thinking of getting freeview

bronzie

I am thinking of getting freeview i live with my parents but although all the others rooms in my house have sky i am unable to get it in my rooms something to do with running the wire from the sitting room on the ground floor where the sky box is to the loft where my room is and i think my parents are thinking of getting rid of it so i am thinking of getting freeview my sister has it and she has loads of channels about 800 hundred which is on par with sky i wondered though at the moment i have a combined tele/video and i wondered if it would be possible to record using my video from the freeview also can you pause live tv with freeview i wasnt sure about that i have heard conflicting stories about this any help would be appreciated

lipidicman

Wow, hold your horses. Sorry I am just having a hard time with your lack of punctuation.

FYI freeview has far from 800 channels. The numbers of the Radio stations are in the 700 range but there are no 100's,200's,400's etc. Here is a list:
http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewinfo.html

That's about 40 with 20 radio stations

You may be able to record if you have a scart link to your TV video, you will need to refer to your TV's instruction manual.

Pausing live TV? You can with a PVR (personal video recorder: a freeview box with a Hard Drive inside)

Timmy

You won't be getting anything like 800 channels but freeview is still worth every penny if you don't have sky/cable.

You will be able to record to VCR assuming it has a scart input but if you want to 'pause live tv' you need either a freeview box or DVDR player with a built in hard drive. There are a few dvdr/hard drive/freeeview all in one boxes which are great but not the cheapest way to do it.

If on a budget then look for a discount freeview box and a seperate dvdr/hd combo without freeview as these can be had quite cheaply now. You can then link the two together.

llol_slim

freeview is pretty cool i wouldn't be without it.
Theres also Topup TV if you want a few extra channels, although i stopped because we were paying £10 a month and we only watched one channel!
Theres also these to send a picture to a different room from any scart source.
Laurie

bronzie

thanks a lot i had a look on the freeview website and i can get freeview how can i check the aerial signal is good to be honest its not a priority as the programmes will be stored on the hard drive i will look into it i think that maybe i saw the channel number and presumed that was the number of channels that it had

one other question i had once i have bought the box i dont have to pay anything else do i like a monthly fee its just the initial outlay

bronzie

yeah my dad just paid it

albertross_2

I've edited my post.

Timmy

As mentioned, you won't be able to backup to hard drive unless you have an adequate freeview reception in the first place.

As far as good aerials go it really depends on where you live. I'm London/Surrey border area and have a terrible analogue picture from my roof mounted aerial but I can pick up perfect freeview with it and also get a perfect picture using a portable aerial in the spare room. My mum is 10 miles further into Surrey and she had to get her aerial upgraded to a huge roof mounted monster for freeview yet her analogue signal was always better than mine.

I think Woolies still do a no question refund on freeview boxes so pick up a budget one from there just to try your reception. If all is ok you can keep it or take it back and get a better one.

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Got a cheap Goodmans from Comet on Sat, for my sons's bedroom, £29.99, plugged in, auto scanned and found all the programs within a couple of mins, excellent reception, just plugged into a outside aerial.

In the lounge, I've got a Topfield 5800 pvr, 160gb hd, 2 tuners, pause live tv etc, excellent build and quality, but a lot dearer than £29

So I'd do, what everyone recommends, buy a cheap one and see what sort of reception you get.

lipidicman

Where did you buy the Toppy from? Heard very good things about them, I am interested as a disgruntled Humax owner (it went back as 'not fit for purpose' since it kept forgetting that it was a recorder)

wonderfullife_2

lipidicman wrote:

Where did you buy the Toppy from? Heard very good things about them, I am interested as a disgruntled Humax owner (it went back as 'not fit for purpose' since it kept forgetting that it was a recorder)

Hi
Bought my Toppy from here superfi, it really is an excellent pvr, and I'm very happy with it, although it is a bit dearer than the Humax.
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo-1.cfm/Product_ID/2379

If you have any questions about the Toppy, they have an excellent forum.

http://www.toppy.org.uk/