Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone know?

Ron(UK)

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:08:48 +0100, Ron
wrote:

Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone know?

There is a message on Teletext (at least: on BBC World) informing
the viewers that all Freeview sets need to be retuned because of
a change in the system.
(The bad news is, that some older decoders may not be
compatible.)

--
met vriendelijke groet,
Gerard Bok

Gerard Bok wrote:
On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:08:48 +0100, Ron
wrote:

Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone know?

There is a message on Teletext (at least: on BBC World) informing
the viewers that all Freeview sets need to be retuned because of
a change in the system.
(The bad news is, that some older decoders may not be
compatible.)

Yes I retuned mine earlier today, but that`s not the answer, there`s
never been a channel 8 or at least not for some months (years).

Even more channels of repeats and crap now!


Ron

In article ,
Gerard Bok wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

There is a message on Teletext (at least: on BBC World) informing
the viewers that all Freeview sets need to be retuned because of
a change in the system.
(The bad news is, that some older decoders may not be
compatible.)

Dunno which ones. All mine did - including a very early one.

My elderly next door neighbour asked me to re-tune hers. Twas a Sagem
STB.. When I switched it on it was set to CH5 and up came a message over a
black screen saying to press 'OK' to retune. Did that and it did. Didn't
realise that facility was possible - all mine needed accessing the menu.

--
*Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Gerard Bok wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

There is a message on Teletext (at least: on BBC World) informing
the viewers that all Freeview sets need to be retuned because of
a change in the system.
(The bad news is, that some older decoders may not be
compatible.)

Dunno which ones. All mine did - including a very early one.

My elderly next door neighbour asked me to re-tune hers. Twas a Sagem
STB.. When I switched it on it was set to CH5 and up came a message over a
black screen saying to press 'OK' to retune. Did that and it did. Didn't
realise that facility was possible - all mine needed accessing the menu.

--
*Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


Mine too, Dave. I read on the 'net that all this latest shenanigans, was
partly to do with clearing space in one of the muxes, to allow it to carry a
couple of HD progs. I see no signs of these at this time, so any idea when
they are thinking of putting them on there ? Presumably, another retune, if
only of the 'new channels' variety, will need to be done to receive them ??

Arfa

Ron wrote in message
...
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

Ron(UK)


There are 2 things I find annoying about all this retuning stuff.
You have to delete manually, one by one, all the totally crap stations after
each retune. They never tell you to only retune when you have good signal
strength - if you don't then you are likely to end up with less channels
than you had before the retune. I've not seen anywhere the statement
accompanying the box "no Signal, retune your box" that to do so when the
station is there, but too weak at your site, then you are likely to loose
more than just that one channel.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Gerard Bok wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

There is a message on Teletext (at least: on BBC World) informing
the viewers that all Freeview sets need to be retuned because of
a change in the system.
(The bad news is, that some older decoders may not be
compatible.)

Dunno which ones. All mine did - including a very early one.

My elderly next door neighbour asked me to re-tune hers. Twas a Sagem
STB.. When I switched it on it was set to CH5 and up came a message over a
black screen saying to press 'OK' to retune. Did that and it did. Didn't
realise that facility was possible - all mine needed accessing the menu.


One of my PVRs crashed shortly after the retune but was OK after unplugging
for a few seconds.

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Mine too, Dave. I read on the 'net that all this latest shenanigans, was
partly to do with clearing space in one of the muxes, to allow it to
carry a couple of HD progs.

That and to make CH5 more readily available.

I see no signs of these at this time, so
any idea when they are thinking of putting them on there ? Presumably,
another retune, if only of the 'new channels' variety, will need to be
done to receive them ??

Think trials start later this year. But you'll need a new STB if you wish
to receive them in HD.

--
*Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Ron wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

ch8 is TeleG in Scotland and C4 in Wales.

http://www.freeview.co.uk/_retuneinf...0September.pdf

--
Adrian C

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Mine too, Dave. I read on the 'net that all this latest shenanigans, was
partly to do with clearing space in one of the muxes, to allow it to
carry a couple of HD progs.

That and to make CH5 more readily available.

I see no signs of these at this time, so
any idea when they are thinking of putting them on there ? Presumably,
another retune, if only of the 'new channels' variety, will need to be
done to receive them ??

Think trials start later this year. But you'll need a new STB if you wish
to receive them in HD.

--
*Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


Ok on the timings. I'll look out for the trials. Doubtless, the Beeb will be
trumpeting about them when they start. In terms of actually receiving them,
I was thinking more in terms of my "HD ready" TV with Freeview built in,
being able to resolve them. I'm half suspecting that many TVs which say
this, actually mean that they can operate in an HD mode when supplied with
an HD signal into one of the external inputs, and that the built in Freeview
receiver, will not be compatible, as I believe I am right in thinking that
the compression format of potential Freeview HD transmissions, has had to
change in order to fit them into the available bandwidth, due to the
government and Ofcom reneging on the deal to allocate more space after the
analogue transmissions all cease ? If it is the case that any or all
Freeview-equipped and "HD Ready" TVs fail to be able to receive these
transmissions, I can see it leading to many very unhappy customers, and
riots at the doors of the Comet-style barns who sold them ...

Arfa

Adrian C wrote:
Ron wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

ch8 is TeleG in Scotland and C4 in Wales.

Ah thankye, that explains it. I wonder why when I select chan 8 it takes
me to the channel I was last watching.

Actually, that was a useful feature of some old analogue satellite rx,
the 'go back' button by means fo which you could flip back and forth
betwixt two channels

Ron

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Ok on the timings. I'll look out for the trials. Doubtless, the Beeb
will be trumpeting about them when they start. In terms of actually
receiving them, I was thinking more in terms of my "HD ready" TV with
Freeview built in, being able to resolve them.

Not a chance in hell, I'm afraid.

--
*I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Ok on the timings. I'll look out for the trials. Doubtless, the Beeb
will be trumpeting about them when they start. In terms of actually
receiving them, I was thinking more in terms of my "HD ready" TV with
Freeview built in, being able to resolve them.

Not a chance in hell, I'm afraid.

--
*I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

As suspected then, Dave. Any 'definitely known' reasons ? Do you think that
the general public is aware of this any more than I am, or are they all
looking forward to being able to receive HD, as the marketing hype and the
"HD Ready" logo has implied ?

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:
I can see it leading to many very unhappy customers, and
riots at the doors of the Comet-style barns who sold them ...


Yes. Problem at the moment is that the media hasn't quite woken to this
and radio news slots on Wednesday were informing people that 'freeview
HD is on the way, which was the dumbed down and stated reason for
retuning ...'.

I'll then be expecting BSkyB to start promoting their set top boxes a
bit more strongly. i.e. "You are gonna have to buy a HD set top box -
why not get ours free? [TM]"

BTW That phrase TM'd by me, mr murdoch. Payment in the usual bank
account please....

--
Adrian C

Ron wrote in message
...
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

Ron(UK)

no ch8 on my box

According to the channel ident info , flashed up on channel change,
the ITV channel that has been around since inception is now called ITV1 and
ITV2+1 (ITV2 shifted 1 hour) is now called ITV for ident purposes. I hope
someone knows what this is all about.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

"Adrian C" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:
I can see it leading to many very unhappy customers, and
riots at the doors of the Comet-style barns who sold them ...


Yes. Problem at the moment is that the media hasn't quite woken to this
and radio news slots on Wednesday were informing people that 'freeview HD
is on the way, which was the dumbed down and stated reason for retuning
...'.

I'll then be expecting BSkyB to start promoting their set top boxes a bit
more strongly. i.e. "You are gonna have to buy a HD set top box - why not
get ours free? [TM]"

BTW That phrase TM'd by me, mr murdoch. Payment in the usual bank account
please....

--
Adrian C

Thing is, the Freeview HD service, if and when it ever materialises, is
going to be free. My son has a Virgin cable TV package with his 'net and
'phone, and the service that he receives has many HD channels included, so
fundamentally 'free' - I know it's not really, but to all intents and
puposes, it at least 'appears' to be. So really, Sky should change their
marketing policy on this, and stop making a separate charge for the service,
and charge a one-off for the HD box, instead.

But all of this aside, if we know for sure that "HD Ready" TV sets that are
equipped with a built-in Freeview receiver, are not going to be able to
resolve the HD channels when they appear, should we not all be making loud
noises about misrepresentation, intentional or not ... ?

What is the situation in the US ? Presumably, there are TV sets over there
with built in terrestrial digital receivers for whatever the equivalent
off-air service to UK Freeview is ? Are there HD channels on this service ?
Were TV sets sold for the last couple of years with an "HD Ready" logo, and
if so, can they receive off-air HD channels if there are any, or will they
be able to if there's not any yet but going to be ?

Arfa

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Ok on the timings. I'll look out for the trials. Doubtless, the Beeb
will be trumpeting about them when they start. In terms of actually
receiving them, I was thinking more in terms of my "HD ready" TV with
Freeview built in, being able to resolve them.

Not a chance in hell, I'm afraid.


As suspected then, Dave. Any 'definitely known' reasons ? Do you think
that the general public is aware of this any more than I am, or are
they all looking forward to being able to receive HD, as the marketing
hype and the "HD Ready" logo has implied ?

Dunno. HD is of course available from a variety of sources. DVD,
satellite, etc. Depends on whether you'd think you'd need a new DVD player
for HD discs if you already have an HD TV. Or a new satellite box.

Arfa

--
*I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , Adrian C
writes
Ron wrote:
Why is there no channel 8 on Freeview? On my Toshiba box, pressing
channel 8 takes you back to the channel you were last watching. anyone
know?

ch8 is TeleG in Scotland and C4 in Wales.

http://www.freeview.co.uk/_retuneinf...annelGuide30Se
ptember.pdf

I also wondered why there was no Channel 8. Now I know!

This website gives you essentially the same information, transmitter by
transmitter (and a lot more, if you care to explore what's there).

http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/dtt/dtt.cgi

I note that also lists the four Top-Up TV channels (306 to 310), where
as one of my four STBs finds only one (310).
--
Ian

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Ok on the timings. I'll look out for the trials. Doubtless, the Beeb
will be trumpeting about them when they start. In terms of actually
receiving them, I was thinking more in terms of my "HD ready" TV with
Freeview built in, being able to resolve them.

Not a chance in hell, I'm afraid.


As suspected then, Dave. Any 'definitely known' reasons ? Do you think
that the general public is aware of this any more than I am, or are
they all looking forward to being able to receive HD, as the marketing
hype and the "HD Ready" logo has implied ?

Dunno. HD is of course available from a variety of sources. DVD,
satellite, etc. Depends on whether you'd think you'd need a new DVD player
for HD discs if you already have an HD TV. Or a new satellite box.

Arfa

--
*I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I see what you're saying, but seems to me that when you have bought a TV set
with Freeview built in, and it has an "HD Ready" logo on the front, then it
might be a reasonable expectation that this referred to the Freeview
functionality as well as the AV inputs for Blu Ray etc. A few people I have
asked today, certainly believed this to be the case, and were quite upset to
find that it probably isn't.

Thinking back to when all the original guff about switching off analogue
started, I seem to recall that it was going to be the case that Freeview HD
transmissions would be able to be received as they were going to employ the
same modulation and compression schemes as the standard res transmissions,
more spectrum space being handed over after analogue switchoff to
accommodate this. Then, fairly recently, the government and Ofcom went back
on this, and said that no more space was going to be made available, so a
different, harder, compression scheme (mpeg 4 ??) would have to be employed
to provide any HD channels. I also seem to remember reading in the trade
press somewhere, that the set manufacturers were deeply upset about this.

I actually think that this entire terrestrial digital TV via Freeview, has
disintegrated from a shaky system in the first place, to a ridiculous
compromise now that the greedy government has decided to hang onto those few
extra megs of spectrum space, to sell to the phone companies for obscene
amounts of money. Seems to me that the proper way to go, if you want a high
bandwidth service with the public broadcasters' offerings in HD for no cost,
is Freesat. At least TV sets with a Freesat receiver built in, will receive
and decode the HD channels.

Arfa

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
I see what you're saying, but seems to me that when you have bought a TV
set with Freeview built in, and it has an "HD Ready" logo on the front,
then it might be a reasonable expectation that this referred to the
Freeview functionality as well as the AV inputs for Blu Ray etc. A few
people I have asked today, certainly believed this to be the case, and
were quite upset to find that it probably isn't.

The announcements about HD on FreeView are relatively recent. Plenty of
FreeView equipment pre-dates it.
I agree about the marketing hype, though. But then this applies to TVs in
general - as well as much else. The only advantage of an LCD over a *good*
CRT is the size. Certainly not the picture.

--
*If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Seems to me that the proper way to go, if you want a high bandwidth
service with the public broadcasters' offerings in HD for no cost, is
Freesat. At least TV sets with a Freesat receiver built in, will receive
and decode the HD channels.

You don't need a FreeSat receiver to get satellite HD. Mine isn't FreeSat
and does. You merely need to select the correct channel number, instead of
pressing the red button or whatever.

My main interest is drama - and to be perfectly honest it looks very
little different on HD - due to the use of fog filters in the cameras.
Basically the talent doesn't want to be seen warts and all. ;-)

Sports and some documentaries can look stunning though - it was worth the
cost for Wimbledon alone. About the only sport I watch. ;-)

Ms Streisand was interviewed on Jonathan Ross last night - talk about fog
filter on kill. My early VHS was capable of better resolution than those
cameras were giving...

--
*I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Seems to me that the proper way to go, if you want a high bandwidth
service with the public broadcasters' offerings in HD for no cost, is
Freesat. At least TV sets with a Freesat receiver built in, will receive
and decode the HD channels.

You don't need a FreeSat receiver to get satellite HD. Mine isn't FreeSat
and does. You merely need to select the correct channel number, instead of
pressing the red button or whatever.



Whose HD service are you actually using then, out of interest ?

Arfa

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
You don't need a FreeSat receiver to get satellite HD. Mine isn't
FreeSat and does. You merely need to select the correct channel
number, instead of pressing the red button or whatever.



Whose HD service are you actually using then, out of interest ?

BBC and ITV. Plus the odd foreign one. I expect any of the other UK FTA
broadcasters to be on there if and when they start up HD too.

--
*Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
You don't need a FreeSat receiver to get satellite HD. Mine isn't
FreeSat and does. You merely need to select the correct channel
number, instead of pressing the red button or whatever.



Whose HD service are you actually using then, out of interest ?

BBC and ITV. Plus the odd foreign one. I expect any of the other UK FTA
broadcasters to be on there if and when they start up HD too.

--
*Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.


So it *is* the FreeSat bird that you are using, but with a Sky HD box
appropriately tuned ?

Arfa

In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Whose HD service are you actually using then, out of interest ?

BBC and ITV. Plus the odd foreign one. I expect any of the other UK FTA
broadcasters to be on there if and when they start up HD too.



So it *is* the FreeSat bird that you are using, but with a Sky HD box
appropriately tuned ?

FreeSat isn't a bird - nor really even a group of channels on Astra. It's
more of a custom EPG which allows 'easy' access to those in it. But you
can get at least most of them by selecting them direct.

I've not got [shudder] Sky - I'd rather go without than pay that man a
penny. I've just got an ordinary HD satellite receiver bought from CPC.
With a rotator to pick up several satellites. Not that there's much worth
watching that you don't get on FreeView. But one or two gems.

--
*A nest isn't empty until all their stuff is out of the attic

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.