I'm afraid I know nothing, and understand even less, about digital television. Apologies if this question about television is too 'new' for the section - mods please move as necessary.
I receive Sutton Coldfield. In the last few days the channels have been re-sorted and added to on Freeview. For example BBC News has changed from 80 to 130, though for some odd reason 80 continued working normally until I did the re-tune. I suspect the quality on 130 is not as good as on the old 80.
There are some new channels on offer, including one tantalisingly called "Vintage TV" (but I expect genuine vintage TV would be too much to hope for). My 2007 Panasonic HDD/DVD is told it isn't suitable to receive them. Any fixes?
Steve
... For example BBC News has changed from 80 to 130, though for some odd reason 80 continued working normally until I did the re-tune ...
Steve, quite simply, nothing has changed here, except for the addition of new channels.
The correct name for the channel number is Logical Channel Number and bears no relevance to the mux - i.e.: RF channel number - in which it is carried. It is purely and simply a filing system. When you enter an LCN, the decoder looks though its filing system to find out where the data stream for that LCN is to be found, then decodes it and displays it on the screen.
Before you did the retune, that information was stored in slot 80 but now it is stored in slot 130: there is no change whatsoever to the broadcast data stream and anybody who doesn't retune will still be able to watch BBC News on LCN 80 in perpetuity ...
This isn't the first time that the Logical Channel Numbers have been juggled nor, I suspect, will it be the last!
If you think of an old analogue TV with a rotary tuner, the chances of receiving BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Five in that order was, I think nil, no matter where in the country you lived. Using LCNs, it is possible to group similar channels together, such as all the News or Children's Channels, for example, irrespective of where in the digital spectrum the source data is. Compare it with a more modern analogue TV with push button tuning, for example: did you tune the buttons in channel order or programme order ...?
When all else fails, read the instructions
Hi Steve,
My Mother has an early Panasonic set top box and that too wouldn't retune so I selected "factory re-set" and bingo it retuned spot on, maybe it might work on yours too.
Marc.
Marc
BVWS member
RSGB call sign 2E0VTN
Terry, that's a very clear explanation and I understand completely. Thank you.
Marc, the re-tune process is (I think) working perfectly. It's just my software package or some't that might be out of date?
Steve
PS. How come there's suddenly room for more channels? Have they been 'crunched in' more inside the mux's to make room?
T
Marc, the re-tune process is (I think) working perfectly. It's just my software package or some't that might be out of date?
Steve
Hi Steve,
Usually there is a software update facility listed in the settings menu. Worth a hunt around.
Marc.
Marc
BVWS member
RSGB call sign 2E0VTN
My brand new Sagem HD+ box missed most of the channels off on auto scan, I had to tune each of the 8 multiplex's manually, I kept forgetting to press the confirm button & had to keep starting again. We've also got a Panasonic hard disc/DVD recorder from the mid 00's in the bedroom, I think I'll leave that alone as it's still working OK. We get multiple transmitters here (Waltham, Nottingham, (Kimberley) Sutton Coldfield, Belmont & Emley Moor) & some channels get put in the 800's.
Having just looked up 'Vintage TV Freeview' on Google and found it seems to be concerned mainly with rock music, my motivation to do anything about it has just plummeted... Why is everything so "samey"?
Steve
... How come there's suddenly room for more channels? Have they been 'crunched in' more inside the mux's to make room?
Are there more channels? The LCN, as we've seen, means nothing here - there aren't 129 channels being broadcast below BBC News, for example! There could be only one channel - BBC News - but its LCN will still be, until the next shuffle, 130 ...
No doubt someone will be able to cite chapter and verse on this, but some new channels might have replaced channels that are no longer on-air.
Also, bear in mind that Sutton Coldfield now carries NINE muxes, rather than the original six. Two of these carry HD channels but one is a local mux - the point being that capacity is being increased.
This link shows exactly which channels are on which muxes: http://www.ukfree.tv/allchannelsmuxes.php
When all else fails, read the instructions
As far as I know*, the latest Freeview retune didn't add any new channels, it just renumbered some of them so there are now more empty channel numbers available between 1-99 for new services in the future.
Some areas will have new multiplexes and extra channels starting soon. Some have started already.
*I'm unlucky enough to live in an area served by a relay transmitter, which doesn't broadcast most of the Freeview channels. We only receive a small number of Freeview channels, just the BBC and ITV1, ITV2, Channel 4, more4, E4, Film4 and Channel 5. That's our lot. No new channels ever come here.
As for Vintage TV, it plays mainly 70s and 80s rock and pop music. It's not actually broadcast on Freeview at all. If you have a compatible Freeview+HD box and it's connected to the Internet, selecting Vintage TV channel 242 will stream the video from the internet to your set-top box.
More information here: http://www.vintage.tv/news/vintage-tv-n ... hannel-242
(includes a list of compatible and incompatible set-top boxes).
Vintage TV is broadcast on Freesat and Sky satellite TV (no subscription or internet connection required) and Virgin cable TV (requires subscription). I've been enjoying it for free on satellite for several years now.
As for Vintage TV, it plays mainly 70s and 80s rock and pop music. It's not actually broadcast on Freeview at all. If you have a compatible Freeview+HD box and it's connected to the Internet, selecting Vintage TV channel 242 will stream the video from the internet to your set-top box.
One thing that annoys me are these "not really off air" channels - the ones you need a really stable Internet connection to watch, along with the right kind of box etc. Luckily it's a breeze to delete these, along with all the shopping and "adult" channels on my Topfield PVR. In fact, my Topfield has hardly anything in it beyond the normal PSB channels...
Utterly and totally irritating, if you ask me!
We have gained a few new MuX's in our part of the world.. We had, I think, five, and now have about eight or nine - in short, there's not a lot of free space between UHF channels 40 to 51, and most of it is crap (my humble opinion of course).
The annoying part is, every telly and every STB has its own set-up procedure and it boggles the mind just trying to figure them out - bad enough if you have the manual, a real nightmare if you don't.. What I have found though, is that an automatic scan now seems to find the correct channels i.e. BBC1 and ITV Yorkshire, from Leeds, in positions 1 and 3 respectively.. Ever since DSO, we've always ended up with the wrong channels if you ran an auto-scan, and always resulting in BBC NE&C and ITV NE, from Newcastle, being in positions 1 and 3 respectively.
What is most annoying, is the persistence of the 'old' news channel numbers i.e. 80=BBC News and 82=SKY News.. These 'old numbers carry nothing, in our area, other than a message saying "This channel has moved".. The aggrovating part is, these channles are in their new positions and working - so why the (expletive) don't they just quit sending a signal on a dead channel, and then tell you it's been moved. 
My sympathies go out to the elderly, and the less techno-savvy people, or people who suffer from Alzheimer's and suchlike - do they really need a bunch pillocks to keep screwing up the TV channels every few months and making life a pain for them?
Freesat via Sky seems to be the most user friendly system, and even then there are times when it becomes necessary to pull the mains plug, wait a minute, then reboot - but at least that's all it needs!
Anyway, and moving back on track, after spending about two hours trying to "retune" one of my STBs, I eventually got there, but had to spend the next half hour manually deleting all the shopping, dating and porno channels.
What a pity we ever went digital? 
Marion
I hate all this fannying around.I get ridge hill where I am and I have to prat about in getting the right itv (west) instead of itv ( midlands ) put on button 3 of my tele remote control. I have to go into my tv menu and bugger about as a retune always insists on putting itv midlands in button 3 and my correct itv west in button 800!
All for 2 extra crap channels and a vintage tv channel I cant watch anyway.
I wish there was a way I could delete all this rubbish out of it and just have the ones I want up the front of the tuner.Im going to look into it.
... The annoying part is, every telly and every STB has its own set-up procedure and it boggles the mind just trying to figure them out - bad enough if you have the manual, a real nightmare if you don't ...
There is nothing new under the sun, Marion! This is by no means a new problem!
Early UK CATV systems, for example, in the days before SCART sockets became common, used SetTop Boxes that translated every received channel to a single UHF channel. However, synthesised tuning had become the norm by then and no two sets worked in the same way! I remember seeing a copy of a mighty tome issued to installers with individual instructions for every set or range of sets ...
What is most annoying, is the persistence of the 'old' news channel numbers i.e. 80=BBC News and 82=SKY News.. These 'old numbers carry nothing, in our area, other than a message saying "This channel has moved".. The aggrovating part is, these channles are in their new positions and working - so why the (expletive) don't they just quit sending a signal on a dead channel, and then tell you it's been moved ...
Why is it annoying? After retuning, many users will go to the old LCNs automatically by force of habit. In some households, I guarantee that someone will have re-tuned the TV/STB and not told anyone else! You can bet that they won't be around when the next person uses the set ...
If the TV/STB retunes automatically, nobody will know what has happened!
I presume, from the tone of your post, that you are assuming that bandwidth is being deliberately wasted by using an entire programme's bandwidth to broadcast these messages - not so! When you ask for LCN 80, the look-up table in the STB or receiver returns the message you see on the screen. If you ask for LCN 130, the look-up table directs you to the section of the appropriate transport stream that carries BBC News.
I have no comment to make on this LCN juggling procedure but perhaps you might like to consider an alternative ...
I don't know if such a device exists but lets say that you can find a Freeview box that ignores LCNs and presents the programmes in the order that it finds them in each transport stream.
Let us assume that the first mux it finds from your local transmitter is PSB1. This contains 23 individual programme feeds but, because we've scrapped the concept of Logical Channel numbers, they may be transmitted in any order. Perhaps 1 is the BBC Asian Network and 19 is BBC1. Continue through all the muxes in transmitted order, which varies from transmitter to transmitter, of course, until you've got all 149 streams in some sort of random order. Now the broadcasters can play with their LCNs as much as they like. You know that BBC1 is 19, ITV is 97, Sky News is 132, and so on ...
You might grow to like it but how well do you think it would go down in a multi-user houshold ...?
When all else fails, read the instructions
Hi Terry..
Starting at bottom and working upwards.. You can ignore the LCNs, on my Icecrypt T5000! It makes for some interesting permutations, and is exactly what you get if you select factory restore.
No one is suggesting that we should anything other than the LCNs provided, and no, I wouldn't grow used to it because it would be a different permutation every time, and on every set, or set-top box.
Now, as for the dead channels carrying a message to say "this channel has moved" - if you select a channel that does not exist, the STB returns its own message saying "No Channel!" - ergo, it's not necessary to transmit a message to say so.. It just adds another layer of confusion and/or constenation for those people who are not so techno-savvy.
The really sad part is that in the good old days, you tuned your set to the stations available, and that's where they stayed - the same channel on the same button/key or combination of buttons, but now, almost every time you switch on, those channels could have been moved anywhere, at any time, and you have no control - again, not good for people with memory problems, or who lack the savvy to figure it out.
It just seems that the viewer is a mere pawn to be pushed around by the broadcasters every time they choose to launch yet another "service" even to the extent that they have the power to decide that they've had enough of a particular system and can render your receiving equipment innoperative overnight.
The annoyance comes from having to retune your kit every few months, then set about deleting the crap you don't want to see on your screen, in the full knowledge that you'll have it all to do again in a few months time.
For me personally, I'm not at all impressed by the extra channels, and they do nothing to increase or improve my viewing pleasure.
As I said above, the most user friendly system I have found is Freesat via Sky, which takes care of itself, no dead channels with pointless messages and no one ever complains that there was no message on the old channel numbers to them they've been moved! (And at least the filth channels are far enough away from the channels I prefer to watch).
It just seems to me that Freeview will forever be playing the technological "second fiddle" to what is from the user's perspective, a far superior system.
Marion
I've met and talked to people from Digital UK, people who are responsible for bringing us Freeview in its present form. (It started as OnDigital and was a flop for several years, must dig out the book that chronicles the history, I know it's somewhere on my shelves)
It's fun to wind them up by saying why on earth (literally) are we bothering with an expensive Freeview network at all when a couple of satellites can do the job at lower capital cost and much lower running costs. Yes, there are places not served by satellite but also those not served by terrestrial systems either.
Been with satellite since I bought my Hi Def set many years ago - I could only receive 1 Hi Def channel back then though ! Had superb analogue reception here (line of sight to Hannington) that SD digital couldn’t come close to bettering .
Can receive Free View through with the other tuner built into the set, but it won't do high def - could get a high def Freeview box but can't see the point in cluttering up the place with one.
Chris
