ups and downs to freeview (Freeview)

Member Name: barbie84

Product:	Freeview
Date:	09/12/08 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great when it works

Disadvantages: needs a strong signal

We used to have freeview in our livingroom at home up untill 12 months ago, we decided to switch to virgin media after they took men and motors off freeview which was the main channel my hubby used to watch and we got a great deal from virgin media of 3 for £30 so we have internet, landline and tv for £3 more than i used to pay bt just for my internet and phone.

Shortly after this my hubbys nan decided that after watching our tv she wanted virgin media installed at her house, i thought that it wasnt worth her having it seen as she wouldnt be having the 3 for £30 deal but be paying almost the same just for the tv and i wasnt sure at 89 years old that she would actually get the hang of using it so thought it best we give her the freeview box that used to be in our living room to try to see if she could get the hang of it.
Nan lives in a bungalow with a comunial aerial shared by 3 other bungalows so her signal isnt very strong, my freeview box worked perfectly in her livingroom and she got the hang of using it very well, after this she decided to buy a small portable tv with built in freeview for her bedroom but it wouldnt pick up a signal off an indoor aerial so we brought a box to change the aerial into a two way aerial so we could run both the tv in the bedroom and the livingroom off the out door aerial, it worked on the freeview in the livingroom perfectly but would not pick anything up on the tv in the bedroom so we brought a booster box to boost the signal, even this didnt work and becase the tv had built in freeview she couldnt even get the basic 5 channels due to the poor signal strength. We ended up returning the tv and geting a seperate tv and freeview box which worked fine.

I think freeview is a great idea if you have good signal, i prefer the seperate box to the built in ones for the above reasons.

Summary: a great idea if it works