What Freeview box should I buy?

chickmug

I need one for a TV in a spare bedroom. Just a basic box as I have a hard drive recorder on main TV. I did get one from Asda for £22 which was very good except for the bright blue light, on the front, which would stop anyone, using that bedroom, from sleeping.

bigfreddiel

Just stick a piece of tap or a blob of blu tac over the led - as far as getting a new box just stick to well known makes, and get one from say Argos - Hitachi £19 - oh and don't bother with any extended warranty - you are covered for 1 year anyway and these things go wrong straight away or never.

fj

thompsb

chickmug wrote: »

except for the bright blue light, on the front, which would stop anyone, using that bedroom, from sleeping.

Surely you could just turn it off at night...
No point wasting energy/money after all.

chickmug

thompsb wrote: »

Surely you could just turn it off at night...
No point wasting energy/money after all.

It could waste more energy getting out of the bed to switch off.

mboro

I bought one from £12 from tesco's.....does the job for me!

weegie.geek

Bloomin' hate manufacturers who put bright LEDs on things, but I especially hate it when it's blue LEDs.

Whoever told them it made their stuff look all fancy and space age was an idiot, blue light gives you eye strain...

IM

Presumably you'll want to avoid one of the ones which won't work any day now....

http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/freeviewlandfill.html

On the subject of this (which I heard about on Chris Evans' R2 show last night) does anyone know the symptoms people are experiencing? i.e. Is it just a blank screen or is there any kind of error message?

I'm in Manchester, and my Sagem box stopped working a few days ago. I get an error message along the lines of 'check your aerial'.

I guess there's a chance that the recent summer weather has caused a problem with the aerial on the roof, but before I pay to get someone out, is there a chance that I've been a victim?

f1charlie

Can you borrow another box to check first?

IM

Good thinking.

So long as the one I borrow isn't wiped out by the 'enhancements' to the network too....

f1charlie

That's what I was wondering when I listened to Chris Evans. They made it sound like these 'enhancements' actually destroyed the box. Isn't it more likely that the box just cannot decode whatever has been done to the signal?

mustrum_ridcully

Media in making mountain out of molehill shocker!

Don't worry too much about these outdated boxes, I think it's a good few years since they were on sale.

I think a big chunk of the freeview boxes around at the moment are/were based on Vestel units. Goodmans, Alba, Hitachi, Sharp, Asda Onn, Tesco Digihome, Wharfdale... have all rebadged Vestel built boxes for some of their freeview boxes.