TVs Freesat/Freetime vs Freeview/Freeview Play vs Youview

Anyone have any experiences with the above both in terms of the service and the PVR boxed. Our Sky deal has run out and I'm thinking of switching back to a free option. I'd definitely want to go for the PVR option for each and might go for the 'catch-up' version although we do have a smart TV.

Thanks in advance

George

 

Freesat/Freetime vs Freeview/Freeview Play

Humax is a pretty decent box. Does your television have any satellite inputs? If it has two inputs and a usb, you have everything you need without any other outlay...


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+1 for a Humax PVR and great customer service from the tech side.

 

I'm not sure that it does - it's a Samsung although I can't remember the model number... It has Freeview HD for sure and has smart features. Any particular Humax box?

Any particular one that you've got?

 

I have the HD-Fox T2 but I am sure there are better out there. I have had this a while now and suits my needs. Very reliable with plenty of settings to tweak which for me have normally resulted in a call to the Humax techie to get me out of the mess I have created.

Bought from here http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/freeview.html

Just been looking around and quite fancy the triple tuner idea of this FVP-4000T 500GB - Cappuccino http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/freeview/fvp-4000t-500gb-cappuccino.html As I am asleep very early, long before nine when most of what I want to watch is showing and being able to record 4 channels at once is a big plus.

 

That's helpful thanks - much appreciated.

I'm also now looking at Youview (heard of those before but not really looked into them until now)

 

Humax makes a youview box.


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I have the latest Youview box (purchased separately from broadband). I love it, excellent and speedy PVR (once you turn super eco mode off). Access to iplayer, ITV play, C4 demand etc. and Netflix through well thought out dedicated apps.

I really can't fault it, even the remote is well designed.

 

I think I'm leaning more towards youview or freeview due to the channels on offer - freesat seems to have more but fewer of what we'd actually watch.

 

In an ideal world you would have both Freesat and Youview. There are more HD channels on Freesat which is why I would want it too. Mum has Freesat and there are a few channels missing (as well as the ace features Youview has) but I do envy the amount of HD channels.

I have a Youview box (Humax) and it's been a bit of a buggy ride (it went through about three weeks of freezing up requiring a complete power down) but it seems to be OK now.

Maybe just pick up a cheap Freesat HD non recorder and a Youview recorder? If I could have a dish here that would be my ideal set up.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Openbox-V...428747?hash=item3d0e0847cb:g:y18AAOSwT~9WjjL0

Something like that and then a decent Youview PVR.

 

That's not a bad idea to be honest but the hd channels that freeview hd / youview would be missing at my address are not that important imho (I'd be missing BBC 4 HD, BBC News HD, NHK World HD (?) & Cbeebies HD).

 

Yeah it's mainly stuff like ITV3 & 4 that you get in HD on Freesat.. Not terribly important but nice, especially when you have a HD set..

One other thing I like about Freesat though is that you get each news channel from each region. So for example you can get the London news through ITV HD Carlton (or whatever it's called now). Not a very strong reason but when your main news is about an old lady who lost her cat it is a little more fun seeing how many people have been stabbed lately

I wonder if there's such a thing as a Freesat/Freeview combo box?

 

I've been having a fairly good look today and I've not come across anything like that - certainly not from one of the major manufacturers anyway.

 

Just re-read your post - what Humax box do you have?

 

http://humaxdigital.com/uk/products/product.php?gid=477&pid=1

DTR-1000. I bought it last January for £50 from Ebay. I thought the price sounded a bit low but according to the guy it all worked. Well it didn't, and even after several formats it was still not working so I asked him for permission to remove the hard drive and run some tests on it. Sure enough, hard drive fried. So I got a £25 partial refund and dropped in a 500gb Pipeline from an old Sky HD box I had. It's been going ever since and apart from the recent upgrade issues (which have now stopped leading me to believe it updated itself again since) it's been fine.

I'd imagine there are newer much swankier versions of it now but it's a great box.

Then again so was the free Talktalk (non recorder) one we had before.

 

Whichever you go with, at least 95% of the available output will be crap, repeats, or both.

 

That's one of the reasons that we're stopping Sky tbh - at least this way we can record stuff and catch up on stuff for 'free' (once the box is bought)

 

Once you have done the initial cold turkey you'll be fine dude. We used to have a full sky sub (like everything) and it was tough going for the first month but after that it's been fine.

We've got movies and entertainment on NowTV but we hardly use them. If it wasn't for the fact that my lady keeps getting deals for £4.99 a month each we wouldn't bother.

We also have Prime, but originally got it for the free/next day shipping so anything on there is a bonus.

 

George as no doubt you have been doing a fair bit of research can you tell me the difference between Freeview and Youview?

 

Youview has a feature where you connect the box to the internet which then allows you to reverse back through the TV guide and watch things you have missed simply by clicking on them. It also has a few apps too.

Not all TV channels work with it, mind, but when they do it's pretty cool. For example, once you leave Sky and go to Freeview you tend to find that anything worth watching is on between 7-10 PM. However, that's on all channels so for example on some evenings six programmes I want to watch are all shown at the same time. I can only record two, the rest I use Youview to catch up on.