How does a freeview box work?

Question

so far i know that my area can receive freeview channels. can i just go and buy a freeview box and connect it? is everything ready if you simply connect the box to your tv??

Answer 1

Lots of helpful advice here, but the simple answer is buy a freeview box and follow the instructions. It's dead simple and opens up a whole new world of choice and quality of picture, but perhaps not always quality of programs!

Answer 2

Depends where you are. You can check on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/digital/ by simply entering your postcode. BUT even if it says you are OK to receive Freeview you may still have to have an aerial upgrade.  The reason for this is that in some areas not all of the Freeview channels are in the right range for the existing analogue aerial group.

Answer 3

It is.

Buy a box, I got mine for £15 at Tesco!

Plug the scart lead ( You may need to buy one, only around £5 ) from your TV to the box, plug the aerial link into your freeview box, if you have a roof aerial, plug that into your TV, and the cable provided can link your TV to freeview box.

Do an automatic channel search, and there is all your channels!

Answer 4

most of the free view box always come with dish

Answer 5

Yes plug it in. Connect the aerial to the box, and the box to he telly.

UK Freeview is terrestrial DVB-TV, nothing to do with satellites, though there is also a Freesat available.

Answer 6

Ignore all answers saying "connect the dish".

Unless you are using Freesat then there is not any dish involved, and if you ARE using Freesat then you will already have it installed.

Freeview boxes cost from about £15 to £50, depending on how many 'features' you want.

You connect your existing aerial into the UHF In socket on the box and link the UHF Out socket from the tv set aerial socket with a short aerial link cable (buy one when you get the Freeview receiver if it's not already in the package).

Connect the Freeview box to the tv SCART socket.

Freeview boxes have to be tuned when they come out of their carton before they work, just like your tv set has to be.

When you select the SCART input you should see the Freeview box "home page". This will probably contain tuning and set-up instructions. Follow the instructions carefully and within minutes you'll have 40 odd tv and digital radio channels.

The better ones check automatically (about 3am usually) to see if any new channels have come on air. The less fancy ones will need to be re-tuned occasionally by you to seek new channels.

All Freeview boxes provide you with an Electroninc Programme Guide (EPG), which is a list of what is being transmitted "today". The better boxes will provide you with a look-ahead EPG for up to a week.

Note that not all channels on DVB-T (Freeview) are free. Some of them are encrypted (such as UK Gold). They sometimes give you instructions on how to subscribe.

You will need strong reception. If your existing analogue tv picture is good, with no ghosting or wavy background lines etc. then you may be ok.



If your digital pictures are breaking up or non-existant then you may have to invest in a new high-gain aerial and new double-screened downlead. Typical cost £100-£150 for a professional installer. Don't waste your money on a 'booster'. They're of dubious benefit and only create something else to go wrong.

Answer 7

You need to buy the box. connect the dish, look for channels and happy watching, thats if you have dish pointing in right direction.  We had ours pointing at wrong satellite for ages and were only getting german channels.  best to get prof to set it up