who needs freeview boxes??

midvixen

Wondered if people realised that instead of paying for a freeview box, they could look round car boot sales, etc, for an old "On Digital" box.

Plug it in at home and scan through the menu to find all (or 99%) of the channels you get on freeview!!

It works like a charm, been watching mine for years and it only cost me £5 for the box at the car boot!!

You can even update the channels as new ones are broadcast. At the moment I have got the new ABC channel and ITV 3.

You still need to make sure you are in a freeview area though!

Hope this helps someone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!!!   HO HO HO  ;D

Marigold123

Splendid tip - well done.

gromituk

It's no secret that you can do this - and in fact the old On Digital/ITV Digital boxes have viewing card slots so you can use them with the subscription service Top-up TV.

However... these old boxes tend to be more crash-prone, slow (to change channel, etc), more susceptible to interference/weak signals, and may well not work with the additional "interactive" functions provided by Freeview (and the 7-day Electronic Programme Guide which more and more new boxes now support). With new boxes available for £40 or so, it may be a false economy to go for an old one.

George_Bray

I bought a Philips On-Digital freeview box new for about £50 about two years ago. It is more prone to digital interference/errors than the Pioneer box I replaced it with for that very reason.

BenL

I've been using 2 Pioneer ex ITV digitals for years in 2 rooms.

Work fine with Top UP TV but as said they aren't the most stable in the world at times. Usually with The Hits interactive and BBC parliament they crash.

Will be replacing at some point though as we've decided to cancel Top up as we don't watch the channels and won't pay double for a box with a slot next time.

Ben

withnail71

still got my pioneer from the early days when you could blag free channels with dodgy cards, not the most reliable locks up sometimes But not bad Im sure hey will be cheap at a car boot

zcaprd7

An Ondigital box is a Freeview box...

Technically thay could be considered stolen property, I seem to remember the liquidators asking for payment or you have to send them back?

Of course no one bothered!

Edinburghlass_2

I still have my Ondigital box and yes at one point they did say that they could ask for them back, however, eventually I was told I could keep mine. I think that was at the point when I was offered 1p in the pound from the receivers. Seeing as how I had just paid my annual fee a month before they went bust they would have had to fight me for ownership of it 8)

bigbrummygirl

An Ondigital box is a Freeview box...

Technically thay could be considered stolen property, I seem to remember the liquidators asking for payment or you have to send them back?

Of course no one bothered!

i kept on using my on digital box as i could still get itv2 after ondigital ceased broadcasting
and when freeview started i got a message on screen saying it was mine to keep at no cost
so really they arent actually stolen

alexj2002

The liquidators realised that if they started claiming the boxes back

i) They'd have a bunch of boxes that at the time appeared to have no use or value (aside from the standard 5 channels and a few other ones there were hardly any of the freeview channels available)

ii) Most people would have a right to the box unless they were fully refunded for the services not supplied by ITV Digital.

ReductionQueen

I remember when ITV dig went bust - all the stories about the liquidiators expecting the boxes back. Come and talk to my 2 jack russells about having it back.....

However, we never had any contact from ITV dig, even when our 12 month subscription expired after we bought the package for Christmas before.

In the february before the plug was pulled, our channels stopped. I called and said that we had paid in Dec, and as the service had continued, they must have recieved it. They would put it back on, did we have 6 channels or 12? You can guess what I said! The channels continued until the screens went blank, 17 months after we had paid for the service. Good value I think.

If anybody knows about the service, can you tell me why we can't sometimes recieve (ironically) the regular BBC channels? All we get is a small red square top right of the screen, yet it's OK through the TV. At the same time regular ITV is very jumpy, again OK on the TV. Could it be we need a new box? We have Top UP TV by the way, which I am fine with as it's cheaper that Sky for getting UK Gold, which we watch a lot of. The box is a Pioneer, and the poor service doesn't seem to concide with the weather or things like the central heating coming on.