Freeview and Interactive
 

I bought a Freeview box today. 10 minutes after connecting it up - all by myself, no installation fees - I was playing with the 'red button' interactive feature. It loads in 2 or 3 seconds, and a page turn takes 1 or 2 seconds. It's faster than analogue terrestrial teletext. It's a good 10 - 20 times faster than VM's offering - no 'please wait, just loading', no freezes, no reboots.
Why is a one-off £25 box from the supermarket capable of better basic dtv function than cable's service?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

it isnt better than VM by a long shot...

Does freeview have Ondemand?.... No

Does it @ the moment have a totally supported PVR service?... No

You cant really compare VM and Freeview, they are totally different platforms, it would be like comparing the £ and the $!!

:)

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Do Virgin have a reliable OnDemand service?... no
Do Virgin have a reliable PVR service?... no.

'nuff said.

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

I think the OP was just commenting on how well interactive works on a bog standard freeview box compared to VM's interactive offering?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

I was in currys last night and Sony have a superb box for £225 (sale price)

+160 gig
+HDMI connection
+1080p upscaling
++DVDR

i don't understand why (after several years on the market) they don't make these machines with 2-3 tuners - yet you can buy a Sony PVR with 2 tuners but no DVDR (quite a bit cheaper too)????

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

2-3 tuners is pretty much going to be the standard.

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

90% of PVRS have 2 tuners - what i can't figure is the moment they had DVD recorder they seem to remover a tuner? and it's been this way for 2-3 years

maybe there is some technical/legal issue but i can't see it and it's never been 'excused' as it were

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Yes virgin have a reliable on demand service

yes they have a reliable PVR service

i don't have any problems with mine what so ever..

"enough" said

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

That's all right then. Gee all the people experiencing problems must be mistaken or lying then. :rolleyes:

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

No but there are plenty of freeview PVR's around that work perfectly well. ;)

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Yeah, I rather thought there might be a clue in the thread title...

Tonight I tried to use VM's interactive service for the Open golf coverage. After about a minute of "just loading, please wait", it went away - again. I'll need to reboot to get it back.

The recent BBC1 'Joseph' show had an interactive section, but only for satellite and Freeview viewers.

Does VM have a working red button interactive service?... No.
Of course you can compare them. They both aim to deliver a digital TV service, so compare them on that basis.
- My short experience suggests that Freeview is streets ahead of VM in interactive capability. I'm reliably informed that Sky's interactive is also much faster than VM's.
- Ondemand is so slow and unreliable that I rarely bother with it. By the time I've rebooted the box to get it working, and dragged through the pages of menus to try to stumble across something I might want to watch, I usually give up and find something else to do.
- Freeview does not have a 'totally supported' business model, or pricing structure. You can buy a PVR box of your own choice, and get on with it yourself.

VM is anything but cheap, and yet all their functionality seems dreadfully slow and highly unreliable. Why do I have to keep rebooting VM's digital TV box every time I want to use one of VM's digital TV functions?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

No problems here either :tu:

---------- Post added at 22:58 ---------- Previous post was at 22:55 ----------

Perhaps thats one question that VM could answer, have you contacted them about this problem so they can try and rectify it for you?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Freeview boxes, including PVR's, are just as unreliable and need reboots as with VM, in my experience.

What make/model of Freeview box did you buy?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Actually my modded thompson DHD4000 is pretty stable. (i replaced the stock 40gb hdd with a 160, although it only sees 138gb due to a hardware limitation)


Although Its in the bedroom so I don't tend to use it that often thesedays

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

My TV has an integrated Freeview tuner that has never needed a reboot in the year that I have used it. PQ and audio is better than VM.
My VM STB needs at least a daily reboot to be useable but still pulls up with "you are not subscribed" or the EPG just fails to load except for the now/next occaisionly.
My understanding is that glitches/freezes with freeview STB's/PVR's are a lot to do with the quality of the signal.
The same reasoning "may" be applicable to VM's service. I live in an old comtel/cabletel? area and I have heard that the cabling may be substandard. The odd thing is my BB is solid so I don't know if that rules out the signal problem theory? My signal levels are OK BTW but there may be more to a signal than just a strength measurement?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Yes quality is a big part as well

You could have a heavily amplified signal so the strengh could be though the roof however the problem is that the noise gets amplified as well causing the SNR to be poor

often a weaker but high quality signal is better

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

You mean the £ and the $ that get compared every day at least a hundred times on various news/financial channels?

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

Having just bought a new TV with built in Freeview, I too was amazed that it just works. You press the red button, wait a few seconds, it appears. I've been loving the News 24 multiscreen for one.

I don't really have major problems with interactive on VM but it is very very very slow (press red button, wait 60 seconds, it usually appears). Being honest, it is more reliable now but it does still crash occasionally.

During Wimbledon, just for a test, I tried to access the multiscreen options on Freeview and VM. Freeview was in and working as soon as pressed the button. VM thought about it, thought about it some more, crashed, was rebooted, thought about it, thought about it, came on with no sound, waited, waited, no sound still so rebooted again, thought about it, thought about it, came on with sound and worked.

The difference in getting in was about 5 minutes. That is an extreme case and I know that there were problems with interactive all over Wimbledon and all platforms.

It's all very well saying that there's no On Demand on Freeview etc but that's not the point. Why is it that interactive on Freeview is fast and reliable and VM isn't?

To the poster who mentioned Sky interactive. Hmmm. I too thought it was quick and reliable till I tried it at the brother in laws house when watching a match on Sky Sports. It's just as slow as VM and crashed once whilst I was using it meaning a box reboot. He tells me it's normally OK but slow and they don't use it because they got fed up with the speed.

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

How new is the box,

The interactive on my sky is usually reasonably quick but then my sky box is under a year old so probably has better specifications with regards to processing power/memory compared to say one of the older boxes.

Bit like with virgin media, my parents have an old Pace box and its quite slow to respond, my Nan has a samsung stb and it seems to respond quicker than my parents one (probably because its a newer generation of STB)

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

The person who compared Sky to Cable used to be a ntl customer, but had to switch when they moved house. While visiting during an attempt at getting multiscreen for Wimbledon, he commented on remembering how slow cable interactive is.

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

The Sky box in question is a new HD+ one, less than 12 months old afaik.

Our VM STB is a new V+ box (the one I tried using for Wimbledon). Before that we had a Samsung 2100 which had similar speed issues but did usually work. Before that we had a Pace which just didn't work at all - just crashed all the time.

Re: Freeview and Interactive
 

I'll be honest I hardly bother with the interactive features on digital TV generally I put the tv on to watch something rather than mess around with the interactive stuff.

Those press Red prompts get right on my nerves tho :rolleyes: