suzywoo Posted November 21, 2006 Report Share Posted November 21, 2006 Can anyone recomend a good freeview box? looking for something quite compact and between 20-30 quid. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest onlynik Posted November 21, 2006 Report Share Posted November 21, 2006 I've an alba one, cost £22 from Sainsbury's works ok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaseyBoi Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 Alba anaw 20-odd quid from argos.......Dont shop for it argos it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
french_disko Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 There's plenty of boxes in Asda / Tesco / Argos / wherever for 20 - 30. Don't think there's any better than the rest. IF you could push that 20 a bit further - by about another 70 (!) then you should get a hard driver recorder with built in freeview. Argos has basic models with 80gb hard drives (around 40 hours). I know it's quite a jump but it's worth it, believe me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaseyBoi Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 I have also heard you can buy freeview boxes with a top up card so u can but extra channels...I havent actually seen these boxes like just a lad at work was telling me about em......Comes with like a phone card you can get topped up and the like... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pogofish Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 I have one of those & I dont think they are much dearer than other makes now.Never felt the need to buy a top-up card yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 I have also heard you can buy freeview boxes with a top up card so u can but extra channels...I havent actually seen these boxes like just a lad at work was telling me about em......Comes with like a phone card you can get topped up and the like...That's not quite how it works. The top-up card is like a Sky viewing card, where you pay a monthly subscription of around 7.99 and get some extra channels. It's pretty much died on its arse since E4 and FilmFour became free-to-air channels as they were the main reasons to get Top-Up tv. Waste of money if you ask me.Always buy a well known brand when you buy electrical equipment. The customer support is much better, should anything go wrong you may end up spending the money you thought you'd saved on premium phone lines to the company and courier postage. A good fully functioning freeview box starts at around 49. Something like Thomson or Sagem are good places to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattJimF Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 I have one of those & I dont think they are much dearer than other makes now.Never felt the need to buy a top-up card yet.I got one of them as well from comet at the beach for 30 during summer. Never bothered getting the card yet, although my flatmate wants it for the cartoon channels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DustyDeviada Posted November 23, 2006 Report Share Posted November 23, 2006 The top up channels are gash, you would be better spending a bit more and getting Sky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloud Posted November 23, 2006 Report Share Posted November 23, 2006 That's not quite how it works. The top-up card is like a Sky viewing card, where you pay a monthly subscription of around £7.99 and get some extra channels. It's pretty much died on its arse since E4 and FilmFour became free-to-air channels as they were the main reasons to get Top-Up tv. Waste of money if you ask me.Come on Phil, where have you been? Top Up TV changed to a strange system involving a DVR - if I remeber rightly, Five started using their capacity on Freeview and so Top Up TV had to change to a weird system where programmes are downloaded nightly to the hard drive - making it a very, very rubbish version of video on demand. As far as I know, they scrapped the system involving buying a viewing card and paying £7.99 a month - now you *have* to have the DVR and pay the subscription too. Considering that the DVR is £200 alone, it really makes the service completely rubbish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted November 23, 2006 Report Share Posted November 23, 2006 Come on Phil, where have you been? Top Up TV changed to a strange system involving a DVR - if I remeber rightly, Five started using their capacity on Freeview and so Top Up TV had to change to a weird system where programmes are downloaded nightly to the hard drive - making it a very, very rubbish version of video on demand. As far as I know, they scrapped the system involving buying a viewing card and paying £7.99 a month - now you *have* to have the DVR and pay the subscription too. Considering that the DVR is £200 alone, it really makes the service completely rubbish.Its actually "just" (as in the past few days-obviously its been in the pipeline for a while, though i didn't know that it was common knowledge yet) added that service. The other system still stands, you still need a viewing card. I know Cloud, i work in this industry (please remeber that) the dtr (the only reason its called that is because Sky owns the rights to the name pvr which is what the item is.) is a cheap rip-off of a sky+ box mixed with a humax pvr, total shite and still a waste of money if you ask me. Incidentaly the boxes aren't commercially available yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloud Posted November 23, 2006 Report Share Posted November 23, 2006 Its actually "just" (as in the past few days-obviously its been in the pipeline for a while, though i didn't know that it was common knowledge yet) added that service. The other system still stands, you still need a viewing card. I know Cloud, i work in this industry (please remeber that) the dtr (the only reason its called that is because Sky owns the rights to the name pvr which is what the item is.) is a cheap rip-off of a sky+ box mixed with a humax pvr, total shite and still a waste of money if you ask me. Incidentaly the boxes aren't commercially available yet.Aha, I knew you'd know more than me Don't worry, I was just trying to keep you on your toes I noticed from a quick browse on the Topup TV website that they're trying to hide the cost of the box as much as possible - if they're doing that (Sky have always been pretty up front about the cost of Sky+), I reckon they must know that they're doomed. Apparently (but I'm not taking this for gospel), the offering is as little as 100 hours of programming a month for £9.99, which is bloody ridiculous.I wonder if the boxes will be any use if (when!) Top Up TV goes bust, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted November 23, 2006 Report Share Posted November 23, 2006 I wonder if the boxes will be any use if (when!) Top Up TV goes bust, though.Well, you can actually still use the old 'ondigital'/'itv digital' boxes so long as you have your old viewing card. The signals not any different, the Freeview group (BBC, BSkyB, ITV, CH4 and National Grid Wireless) bought out the OnDigital DVB-T system that broadcasts on three multiplexes(multiple video/audio channels boadcast simultaneously over the same frequency channel) , so the bare bones of 'freeview' is the same as it was before but free. Top-Up TV is just freeview with add-ons, its the same set-up too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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