£20 well spent! (Freeview)

Member Name: dthpsb

Product:	Freeview
Date:	09/11/09 (40 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pay once and get access to loads of channels.

Disadvantages: Most of the channels are rubbish.

We used to have Sky but got rid of it when we realised we spent most of our time watching 'normal' TV, however after spending a while having just 5 channels we found this very limiting and there was often nothing to watch. Not wanting to pay £40 a month again we decided that we would get a Freeview box and see what channels we could get for free.

Freeview is a digital terrestrial platform that gives you access to about 100 channels for free. You can access this by buying a set top box, these can range in price starting at about £15, the one I bought was from the Argos costing £20. You will find them in all electrical stores. Not everyone however needs to buy a box because if you have a relatively new television then freeview will already be built in. This is all to get ready for the digital switch over we keep hearing about on the television, eventually everybody should have access to freeview.

A freeview box is extremely easy to set up and it is just a case of plugging in and putting the ariel into the box. It will take just a few minutes to tune in and find its channels. My freeview box does sometimes lose signal often when the weather is bad which can be a bit annoying and it can take a while before it works again.

Out of all the channels you receive on freeview most of them are rubbish. There is a lot of radio and text channels, which are a waste of time. The rest of the channels are just repeats, ITV2 plus 1, Dave de ja vu, Channel 4 plus 1, More 4. It can be a bit of a pain when you are looking for something to watch but great if you miss a program and want to catch up.

The channels I do watch are ITV2, BBC3, TMF (music channel) and 4 Music. The music channels are something I really missed when we got rid of Sky. I sometimes watch the news channels and my children love to watch CBeebies and sometimes CITV.

They recently made a big thing on the TV about re-tuning your freeview box and I thought we were going to get loads of new channels but after I re-tuned I hardly noticed anything new, maybe a few late night adult channels and CNN but nothing worth watching.

Freeview is full of rubbish TV channels most of which I have never even watched but for just a one off payment of £20 it is more than worth it. I'd be lost without ITV2, CBeebies and the 2 music channels. For that reason alone I am very glad we got freeview, £20 well spent.

Summary: Nearly as good as Sky but without a £40 a month bill.