Anyone got "free to view" digital TV?

[Paul Adams]

I don't watch enough TV to warrant paying NTL for their ridiculous "Family Pack", and I already have a phone line at home (paid for by work and ADSL enabled) as well as my mobile, so I don't need the bundled line rental.

I was happy when they had the old system with add-on packs and the base price was £14.99, now for to get just what I wanted it would be £28 per month, so I've told them to stick it (after getting half price for 6 months after my first complaint).


Now I'm looking at the "free to view" digital TV package where I can pay a one-off cost for the set-top box, plus possibly an upgrade for my aerial...

Does anyone have any experience of getting this?
I'm looking at the terrestrial one rather than the satellite one as there are no "must have" channels on that system, and the boxes are about 4 times more expensive.

In particular, has anyone had their aerial upgraded for the service and can say how much to expect to pay for it?

[Trickle]

Yes. I got a Hauppaug (sp?) external USB box that can either plg into a PC or just use as the set top box for a TV a while back.

At first I only got 40% of the channels... at okish but not great quality. The tech support line wernt much help and I paid for my aerial to be upgraded (iirc about £60 - 80). This improved the quality greatly - really good - but still left me missing 50%+ channels.

Turned out to be a configuration problem with the box that the support line missed :-/

I bought it as I wanted both the set top box for the news channels and I also wanted a TV card (although you can get these for <£40 afaik). Have watched the odd program on uk history, but the other channels are a waste of space. I usually watch either the news channels or the normal 5 (with much better picture quality than I get without it). However I dont watch much TV at all anyway.

[Paul Adams]

Thanks for that Trickle, do you happen to know the model number of that Hauppauge box by any chance?

My TV only tends to get watched when my girlfriend comes over from Sweden, and then it's UK Home and UK Style (neither of which are on the freeview package unfortunately), and my standard terrestrial signal is atrocious so I'd need an upgrade anyway.

NTL used to be pretty good value for money, now it's awful

Cheers for the feedback.

[Jonny M]

The Thomson DTI1000 is probably the best Freeview box out there at the moment. Can be had for around £70 I think from Richer Sounds.

[Paul Adams]

Richer Sounds appear to have the DTI-500 for £69.95
http://www.richersounds.co.uk/index....l.php&p=301317

I did, however, find the DTI-1000 for:
£75.99 at http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/CatalogueItem_107.html
and £77.53 at http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/produc...HO-DTI1000.htm

(Including delivery for me, the Empire Direct one is £83.52 while the Unbeatable one is £83.98.)


Getting the details from Thomson's website itself seems like fun, a search for "freeview" or "DTI" yields no results, I can't find a category to locate STBs in, the only way I found an image was from a link on their main page!
http://www.thomson-europe.co.uk/imag..._301574_25.htm

I lurked a little in another forum after searching for "DTI-1000" to get a little background and user opinions, barring any last minute suggestions or radical price difference, I think this is the one I'll end up going for.


Cheers, Caged!