New Channels on Freeview

mrvitaminpill

mrcol1000 wrote: »

Dave is a good channel for seeing repeats of decent programmes but do we really need a Dave +1? I am sure the channel space could be better used than repeating a channel that shows repeats?
I heard that once the analouge signal is switched off they can ramp up the digital signal and have loads of channels. Hopefully most of them will be free as apparently Sky wants to charge for its freeview channels such as Sky News, Sky 3 etc... making a slight mockery of the whole FREEview. If we want to pay for extra channels we would get sky.
Also if your missing the music channels, Sky News and possibly ITV2 its because your signal isn't strong enough.

Sky don't want to charge for those channels, they want to remove those channels and replace them with a few premium channels such as Sky One, Sky Sports One and a movie channel (from memory) and charge for those. They call the venture 'Picnic' but the are having trouble getting it past OfCom.

This is a good forum that I lurk on for all things freeview

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=156

msianb

For most people rescanning the Freeview boxes will not be a problem.

If you have one of the following boxes:
Daewoo DS608P
Labgear DTT100
Triax DVB 2000T
Portland DP100
Daewoo SV900
Bush IDVCR01
or any box with SETPAL technology
as soon as you rescan you will lose all of your channels and your Freeview box will be rendered obsolete - you will need to buy a new one.

Essentialy what's happened is that the Freeview transmitters have been upgraded all over the country and some of the older boxes can't cope with the extra channels the upgrade makes available. They are OK and will continue to work (at least for the time being) if you do not rescan.

There's a story on this from the BBC's Watchdog programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2008/11/freeview_owners_making_their_o.html

ianb

janaltus

Thanks OP for the heads-up. :T I'm currently a subscriber to Virgin Media Cable TV and - having read your post - I checked and found a couple of new channels on there too (including SkyThree, Dave +1, etc). I might never have found out about these extra channels if you hadn't posted it! Why don't Virgin let us know we have new channels available, I wonder?

Originally I got Cable TV so I could enjoy FM hook-up radio (a facility that they withdrew two weeks after installing it in my home!) Then I became quite fond of Performance TV - so the Cable TV company withdrew that too!

God forbid that the Cable TV companies should give us the option to watch the channels we originally subscribed to - because those are the ones we want to see and listen to, huh!

Thefunkygibbons

More Dave

Excellent

JT69

chill£d_sav£r wrote: »

It for Top Up TV (Pay Service)

I rescanned my freeview box but I still cannot get channel five or fiveus or fiver???:mad:
anyone have any ideas why????
Thank you x

mushypeaman

Got all excited about CNN, but only on 9pm to 1am. Usual story with Freeview: the good stuff is rationed, but garbage is wall to wall. Better than nothing though, so thank you to the OP.

mrcol1000

JT69 wrote: »

I rescanned my freeview box but I still cannot get channel five or fiveus or fiver???:mad:
anyone have any ideas why????
Thank you x

Poor signal. All the five channels you need a half decent signal for. Somewhere in your digibox setup menus there should be a way to see how good your signal is. You need to move your aieral around if you have an indoor one or get a booster or even a new aieral. I have found the best aierals are the indoor ones that are glass with metal inside.
Anyway once you have improved the signal rescan and you should get them.

welshdeedee

We are only able to get skynews and other certain channels at intermittent times. I am wondering if the weather affects the signal?

kar999

welshdeedee wrote: »

We are only able to get skynews and other certain channels at intermittent times. I am wondering if the weather affects the signal?

Yes it does, or to be more precise the atmospheric pressure affects the transmission signal. At times, I cant pick up Mux D channels from The Wrekin as it's at the top end of the band (CH 57) and the transponder is not pointing my way.

tonyabacus

I see a number of comments about signals and aerials, so without going into all the technical issues, perhaps this will help clarify.

Signal issues are complex and are related to weather conditions and the curvature of the earth, in that aerials have needed 'line of sight' to the sending station or repeater masts around the country to be able to pick up the signal.

The easy way to understand is if you place a tape ruler on an orange and treat this as the signal. If you are close to the point where the ruler touches then you are likely to get good line of sight and so a better chance to pick up more stations. It is easy to see that the further round the orange your earial is, then the more difficult it is to pick up the point of the sending signal as it disappears from sight. Instead it disappears into space because it cannot bend around the orange. So this typically is what happens on a clear day, just like the ruler there is nothing to alter the direction of the signal.

If however we place something in front of the tape rule then it starts to bend around the orange, this is what happens on a cloudy day, the signal is partially deflected by the atmospheric conditions so your aerial has a better chance of 'seeing' the signal. Hence you tend to pick up more stations.

Those with satellite dishes don't have this same problem because the ruler (your aerial) is in effect aimed directly at the satellite without any bending, that's why they tend to pick up so many more stations.

The advice therefore is to retune your freeview receiver when conditions are not absolutely perfect, neither should they be too bad, storms, extremely low cloud cover, torrential rain etc. There are also other factors that prevent the aerial 'seeing' the signal but not to be gone into here.

In addition analogue signals gradually deteriorate as the signal gets weaker, whereas a digital signal will end abruptly, ever noticed the black dots appearing and disappearing on the screen and all those squeaking noises, that's the digital signal breaking up.

This is not meant to be a technical article on the subject, that would take too long and much, much more space than is available here. Instead I hope this explains in simple terms why and how this happens and how to give yourself the best chance of getting some of the stations.