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"Telly Trouble"

M

mark6565

pfm Member
Due to house changes, we need a second smart TV on the ground floor - current staying in small front lounge, new one going in new lounge/dinning area.

The new one will run off cable, Virgin Tivo box. This will be the most used.

We don't want to pay Virgin more money for installation and operating costs of an additional Tivo box but have no aerial supply either.

Just trying to establish if we can obtain basic Freeview channels without spending lots, something like a Firestick ?

Looked on the internet but somewhat confused by it all - any suggestions or advise would be very welcome.
 
Our spare room TV works fine on Freeview with an aerial sitting on top of the wardrobe pointing at Crystal Place 65 miles away.

Scrap aerial plus a bit of old coax so massive budget!

Daughter used Chromecast (?) and her phone at times as well.
 
mark6565 said:
Due to house changes, we need a second smart TV on the ground floor - current staying in small front lounge, new one going in new lounge/dinning area.

The new one will run off cable, Virgin Tivo box. This will be the most used.

We don't want to pay Virgin more money for installation and operating costs of an additional Tivo box but have no aerial supply either.

Just trying to establish if we can obtain basic Freeview channels without spending lots, something like a Firestick ?

Looked on the internet but somewhat confused by it all - any suggestions or advise would be very welcome.
Click to expand...
Freeview is not available on Amazon fire sticks.
 
"Freeview" (DVB-T2) should be fine via a decent UHF antenna in most parts of the UK. Our TV does that OK, and also has some HDMI ports, so I use one to connect a computer to play AV files, etc.

One advantage is that this is more flexible. e.g. doesn't rely on the unit with the screen getting a service it can understand, or need a closed-design proprietary dongle/box.
 
If you go purely wifi then, however you do it, all you'll get is catch up and streaming services, which can be a clunky way of watching.

If you have very good local reception a set top aerial will get you Freeview, otherwise a roof installation would cost a couple of hundred. Freesat is the other alternative here but I've no experience of that. Presumably it's Freeview but delivered via satelite dish.

Probably the best solution is to do both. If you feed Freeview through a Freeview box it will add the job of pulling in an internet signal (over wifi or ethernet) for the streaming and catch up channels and give you the option of having a hard drive to do all the record, pause series record stuff you currently do on your Virgin Tivo. Without any subscription.

Freeview boxes with hard drives are about £200. Humax are good and have been doing it for a very long time. They were the competition to Tivo before Virgin bought them out.
 
mark6565 said:
We don't want to pay Virgin more money for installation and operating costs of an additional Tivo box but have no aerial supply either.
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Is there a reason not to get an aerial installed? It only costs a couple of £hundred to get someone to yeet a half decent one up onto the roof. That done Freeview is totally free. Just use broadband for Youtube, iPlayer or any similar functionality. That the way I do things anyway. The Smart TV does the app stuff.

PS To be honest I watch so little terrestrial TV now I could actually do without anything more than YouTube, Prime and a couple of news apps. Youtube has to be 90% of my viewing now. Totally addicted!
 
If you can arrange an aerial socket it is easier and more convenient in use.

When my wife came home from hospital I bought an LG TV for the bedroom as I knew she would be confined to bed for a while. As there was no aerial socket, I initially used the TVs own smart capabilities. Found that the WiFi coming off the range extender was struggling to provide enough bandwidth but after a range extender upgrade that was solved.

The LGs own apps had their limitations, eg BBC iPlayer live, but no live ITV . We did however have a Roku streaming stick which solved the issue. With the Roku you should get all the main Freeview channels, BBC, ITV Hub, My4 Channel 5 etc. If you have any other specific channels check out the Roku website to see if they have an app.
 
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If you only want Freeview you don’t need a smart tv, a second hand non-smart would do for that and the current one (assumed smart) can be your main one. Of course you may be intending to replace your current one for an upgrade as part of your moves anyway.
 
Look about and see how many dishes and where they point. We managed, despite houses all around on a steep hill to self-install a sat system twenty years ago from just a step ladder. Not touched since. Our humax box is fifteen soon….
Get a dish incased to protect the metal from the weather.
 
Thanks for all information, both interesting and useful.

As several have commented, I think we need to spend 2 or 3 hundred to get decent aerial on the roof. We can then run the back-up smart TV on just Freeview, with no further cost.
 
mark6565 said:
Thanks for all information, both interesting and useful.

As several have commented, I think we need to spend 2 or 3 hundred to get decent aerial on the roof. We can then run the back-up smart TV on just Freeview, with no further cost.
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Depending on signal strength you might be able to install an aerial in your loft. It's pretty much a DIY job and it's protected from the weather. I've got two UHF and two VHF aerials in my loft space and they work well.
 
unclefz said:
I have never used these people but they do provide a huge amount of info and supply whatever you may need. Or at least there used to be a lot of info - they seem to have updated their site since I last viewed and I havent checked.

https://www.aerialsandtv.com/

Hope it helps.
Click to expand...

I bought brackets to mount my weather station from them. Unfortunately the postage on the mast from them was too high (IV30 postcode) and had to sourced elsewhere. Honest descriptions of the items for sale and sound advice on suitability.

Parts of the website can be quite amusing with his descriptions of the cowboy aerial installers and the work he has come across.
 
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