Anyone having problems with Freeview?

[victoria]

We've ad our unit 10 months. About 2 weeks ago a strange problem occurred. Suddenly the picture freezes but the sound continues. We had to flick the receiver on & off & would then get the same thing happen after about 20 mins. Took the receiber back to the supplier who recoded the unit. All was fine for the first night, then the next evening the old problem happened after about 2 hours. Last night, no problem at all.
The supplier had one other report of this from another customer. He contacted Freeview & was still awaiting an answer on Friday. I'll be taking the unit back again today. Now it could be a dodgy unit or Freeview are changing their transmissions so as people take up their monthly fee service instead of buying the one off unit. Anyone in the know out there?

[broadsword08]

didnt think that there was a recurring fee option with freeview - thought the whole point was that it was free to view?!

http://www.freeviewnz.tv

the problem you describe can sometimes be the result of atmospheric conditions but is usually very momentary and won't happen day on day

sounds like your box is knackered to me, at 10 months old you should be insisting on a brand new, boxed replacement straight off the bat

cheers

[dilanium]

I get a little distortion occasionally, but I think that's because I run it through my computer and if I have too many other programs running I think it has to work harder than it can (so I can't surf the internet and watch TV at the same time).

[IanW99]

We've ad our unit 10 months. About 2 weeks ago a strange problem occurred. Suddenly the picture freezes but the sound continues. We had to flick the receiver on & off & would then get the same thing happen after about 20 mins. Took the receiber back to the supplier who recoded the unit. All was fine for the first night, then the next evening the old problem happened after about 2 hours. Last night, no problem at all.
The supplier had one other report of this from another customer. He contacted Freeview & was still awaiting an answer on Friday. I'll be taking the unit back again today. Now it could be a dodgy unit or Freeview are changing their transmissions so as people take up their monthly fee service instead of buying the one off unit. Anyone in the know out there?

Don't have freeview so can't say if it has become a common problem?

Is it possible to check the aerial signal which may have changed?

Either the aerial may have been dislodged e.g. due to wind or due to the recent weather it could be atmospheric conditions (obviously you are still getting a signal, but it may now be at the low end of acceptable level).

If it happens a lot, could you borrow a different set top box and see if that also has the same problem?

BTW, I'm sure that it won't be Freeview trying to get you to buy paid for services (more likely to get you to not bother at all).

Ian

[victoria]

Thanks for the replies. I meant that Freeview are promoting a box & satellite dish for $15 monthly. I went to the supplier this morning (lovely chap btw) & he's heard of more incidences from many parts of the NI since last week. He's given me a new box & I'll be trying it later. He suggested that Freeview's own guarded transmission field is being used by unauthorised sources but is still awaiting some feedback from them. From what's been posted, I think he might have a long wait.

[richard]

We have Freeview built in to our TV and have no problems. It is running via the TV antenna rather than a satellite dish though.

Our Sky is satellite based and that does freeze especially when it rains heavily so maybe the problem is the receiving medium rather than Freeview itself.

BTW, TV3 are about to start a TV3+1 service on Freeview (the schedule is the same but broadcast an hour later).

[Jon&Candy]

We had a very similar problem to you Victoria. When we first got our Freeview box, everything was fine, but over a period of a couple of months, we started having problems with a few of the channels.

Freeview groups channels together in things called multiplexes. Each multiplex is equivalent to one analogue (UHF) channel, but can contain several digital TV channels. We found we had most of the problems with the multiplex containing TV3 & C4 (amongst others). TV1, TV2 etc. were still fine. Gradually, they started getting worse too.

In the end, we got an aerial guy (from Paremata) in to fit a new aerial. The old one was pretty rusty. The problem with digital TV is that there's no noticable degradation of quality; it's either there or it isn't. I suspect that our old aerial was right on the tipping point. Since the new aerial, we haven't had any problems. It cost about $100, but it was worth it to see the olympics in HD.

By the way, we also had a hardware problem with our Freeview box (Zinwell) when it just froze at a screen saying "do not turn unit off". We took it back to the Harvey Norman in Porirua and got a replacement there and then.

Before you spend any money on new aerials, does the problem affect some channels more than others? If so, it probably is the aerial which needs replacing. If all the channels are affected equally, it could well be a faulty box, so get that replaced first.

[victoria]

Since we exchanged the unit 2 weeks ago, we have had no problems at all. So despite the manufacturer issuing a statement about, aerials,trees,mountains & uncle Tom Cobbly & all, I stick with my first feeling which is that the unit was failing. A techy friend told us that these units don't have a good track record for stamina & one's looking to change a unit every 18-24 months!