AltEPG

by **Furbag** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:05 pm

Well having arrived at mums pad to set her up with a nice new HD Telly and freeveiw box for TiVo I've discovered the switch over is no where near as complete as I thought it was :roll:

My thought was that they had killed off the BBC2 frequency to allow them to push all the main channels to freeview and then on the 21st of March kill the rest off and bring over the less used channels, well thats how I'd have done it.

But oh no, in their wisdom they have killed off BBC2 added BBC1+2+3+4 and Ceebbies and some radio stations to freeview and left the likes of ITV and C4 on the old system :roll:

so now to watch the full line up you have to mix and match between Analogue and Digital :roll:

Fairly easy for me to do but mums looking slightly baffled already

Roll on the 21st I say

by **drgeoff** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 11:39 pm

You don't say which transmitter serves your mother's location but in many (most?) places all the Freeview SD channels were available before DSO and during the week or two between Phase 1 and Phase 2.

by **ByTheCringe** » Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:00 am

Furbag, the main transmitter being switched over on March 21st is Rowridge, and all digital channels have been available from here for years. But 35 other transmitters in the South of England are also changing on that date, and some of those have not had Freeview before (some cover only a few hundred homes), and it sounds as if you are on one of these. I quite agree that it is unfortunate that you have to use a combination of analogue and digital for this fortnight until all the other channels go digital. They did it this way "to allow customers to buy digital equipment", but I have never understood the logic. If you have a good signal on the BBC channels, you should be fine after the 21st, not long to wait now!

For all Freeview help and info, go to
http://www.ukfree.tv/transmittersmenu.php

by **Furbag** » Sun Mar 11, 2012 7:34 pm

Sadly shes on a little baby repeater and hasnt been able to get any digital sig up until now, altEPG have kindly been supplying a analogue line up for her TiVo and others with the same problem.

For the time being she's stuck with the channels spread over the two systems :roll:

well until the 21st when its re-choon everything again.

I can understand the sence of killing one channel as a bit of a warning for folks but as for not including all the four main channels on digital from day one for folks that havent ever been able to get digital is mad, Mums been saying that loads of folks are struggling with this daft set up especially the oldies

by **mrtickle** » Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:32 pm

If you wanted that there would probably have to be 3 re-tune days! Reconfiguring a multiplex isn't a simple process, and the different ex-analogue channels are on different muxes (precisely so that they can add their own digital channels eg bbc3 and bbc4). Having a special dedicated "switchover" mux, only ever to be used for 3 weeks, would be even more expensive. The process is enough of a logistical nightmare already!

See: http://tx.mb21.co.uk/dso/details.shtml
nice pics here: http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/rowridge/index.php
I have huge respect for the engineers who have to physically do the work on a mast at those heights!

by **Furbag** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 6:29 pm

I do agree that its quite a feat, but they didnt seem to make it totally clear what they were going to do and has certainly caused a lot of probs with folks not understanding whats going, even I didnt get it and I'm fairly techy.

At least its just for a few weeks

by **johalareewi** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 12:35 pm

The MIL is going through DSO over Brighton way. She is on a local relay so now has the situation above: - BBC2 on Freeview (and other BBC channels), BBC1, ITV, C4 and C5 on analogue. To make it more confusing, ITV analogue has moved channel (for 2 weeks) so an analogue retune was needed. She is able to pick up analogue TV from other transmitters which don't DSO until May, and as part of the local DSO, the transmitter is changing region so at the moment, she gets quite a variety of local news!

Just to top it off, she qualifies for the free STB from the government plus free telephone help but, they tell her that DSO is May for her area and she doesn't need to do anything at the moment!

by **Furbag** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:55 pm

Well its all happened...........or at least some of it has it seems, bizzarely in Corfe Castle they only get about 30 Freeview channels

Where as everywhere else it seems theres about 70+ channels

by **nick1austin** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:49 pm

It appears as though Corfe Castle is one of those areas that decided to drop extra channels in favour of HD.

In slighlty more techie terms, you have been given 2 SD multiplexes + 1 HD multiplex.

I don't suppose there's any possibility of getting your ariel to point at the Isle of White which has twice as many SD channels (and will have even more come 2014)?

by **DX30** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:58 am

Furbag wrote:Well its all happened...........or at least some of it has it seems, bizzarely in Corfe Castle they only get about 30 Freeview channels

Where as everywhere else it seems theres about 70+ channels

The difference depends on whether you get your signal from a main transmitter or from a relay.

The main transmitters give you the 70+ channels, a mixture of Public Service and Commercial, and cover some 90% of the country.

The relays cover around an additional 8% of the country. The Public Service Broadcasters went ahead and converted their channels on the relays to digital, the cost being met from the license fee. The Commercial operators decided that the cost of converting the 1000's of relays involved wasn't commercially viable for the relatively small increase in viewers, so wouldn't pay the conversion costs for their channels. The result is these relays give you around 30 channels.

Google "Freeview Lite" if you want to read more.

by **Furbag** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:11 pm

Ah thanks for that bit of info, I thought I was going mad retuning the box loads of times trying to pull in the other channels and it wasnt until I spoke to a few others they said that was all they got, so from that I presumed that was that

nick1austin wrote:I don't suppose there's any possibility of getting your ariel to point at the Isle of White which has twice as many SD channels (and will have even more come 2014)?

Sadly theres a rather large hill in the way :cry: