BT set top box

[stereohaven]

Whatever it ends up like @Midnight_Voice, there is so little of any interest on terrestrial TV for us as a family now (apart from the odd live event), it's shutting the door after the horse has bolted.

[stereohaven]

---

@Weerab1983wrote:

I read that freely was going to be an app, not a direct replacement for Freeview play straight away 

---

As per the link I provided earlier from Everyone TV that run Freeview:

Set for launch in 2024, the new service, called Freely, will be built-in to the next generation of smart TVs and feature a line-up of public service broadcaster content and other free-to-air channels. It will replicate the terrestrial TV experience, building on the heritage and popularity of the Freeview TV platform, currently used in 16m homes.

---

It will replace Freeview Play (and the need for an aerial), in new TVs. I think many are hoping that it is also made available as an app that can be used on devices such as a Fire TV stick or Apple TV, but that hasn't been confirmed or denied yet.

[Weerab1983]

@stereohaven fair point

[NigelB72 · Accepted solution]

@Earthling The Smart element has all the main catch-up players so providing you're looking for BBC, ITV etc ,you should be covered... Plus they have a huge app store 

[Earthling]

@NigelB72   yes, we mostly watch the main terrestrial channels so TV Plus should do it for us.  Just want one more chat with the dealer first - assuming he really knows all this stuff!

[Midnight_Voice]

@stereohaven 

Reading between the lines, always more rewarding, if less certain, than reading along them, that announcement says ‘replicate’, not ‘replace’.

So while this is a step towards the replacement of Freeview Play, I think these 2024 TVs will still come with terrestrial Freeview Play, as will TVs for some years to come, while they figure out how to get the rest of the Freeview channels, and anyone for whom going IP lowers the barriers to entry, in there.

[NigelB72]

@Earthling if you want a multichannel Freeview recorder, you can buy them from most retailers. They'll be Freeview certified and won't be BT Pro-Boxes but you'll be able to record one channel while watching another. So you can plug TV aerial in to that for Freeview and a satellite dish in to the TV for Freesat 👌

[Earthling]

@NigelB72    That's like our present setup - aerial plugged into a YouView box, HDMI connection to the TV.  The old YouView box doesn't do HD though so if we find we still need a box because TV Plus isn't right we'll have to get one.  Extra £400+ though, which we were hoping to avoid.

I guess B72 puts you near here, we're B91

[NigelB72]

@Earthling Humax 1TB UHD recorder with Freeview play for around £250... B = my surname inital and 72 is when I was born 🤣

I'm in Leicester 👍

[Brucemeister5]

Oh, I always thought B72 was your location too. I grew up in B75, so I thought it was familiar to me. I’m on the south coast now, 100 yards from the English Channel.