Anyone got a Freely TV yet?

Our Aeriel is knackered and rather than spend a few hundred getting it repaired I’m thinking of a low-end Toshiba Freely TV for the bedroom.

Anyone used a Freely TV yet and does it all work OK?

Or does anyone have any info if Freely Apps will come to existing Smart TVs in future?

Freely might not be around in the medium term. No apps for smartphones or existing TV’s and no dongles. It’s almost like they want it to fail.

Yeah – does seem weird it’s only available with new TVs only. Unless they want a slow roll-out to make sure it can cope.

the-muffin-man
Full Member
Yeah – does seem weird it’s only available with new TVs only. Unless they want a slow roll-out to make sure it can cope.

It’s really odd as I’d have definitely been interested in a dongle or preferably an app. It’s not even like all new TVs have it either. It’s a really odd roll out but hopefully they at least come up with an app for Android/ iOS so it can be cast to a TV.

Mind you, it’s not like if Freely goes pop you can’t use your TV, you’d just get context in other ways.

Most Hisense TVs support Freely this model year, decent TVs too.

Not sure we’re you got a new aerial costing “a few hundred” – I had a new one fitted and it cost around £100.

Seems the much better option unless you’re just using it as an excuse to buy something shiny!

Hisense have a terrible reputation for breaking in about 3 years.

Seems the much better option unless you’re just using it as an excuse to buy something shiny!

That! And you can pause and rewind with Freely. Which you really miss when you’re used to it! 🙂

Main TV viewing is through Freesat box in the lounge.

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore? I haven’t had a dish or aerial connection for about 3 years. I don’t think I’ve missed anything?

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore?

Because it’s already there and works fine.

Well, once again this amazing forum hits the spot. As part of moving in to our new gaff I’ve just had an electrical contractor in to fit a wall mounted tvv and two sockets to the lounge chimney breast. Our first smart TV. While fannying about setting it up…I realised they hadn’t fitted an aerial socket. Loads of apps, really impressive, but no free to view live channels. Not such a problem for me but a disaster for my wife. She wants her local news and TV guide back. The kids just say it’s the new way  but that won’t wash. So I may try a small indoor aerial tucked behind the TV before I get the contractors back to drill yet more holes.

I can manage without. The wife bloody hates all the different TV apps though and just wants to scroll through whats-on, in an old-school way.

Freely might not be around in the medium term. No apps for smartphones or existing TV’s and no donges. It’s almost like they want it to fail.

It’s a successor for freeview/freesat and it’s backed by all the UK free to air broadcasters.  You can already watch live tv via the individual broadcaster apps on an AppleTV (or any other streaming box). So all it gives you is a traditional live tv programme guide that shows what live and on the other channels in one place.  (do many people on here actually watch live tv? I’ve not really watched anything that wasn’t either streamed or recorded for c20 years)

https://www.gbnews.com/tech/freely-internet-terrestrial-channels-release (apologies for gbnews Link but it was genuinely the best explanation I found).

freeview/freesat will have developed the interface. It’s up to manufacturers to launch products that use it

but no free to view live channels.

You can watch live TV through the apps for all the major broadcasters.

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore?

Because you’ll be screwed when your internet is down…… and it will go do down!

and it will go do down!

Well I’ve been here 7 years and in all that time it only went down once.

Considering that the electricity, mobiles and landlines had been wiped out by Arwen as well, an aerial would of made sod all difference.

Bit old school here – main TV and bedroom TV have ariels – bedroom was an after thought – just fitted an ariel in the loft (like the main TV) and ran it through the ceiling to the TV – far easier than splicing into the existing cables, and cheap.   The TV in the conservatory has one of those thin portable ariels and a firestick – these work OK if you’ve got a reasonable signal.

We still watch a lot of over the air TV TBH, especially if not wanting to get into a box set.

Well I’ve been here 7 years and in all that time it only went down once.

Oh well that’s alright then, at least it’s only a storm that can take out the internet in your home 😉

Our tV comes through freesat*. Sometimes I like to just scroll through and see if theres anything like Abandoned Engineering on Yesterday or some other crap like that. When you’re looking thoruhg apps like I player, you kind of need to know what you’re looking for. Thats why kids just have endless streams of the same things going on.

I have a an LG TV that helpfully doesn;t have channel 4 ap on it as well.

*Well it did until a few weeks ago when the weather killed something….

A storm can blow the aeriel off the roof too! 🙂

I’m not too bothered about the odd day of internet down-time.

Oh well that’s alright then, at least it’s only a storm that can take out the internet in your home 😉

Imagine the horror of not having TV for a couple of days…

I’m hoping that they make a box for freely (assuming that TV manufacturers with bespoke platforms wont’ bring this as an app).  I have a lovely 4k HDR OLED that is very far from needing to be replaced, so adding a nice unified on demand EPG like freely with a set top box would be a real winner.

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore?

So you can still watch TV when the power is out…

So you can still watch TV when the power is out…

😉

So you can still watch TV when the power is out…

When everything was down, we sat around playing board games and listening to a battery powered radio.

They were advising people to go to Northern Powergrid’s website and report power cuts….

I have a Freely TV (Panasonic) and it doesn’t work yet. Just says ‘coming soon’. I assume it will be quite soon as I saw an Freely advert somewhere the other day, but who knows.

Freely working well here.

The reason it’s slow roll out is due to licensing tie-ups with Hisense initally for 2024. As I understand it.

I think it’s great so far for people like my folks who can’t have an aerial put in place for a few reasons.

Future is clearly dish and antenna free anyway.

Future is clearly dish and antenna free anyway.

That’s been the case for like 10years.

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore?

I watch OTA live TV precisely never, but our TV (2022ish Sony jobby using Google TV as it’s OS) needed an aerial connection before it would do various TV over IP things for people like ITV and Channel 4, presumably for some sort of regional/geographical ‘are you allowed to watch this’ type check. As it happens this meant we needed to install one on the house (we’d just moved in and the previous occupants obviously used Virgin), but it was only in the region of £100 if I recall.

Saw this in an article today

“ Freely, a free-to-air streaming service from the major public service broadcasters, launched earlier this year. It now has 70,000 hours of programming – more than any other streaming service in the UK – while this week it struck a deal to launch on Amazon’s Fire TV service.”

That’s been the case for like 10years.

More so now than ever.

Freely is the jump from Freeview isn’t it though and that started this year.

People do still use their dishes and antennas but full fibre will likely sod that off.

The shift in the last ten years was definitely to streaming services.

The only advantage I can think of, that a traditional TV aerial gives you, is that you can listen to football commentary on local BBC stations in locations with poor FM reception.

People do still use their dishes and antennas but full fibre will likely sod that off.

You seem to forget that not everyone either wants, or can afford, an internet connection.

There’s a lot of older people who aren’t interested in streaming.

It’s a diminishing number but still significant.

do many people on here actually watch live tv?

Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

Me too, probably 98% of my viewing is live.

We bought a TCL and tv as on paper it had the best spec, i didn’t think to check whether it had an aerial socket! Sometimes you get obscure things only on terrestrial tv, and the internet goes down for a day every year or so

Why does anyone bother with a TV aerial anymore?

Because millions of people have really crap Internet which isn’t fast enough to reliably support streaming. Just because people in cities keep having their fibre upgraded from 100mbps to 500mbps to 1000mbps doesn’t meant there aren’t lots of us with 0.5mbps with an upgrade date of June 2028.

If I didn’t have an aerial I’d only be able to watch TV 3 or 4 nights a week.