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I have stuck with Freesat through thick and thin since leaving $ky many years ago but the recent loss of Channel 4HD and All 4 have made me seriously question their commitment going forward. I cannot see how they will be able to offer UHD content on the next gen box if they can’t even keep the existing HD channels and I fear they will become a niche provider with little development or innovation.
I’ve had excellent value for money from the 1000S and previous FOXSAT-HDR but time has been called and I’m now on a Freeview FVP-5000T which is excellent so far, and no more programme juggling due to clashes. I’m not far from a main transmitter (20 miles) with direct line of sight so no signal problems either.
I am going to keep the 1000S for posterity and backup, and to finish watching some of the recorded programmes.
I may be proved wrong about Freesat, only time will tell, but in the meantime I will keep a watchful eye over any future developments on this forum.
Good luck to you all.
I can understand your frustration. Agree regarding Channel 4/All 4. They all seem to be very “childish” dealing with their problems & not thinking about loyalty towards their customers/consumers. I purchased my Freesat Humax 1010s mainly originally to obtain regional channels & I still do watch from time to time. I live in London area , but love to watch local regional news via South East/South Today or even “explore” regions up & down the Uk within my sitting room. I often watch region news while travelling UK. Freeview/Youview don’t offer this, unless you watch later on iPLayer. All I can say is don’t bin your Freesat box. I can only assume that once Freesat & Channel 4 have “grown up” a little they may find they need to regain customers. (Hope you are listening Freesat/Channel4?).
I’ve just done the same too, got a FVP-5000T at the weekend.
This latest Freeview box seems to be a generation ahead of the Freesat box, which is a bonus too. Looking forward to recording 4 and watching a 5th!
I’m in a freeview light area, I can only get 5 or 6 HD channels through aerial.
The loss of 4HD sucks but I can hopefully get it back in non epg mode, losing all4 is the biggest loss for me, the only other way I can watch it now is by using a PC.
According to a freesat statement there’s no costs to carry on demand services on their platform, and the price increases only effect HD channels.
http://www.a516digital.com/2018/02/freeview-users-drawn-into-c4freesat.html
“Last week, Channel 4 confirmed it was objecting to change in Freesat’s pricing structure and wanted to take the opportunity to make “internal savings”. Freesat responded saying the changes only affected HD channels, with no cost to carry on-demand services and therefore couldn’t understand why Channel 4 had pulled on-demand service All4.”
jdlfreetime – 7 hours ago »
I can understand your frustration. Agree regarding Channel 4/All 4. They all seem to be very “childish” dealing with their problems & not thinking about loyalty towards their customers/consumers. I purchased my Freesat Humax 1010s mainly originally to obtain regional channels & I still do watch from time to time. I live in London area , but love to watch local regional news via South East/South Today or even “explore” regions up & down the Uk within my sitting room. I often watch region news while travelling UK. Freeview/Youview don’t offer this, unless you watch later on iPLayer. All I can say is don’t bin your Freesat box. I can only assume that once Freesat & Channel 4 have “grown up” a little they may find they need to regain customers. (Hope you are listening Freesat/Channel4?).
Yes, I love to watch ‘the regions’ too as I don’t hail from the area where I live.
I can’t understand how the OP says he has defected to Freeview when truth be told he probably already has Freeview via his TV’s internal tuner. I don’t really understand all the angst over a HD channel either.
Alongside Freesat I have BT Youview who also charge for their HD channels (apart from the Freeview ones that is) I have subscribed to the grand total of ‘0’. Who cares? I won’t be purchasing any programmes for my 4K TV either as I consider them all to be a waste of ‘good money’. Just shove your chair back and you’ll never notice the difference.
Plenty if deals with BT though, I have max (everything and HD) for 2 years at £12.
Totally agree about UHD, after paying £1200 for my first HD Tv in 2006, first and last time I was paying over the odds. UHD the biggest white elephant in the room when viewing from the wrong distance, which the majority will do. 1080P is more than enough for me.
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Blisteringblue – 1 hour ago »
UHD the biggest white elephant in the room when viewing from the wrong distance, which the majority will do.
And as soon as you get used to it, all your HD files will look like VHS tapes.
I get it. I like to focus on one OTA delivery system and think of it like my phone – it’s what I have chosen. I had Freesat a year or so ago but gave up on it because of programming clashes, illogical channel numbering of HD channels and instability. I defected to Freeview Play via the FVP-4000T and am much happier. I never get a programme clash, the box is much more stable and HD channels are logically numbered.
scgf – 4 days ago »
I get it. I like to focus on one OTA delivery system and think of it like my phone – it’s what I have chosen. I had Freesat a year or so ago but gave up on it because of programming clashes, illogical channel numbering of HD channels and instability. I defected to Freeview Play via the FVP-4000T and am much happier. I never get a programme clash, the box is much more stable and HD channels are logically numbered.
I don’t know which Freesat you were viewing but having had my HDR1000s for over 5 years it’s certainly not the experience I have ever had with mine.
I have Freeview Play, Freeview Plus, Youview and Freesat and I still think Freesat is the best of the bunch.
I had the HDR1100S box and mine could only record two programmes at once so if it needed to record a third it couldn’t. My HD channels were numbered 108 BBC1 HD, 109 BBC2 HD, 119 ITV1HD, No C4 HD, 105 Channel 5 HD and so on. In my experience ALL digital set top boxes crash at some point – just like computers – you can never say never. Some crash once a year, others more regularly. Do a search on Google for “hdr 1100S crashes” and you will see that Freesat users are affected by a degree of instability in their boxes.
I would be seriously shocked if your older box is any different.
How is Freesat the best of the bunch for you? The only advantage I can see – assuming you have a functioning dish and aerial – is the huge number of poor quality channels on Freesat.
scgf – 14 hours ago »
I had the HDR1100S box and mine could only record two programmes at once so if it needed to record a third it couldn’t. My HD channels were numbered 108 BBC1 HD, 109 BBC2 HD, 119 ITV1HD, No C4 HD, 105 Channel 5 HD and so on. In my experience ALL digital set top boxes crash at some point – just like computers – you can never say never. Some crash once a year, others more regularly. Do a search on Google for “hdr 1100S crashes” and you will see that Freesat users are affected by a degree of instability in their boxes.
I would be seriously shocked if your older box is any different.
How is Freesat the best of the bunch for you? The only advantage I can see – assuming you have a functioning dish and aerial – is the huge number of poor quality channels on Freesat.
It’s simply been and still is a better functioning more stable and reliable recorder – period. They just don’t come any better than this IMO. I have had far more hardware/firmware issues on the Freeview side of things. The amount of channels doesn’t come into it, though it can be handy at times to watch different regions in the UK.
You say you would be shocked if my ‘older’ box is any different. Well shocked, nay horrified you are then, as it’s proved to be one of the best PVRs I have ever owned (and I have had quite a few). It’s a two tuner recorder so how many channels do you expect it to record.
I cited three things I didn’t like about Freesat – the channel numbering, programming clashes and a degree of instability. You said “it’s certainly not the experience I have ever had with mine” = suggesting your box had none of these issues.
Just one of these issues appears to be better than the experience I had – you are very lucky that your box bucks the trend and has never crashed. I occasionally used to switch my system on to watch a programme I thought it had recorded and found the box had frozen and the recording had not been made. I have never had this experience with my FVP-4000T or my BT YouView boxes. The FVP-4000T has crashed, but only when playing back recordings, never while on stand-by.
It would be interesting to discover why your Freesat box has been immune to such issues. I’ve been looking at reviews online and there are plenty of people who do not mention crashes or freezing but plenty who do. It looks like it’s the luck of the draw.
scgf – 1 day ago »
I had the HDR1100S box and mine could only record two programmes at once so if it needed to record a third it couldn’t. My HD channels were numbered 108 BBC1 HD, 109 BBC2 HD, 119 ITV1HD, No C4 HD, 105 Channel 5 HD and so on. In my experience ALL digital set top boxes crash at some point – just like computers – you can never say never. Some crash once a year, others more regularly. Do a search on Google for “hdr 1100S crashes” and you will see that Freesat users are affected by a degree of instability in their boxes.
I would be seriously shocked if your older box is any different.
How is Freesat the best of the bunch for you? The only advantage I can see – assuming you have a functioning dish and aerial – is the huge number of poor quality channels on Freesat.
It is actually possible to record 3 channels in a roundabout way.
Set two recordings and add a watch reservation on a channel sharing a transponder with either recording. This ensures the 3rd channel time shift buffer has the start of the programme. When one of the two recordings completes, press the instant record button. This converts the time shift buffer to a actual recording which will terminate when the 3rd programme finishes.
scgf – 4 hours ago »
I cited three things I didn’t like about Freesat – the channel numbering, programming clashes and a degree of instability. You said “it’s certainly not the experience I have ever had with mine” = suggesting your box had none of these issues.
Just one of these issues appears to be better than the experience I had – you are very lucky that your box bucks the trend and has never crashed. I occasionally used to switch my system on to watch a programme I thought it had recorded and found the box had frozen and the recording had not been made. I have never had this experience with my FVP-4000T or my BT YouView boxes. The FVP-4000T has crashed, but only when playing back recordings, never while on stand-by.
It would be interesting to discover why your Freesat box has been immune to such issues. I’ve been looking at reviews online and there are plenty of people who do not mention crashes or freezing but plenty who do. It looks like it’s the luck of the draw.
Well the channel numbering is no longer as you suggested.
Programme clashes – you’ve lost me there. Any PVR will have programme clashes depending on the mux you are on and how many programmes you are trying to record, so that’s an issue pertaining to all PVRs.
The HDR1000s has a known issue and always has had i.e. when switching on (very occasionally) we will find no recordings in the recordings folders. Work around – pull the power plug, wait a minute then reboot – problem solved. This is no different to an issue most computers suffer with from time to time.
My BT Youview box has had far more issues of freezing and on one occasion I have had to perform a full reset which resulted in losing all my recordings. I have had to go into Hotel Mode and use housekeeping a number of times.
I do think there have been more issues with the 1100s than the earlier models – perhaps an issue of penny pinching by Humax, who really knows.
I note plenty of posts on the 4000/5000T forums with users experiencing faults – why is that?
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