwipe, Newswipe, Gameswipe), that retro family thing with an emphasis on technology, where a family have to live through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and on Thursday the programme I'm really looking forward to: Micro Men.

BBC4 alone is worth the licence fee.

Teho - does Norway have any free/state TV channels? Are they any good?

I must admit I've never really bothered watching BBC4. It's normally showing the "programs will resume at 6am" screen when I look at it. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

I must admit I've never really bothered watching BBC4. It's normally showing the "programs will resume at 6am" screen when I look at it. :lol:

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Strange, I'm sure it doesn't start till 7PM. I will be downloading Micro Men from iPlayer as the actor playing Sir Clive Sinclair does look suitably ridiculous.:lol:

I did actually want to see that program. Might set Sky+ to record it.

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Originally Posted by Cortona

Harrison, you forgot to mention BBC4, undoubtedly the best digital channel. In the last couple of months it has shown a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, shed-loads of Beatles stuff, Jonathan Meades' surreal travelogues, everything Charlie Brooker (Screenwipe, Newswipe, Gameswipe), that retro family thing with an emphasis on technology, where a family have to live through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and on Thursday the programme I'm really looking forward to: Micro Men.

BBC4 alone is worth the licence fee.

Teho - does Norway have any free/state TV channels? Are they any good?

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Yep, BBC4 does have some good stuff on (lot of toss also, though, but that's telly).

Our tellies (iDTV - no one ever uses that term any more do they) are always nagging us to retune them, feels like every damn week :mad:

Even if it is as simple as pressing OK twice when prompted, it still bugs me as I then have to wait a few moments before I can switch to cable.

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Originally Posted by Cortona

Teho - does Norway have any free/state TV channels? Are they any good?

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Yes, NRK (Norsk RiksKringkasting - Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) is the state-run network. It isn't free, there's a license that has to be paid by anyone capable of receiving. And until recently you were deemed capable by simply owning a TV set, as all you needed was an arial antenna. So basically every household in the country has been having to pay it. But the arial network was shut down earlier this year, so now people like me who have no other means of receiving can in fact get out of having to pay the license.

It runs four TV channels and 17 radio channels. Any good? Well, depends on who you ask. They are very good at news and weather, political debates, that sort of thing. They have gotten fairly good at entertainment over the last ten or so years but they're still considered boring channels by most if all you want is to be entertained.

One thing of note is that they are at the forefront in the world at adopting new technologies and promoting them. They have for instance embraced Bittorrent and run their own tracker (and where the first broadcasting company in the world to do so) where many of their programs can be downloaded in hi-def. They have had several open-source projects, and a lot of their material (such as their ton of pictures on flickr) can be used by anyone for non-commercial purposes. In fact they encourage it. This whole technology side has it's own webpages and blog called NRKbeta, where several articles are in english due to high international interest in what's going on there. It's all very cool in my opinion, and interesting to follow. (That link is straight to the english introductory page)

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Originally Posted by Teho

Probably. Would you believe it if I told you I cancelled my satellite subscription and haven't received any TV signals at all here for over three years now? Not joking. I realised I hardly watched anything at all and it was just throwing money out the window. So got rid of it all. And don't even miss it. Well, not much.

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I can better that toho not had tv here for 6 years.