
And as of 8:40 this morning
The tvretune site was timing out...
You’ve probably been ignoring that ‘retune now’ message on your TV for weeks, but if you don’t do it today then you risk losing endless Top Gear repeats, the Hollyoaks omnibus on Channel 4+1 and all those home shopping channels. Freeview has designated today National Retune Day, sort of. Essentially, the Freeview service is …
If this is the update that we've been warned about, some people are going to get hurt. Owners of older Freeview boxes (including some expensive, sensitive and reliable boxes such as early Pace models) may find the box ceases to function if they attempt to retune.
It's something like the older boxes lack enough memory to store so many channels and go belly up if you try.
I'm going to retune only an unbranded crap model I have and leave the Pace alone -- that way I can use the crap one for Channel 5 and ITV3/4 and be sure of better reception on all other channels with the old Pace.
Unhelpfully the Freeview website was down last night but I think there are lists of brickable models elsewhere. Like DAB, Freeview looks like being a casualty of the triumph of quantity over quality.
If they cant retune a simple bl00dy freeview pile of pl0p then they should have it taken off them for their own safety... As above, next week we will learn about microwaves and the week after that this fantastic device called a freezer that makes your food last for months.....
I'll stick with me free SKY HD thanks, even though its run by dumbwits... Would it have taken them much effort to buy UK Tivo licences for example, and yet no-one else in the UK has integrated TIVO into a freeview or HD box and people still only recognise SKY+ as being a proper recorder when its pants compared to a well setup TIVO box...
TIVO TIVO TIVO TIVO....
@'Anonymous Coward':If you can get Sky then you can get FreeSat from Sky. Or indeed Freesat itself (both of which exist /precisely/ for people in your situation). There is no need to subscribe to Sky unless you want access to their premium content.
Paris:Because she is premium content :D
You don't need a sky subscription for digital satellite. You can
1: Run your sky digibox sans card. The only downside is that you end up with no C5 and BBC1 London, BBC2 England, ITV Central (Birmingham) and C4 on 101-104 (other ITV/BBC regions can be selected manually) and you loose some Free-to-air channels.
2: Get a "freesat from sky" card. £20 one-off fee for the card and you'll get your regions and all FTA channels
3: Get a freesat box. Simply plug it in instead of your sky box. This is currently the only way of getting ITV HD.
@ Lionel Baden
Yes I feel your pain about Reaper. there was loads left to do with that show.
Also flash forward, might be worth a look. lets hope its not as stupid as LOST..
I'm getting sick of crap show like friends going on forever due to repeats etc, yet good funny show getting canned with in the first/second series.
But I pay the Sky tax for HD, But will still have to retune my freetv but only for when there are three things on at the same time LOL
better than anything ive seen on bbc in respects to a decent series.
when will the bbc realise that lots of viewers are under 50 and dont want celebrity gay dancing or period dramas!
goyer wrote flashforward and he has a great track record.
i take it virgin will be ok?
and as said before. why 12pm when MOST people are at work. the mrs will be pissed if she misses neighbours!
"No one can not be that stupid they are unable to retune there box?"
Are you suggesting that everyone is so stupid that they can't retune their box?
Or are you pointing out to the world that you are so stupid you cannot form a sentence or spell, and really mean "No one can be so stupid that they are unable to retune their box?"
The tvretune and helpline are completely and utterly useless. I have a very simple question - will my Philips DTX6372/05A continue to work after the rescan?
The web site is full of broken links including the one to the sitemap. I found a link supposedly to a list of equipment affected, but it delivers an html page with a .pdf filename extension and no list.
The helpline is equally useless. It is impossible to speak to an agent. It assumes that you are a total moron who is incapable of rescanning a digital tv receiver. The only thing you can get is prerecorded instructions for certain models.
How about you do some research before flaming.
See http://www.tvretune.co.uk/troubleshooting/
under "Has your Freeview TV or box stopped working following a re-tune?" you will see:
"A limited number of early Freeview TVs and boxes may fail when re-tuned. A list of models affected is available here which includes manufacturer phone numbers. If you discover your equipment is affected, Freeview recommends you contact the manufacturer."
Some old Freeview boxes (and TV's) don't have enough memory for the enlarged Network Information Table and never work again after the retune. It happened to my brother's Daewoo STB in Plymouth last year, and there's a list of affected equipment somewhere on the interwebs. It's not really the end of the world, as a new box is about £20 in Tesco.
Anonymous hero: Can't be bothered to provide the links because you're an abrasive git. Find them yourself.
Here are some warning links as (so fecking rudely) requested by Anonymous Hero:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2661800/18m-to-retune-Freeview-sets.html
http://www.tvretune.co.uk/troubleshooting/
http://www.avforums.com/forums/freeview/793928-freeview-update-old-boxes-wont-work.html
http://www.homecinemachoice.com/blogs/team_HCC/freeview+fiasco
Equipment expected to fail at Switchover includes...
Ondigital receivers:
Alba / Bush ONdigital models
Nokia Mediamaster 9850T
Pace DTR730 and DTR735 settop boxes
Philips DTX 6370/ DTX 6371 /DTX 6372 receivers
Pioneer DBRT200 /DBRT210 Set Top Box x
Toshiba DTB2000 settop box
Early Freeview receivers and IDTVs expected to fail:
Pace DTVA-T (the famous Wedge Adaptor)
Hitachi 28WDDODTN / 32WD40DTN / D36W840DTN IDTVs
Panasonic TX-28DT2 / TX-32DT2 IDTVs
Philips 28DW6734 / 32DW6834 /32DW9625 /28DW6557 / 32DW6557 IDTVs
Sony 28DS60 /32DS60 / 28DS65 / 32DS65 /28DX20 / 32DX20 /28DX30 /32DX30
/28DS20 /32DS20 / KP 41DS1 / KP 51DS1 /KP 51DS2 IDTVs
Toshiba 28WT98B /32WT98B /28ZT29B /32ZT29B /36ZT29B /42WT29B /50WT29B
/57WT29B IDTVs
Nope; sorry mate, seems your box is on the list.
Philips DTX 6370 Set Top Box Nov98-Aug01
Philips DTX 6371 Set Top Box
Philips DTX 6372 Set Top Box
From http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/2kequipment listed as incompatible with 8K mode.
The /05 is only for the UK in case anyone thinks that's important.
HTH
Steve
By the time you've retuned your receiver and found it's not working it's too late. The "list of models affected" link leads to an html page with no list. I don't want to buy a new box for £20 that isn't nearly as good. My On Digital box will let me select the aspect ratio on the remote control, so I can watch C4 in full height. The newer boxes can't do that. It appears that C4 overrides the 4:3 setting and forces me to watch in slittyvision.
I don't think it bricks boxes. It's just that old freeview (especially original ondigital and ITV digital boxes can no longer pick up any channels at all. The band's been shifted out of their range, possibly the codec's been updated to something less bandwidth hungry too...
I know the original ondigital boxes don't work because south wales had the analogue turn-off earlier this month and that's when mine stopped working.
Retuning before today wouldn't have an effect, I assume. So I haven't so much been ignoring the reminder as cursing it when it appears over something I want to watch. Press Yellow to disappear it, but it should be all over now or soon.
Boxes mainly have been interrupted or completely knocked out by being not equipped to handle a large data table that is now being sent in two or more blocks ("Split NIT"). Either the device becomes completely unusable, or channels are missing or are randomly renumbered starting at 801. I think affected boxes were mostly already clobbered the last time of retuning unless you didn't do it then. And some that weren't made completely useless have had their software updated over the air.
The next big gotcha, at or after total digital switchover time, is a national conversion from something called "2k" to "8k". Freeview boxes that are not capable of "8k" will then be dead, but most are capable. And your thing could break in the meantime anyway.
Curiously I don't own a Freeview box that doesn't frequently, usually temporarily lose the picture, colour, sound, or stereo reproduction. Oh, and has 16:9 display size, teletext, up to seven day electronic programme guide (and not a maddening ITV parody of one), subtitles, and the same channel numbers printed in Radio Times (20 = Virgin 1 and so on). I do own at least one device that doesn't have each one of these faults that annoy me (some more important than others, the main thing is Give Me The Mxyzptlk Picture And The Mxyzptlk Sound And Get It Right, but, am I making this clear, I don't have a device that doesn't have any of the faults. I just know that each one is unnecessary. Is anyone using a ¢evice without these faults... I thought not. Recommendations?
Is Freeview a synonym for DVB-T?
Is DVB-T a UK thing? A European thing? A worldwide thing?
Is The Register a UK thing? A European thing? A worldwide thing?
Do DVB-T viewers outside the UK have to put up with this semi-constant faffing about with retuning?
Do DVB-T viewers outside the UK have to put up with a tiny handful of channels' worth of worthwhile content, a couple of hours of which in a good week might actually not be repeats, the remaining time and channels to be filled with repeat dross and shopping dross and gambling dross and phone-in dross and any other opportunity to make cheapskate money?
Or is it just markets where Sky is dominant (look out Germany, he's heading your way) where the above applies?
Gah. As one of those apparently rare people who watches lots of shows on Five (the CSIs, Law and Orders, NCIS, Flash Forward etc), and who loses the signal on the ITV/Channel 4 multiplex for about five months of the year from November I am obviously far from chuffed that Five has moved onto that cursed multiplex. I think ITV2+1 has moved there too. I don't have broadband, so no Demand Five option either. I just hope the BBC have good stuff on at Christmas.
And I'm still getting a multitude of those "you will need to retune" nag screens every time I change channel even after finally getting the Humax to do a default settings and sort itself out. I hope they will be removed soon.
Thanks, Freeview. :(
2 out of 3 tuners locked up during the scan and needed power cycling, copied the config to the others rather than risk them crashing as well. The STB that did succeed nuked all its channel lists and timers anyway - 30min reprogramming I won't get back. At least I could restore timers on Mediaportal from backup.
This particular retune didn't go remotely smoothly here and if that doesn't cause a flood of complaints tomorrow the odd scattering of anonymous channels in the lineup will confuse a lot of folk.
Still, my precious Dec2000T didn't get bricked. Probably the 1st thing its ever done right ;)
The Sagem models have never appeared on the official lists of devices affected, but it's been pretty well known amongst the forums that the PVR72xx range could not cope with the split NIT.
I've refrained from retuning for the last year or so because of this, but the retune has forced my hand and the box is now pretty much useless.
Many of the boxes on the list, known to be affected were sold prior to the digital tick scheme. But these Sagems had the tick, and have never worked properly (mine had a note in the box from Sagem telling me about (some of) the bugs in the firmware that they were working on fixing.
In my opinion, the device has never actually been fit for purpose, and I will probably be chasing my retailer under the sale of goods act.
We're on our 4th stb (each from different manufacturers) since digital became available in our area. None of the 3 we had to discard physically broke but each stopped working properly due to poor programming that failed as as the broadcast signal changed (resulting in missing EPG and now/next info, random crashes, refusal to come out of standby etc etc). We now use an tvonics mdr-250. It's the first unit we've had that works reliably and without any issues (apart from subtitles sometimes not appearing or going out of sync - but I think that may be a problem with the broadcast stream rather than the unit itself)
A free market, laissez faire approach has utterly failed for stbs. Rather than competition resulting in better boxes the manufacturers have engaged in a race to the bottom. Flaky, slow and difficult to navigate software is the norm, years after the digital launch.
STBs need to be tightly regulated and not allowed on the market if they don't *fully* comply with the digital TV standards (even the obscure bits not currently in use) that may mean a few of the £15 supermarket specials will disappear but at least I won't have to replace my stb each time a minor change is made to freeview.