Is Freeview worth having?

[FuzzyLogic]

Basically i'm in the market for buying a new tv, and the one that's caught my eye has 2 models, one with freeview, the other without.

With: http://www.sharp.co.uk/Product.aspx?ID=1094

Without: http://www.sharp.co.uk/Product.aspx?ID=1092

Having never had any contact with freeview, I was just wondering, is it worth the extra £80 or so to take the upgraded model or should I just stick with the basic mojo?

 

[tris-]

a freeview box on its own is about £20-£30.

its an OK service i suppose. you can pay another £7.99 a month for extra channels aswell.

 

[WPKenny]

It all depends on your ariel too.

Ours is too shitty (too old or the wrong metal or something) and pointing at the wrong transmitter to get digital but the guy on the floor above gets it just about (there's a tree in the way to the signal goes shitty from time to time).

Check on the freeview webby first with a postcode search and then see if you can borrow a friend's freeview box to try it out.

 

[Calaen]

I bought my gran a box for chistmas last year, gives her alot of extra channels for her to flick through My gran had signal problems but I bought her a signal booster and all is good.

 

[Vae]

A lot of the channels are shit but for £20-30 as a one-off payment it's well worth it for the few that have something decent on occasionally: BBC 3&4, ITV2&3, E4, More 4, Film Four. Also some of the other channels like UK history or UK Gold sometimes have decent stuff on.

 

[DaGaffer]

Its not really worth having integrated Freeview in the tv; not for £80 anyway. Decent Freeview STBs are dirt cheap. Freeview itself is worth having if you can't get Sky or cable. NB. The extra pay channels (top-up tv) are changing. It used to be a card you could slot into a generic Freeview STB, but from January you'll have to buy their own dedicated STB/PVR if you want extra channels.

 

[dysfunction]

If you don't like paying for Sky or Cable then Freeview is great!

And it will be necessary in future for your TV to be able to receive digital signals.
The analogue signal will be switched off in a year or two I believe....

So If I was buying a TV now I would definitely buy one with a digital tuner built in...as it will also save space under your Tv for all the other gadgets you may accumulate...

 

[FuzzyLogic]

It's not going to be bought until early next year anyhow, so hopefully the price for the /w tuner will be less than 600 quid.

Thanks chaps

 

[GReaper]

You'll eventually have no choice but to use a digital box to watch TV - http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/en/when.html. If you don't want to pay extra on the TV then just get a freeview box separately.

I personally like switching over to BBC News 24 when there's nothing else worth watching, keeps me entertained for a bit.

 

[Mobius]

Yeah I bought it recently because Sky Digital etc aren't an option out here and it's well worth the one off fee. It's probably worth it alone just because you can leave Sky news, beeb news, sky sports news etc on 24/7 and you get filmfour too, ABC1 (which shows scrubs) E4, and UK History.

 

[ECA]

People still watch television?

 

[Mazling]

Freeview isn't bad. Gives you more to flick though when you're bored. I'm a UKTVhistory geek, too.

 

[Shovel]

I got a new tele with integrated Freeview too. Channels wise the benefit is small, but quite significant: I've found that I do actually watch BBC3 and 4, the odd show on E4 too (Scrubs), News 24 is handy to have and the real gem, in my view, is Channel 4's More4, which is regularly excellent (shame they pulled the +1 version though).

You also seem to get Sky 3, showing the dregs of Sky's catalogue. However, Sky's definition of 'dregs' extends sometimes extends to Futurama, which is nice.

If anything. The fact you get the onscreen TV Guide as well, plus (on my tele at least) the ability to customise the order TV channels appear in (while usefully keeping their numbers the same) is pretty cool (ITV demoted from the front page! Yay!).

So definitely recommend Freeview. £80 sounds a little steep though, depending on how much you value reducing the number of remote controls in your house.

 

[Frizz]

I personally like switching over to BBC News 24 et al when there's nothing else worth watching, keeps me entertained for a bit.

The news is the best part of Freeveiw imo.

 

[Mazling]

I got a new tele with integrated Freeview too. Channels wise the benefit is small, but quite significant: I've found that I do actually watch BBC3 and 4, the odd show on E4 too (Scrubs), News 24 is handy to have and the real gem, in my view, is Channel 4's More4, which is regularly excellent (shame they pulled the +1 version though).

E4+1 is somewhere around 30, after film4 iirc.

 

[Tom]

If you're buying a new television you need to get one with a built-in digital receiver, as analogue transmissions will end soon (beginning in 2007).

 

[nath]

You don't need to get one with a built in freeview tuner - as everyone else is saying, you can get a set-top one for much cheaper. All it comes down to is how much you value having one less remote control..

 

[pcg79]

freeview is awesome; filmfour is gratis and usually shows something decent!

 

[FuzzyLogic]

It's not so much the remote control i'm wanting to avoid, it's the additional plugs and wires that come with having the extra set top box, but then it's cheaper to get the box and make do having the extra plug.

nerf my crap cable management

 

[old.user4556]

a freeview box on its own is about £20-£30.

... a shit one with a shit EPG, shit slow with digital text and shit to setup (imo ).

Push the boat out and get something like a Humax or Sony's absolute fucking cracker of a Freeview box (costs about £90 though) but is a sweet piece of kit.

 

[Shovel]

E4+1 is somewhere around 30, after film4 iirc.

I meant More4+1, which existed for a short while.

 

[tris-]

... a shit one with a shit EPG, shit slow with digital text and shit to setup (imo ).

Push the boat out and get something like a Humax or Sony's absolute fucking cracker of a Freeview box (costs about £90 though) but is a sweet piece of kit.

think mine cost 40 quid with a topup card. worst problems ive had is the EPG not showing the next program. resolved in half a second by switching channel and back

 

[Mazling]

I meant More4+1, which existed for a short while.

Serves me right for not reading properly, or for lacking a brain. Or both.

 

[leggy]

freeview is awesome; filmfour is gratis and usually shows something decent!

Filmfour has been fucking destroyed. It now shows utter shit daily. The 9 o'clock slot has been filled with some of the most god awful films ever made.

I was happy paying for it until a few months ago when they made it free.

Oh and freeview is very very hit and miss. I only use it for the news now. Mainly because most TV is brain rot.

 

[dysfunction]

Film 4 was always dire thats why they made it free!!

How can Freeview be hit and miss? Its Free!
I had cable and the channels i watched most of the time I can get on freeview so I ditched cable.

I couldnt get sky

 

[JingleBells]

The best film i've seen on Film4 was Duck Soup, an old marx brothers film, I've never been in stitches for longer, it was fucking hillarious!

 

[Bodhi]

It's fine if you're too pikey to get proper digital tv. I used to have it when I first got my flat, was fine for a week til the set top box broke, then I fucked it off and got cable. Can't say I've ever looked back.

 

[DaGaffer]

It's fine if you're too pikey to get proper digital tv. I used to have it when I first got my flat, was fine for a week til the set top box broke, then I fucked it off and got cable. Can't say I've ever looked back.

Got to say, I agree. Unfortunately, my new flat is in a conservation area, which means no satellite dishes, cable isn't in the area, so the choice is either Freeview or Homechoice, and Homechoice is the most unreliable POS ever, so Freeview it is. When I get home I'm just going to have Freeview for the news and BBC3 and a 24Mb broadband connection (or whatever its going to be in a year's time) for downloading US stuff and leave it at that.

 

[HGL]

No, I was one of the early adopters of the integrated digital TV's and the epg was shit and I was forever retuning to get the new channels and then back in the proper places and besides I think they consume more power aswell. I have cable now and don't miss constantly retuning, tho things might be different now. By the time they actually switch off analogue, who's to say they won't have freeview HDTV by then?

 

[Esoteric]

Yep I like free view.