been given a samsung 46″ TV, was bought in thailand 5 years or more ago.  our present tv is nothing special, a 40″ jobby probably around 10 years old, but has the freeview tuner built in.

after an unsuccessful auto-tune on the new one with it only looking for analogue stations, a live chat with samsung tells me that i cant get digital tv channels because of its thai background and id need something intermediate such as a sky box, freeview box or something and throw that to hdmi.

we have a freeview box, was going to try that but its only scart, and the tv has no scart only hdmi.  so…… that would mean buying a ‘scart to hdmi lead’.

question is, is it worth it?  in this day and age, would a scart connection in the system be a backwards step and an inferior picture?  should i look at buying a modern freeview box instead maybe?  are they all hdmi now?  or something else?

thanks

Most modern boxes are hdmi. I would get a BT humax box second hand (ebay), for about £50 it’d give you freeview HD, recording/pausing live TV and most of the on-demand smart TV features

i have a samsung bluray player which has all the on-demand stuff, its how we watch netflix.  we’re not big TV watchers really and never feel the need to pause or record any tv, we mainly stream box sets.

with that in mind is there a cheaper freeview-only type box that will give a decent picture?  and would you say hdmi will give a noticeably better picture than having a scart in the system?

thanks

We bought a Gumtree Humax Freesat HD box for £40, due to this exact issue of old TV and receiver.

We also bought the TV from same person for another £50 (Hitachi LCD HD thing).

The sellers were old couple who’s son had persuaded them to go all ‘new’ and ‘smart tv’.

Had them for three years now – still work fine and nice to have HD.

You can only do SD resolutions over SCART (PAL), can’t do HD (720p). Also life is far too short for arguing with wonky SCART connectors.

thanks, ill forget about the scart then and look for an hdmi freeview box.

ill stick an ad in the wtd forum, if no good ill look at buying new (or 2nd hand humax as above ^^^)

thanks a lot

There’s a remote control key sequence that activates the factory setting menu on a Samsung. You might be able to change the region from there. Google has a number of suggested sequences.

Try not to fiddle with too much stuff here as you can permanently break the TV.

I would get a BT humax box second hand (ebay),

looks like im back to square one so now contemplating this…..

bought a freesat box second hand that doesnt work, been given an unwanted skybox (so a £25 one off fee for a card), but its too big and also quite scruffy, so now now considering the humax.

wifes impatient, she wants one today and is all set to get a cheap unbranded freeview box from currys/argos or something, but i want to explore better value.

2 questions…. firstly, are humax either freesat or freeview, you choose which way you want to go and theres no real difference between the two? (i can do either, have a digi aerial and an old sky dish)

and secondly, i mentioned the other day im trying to sort out transferring old dv camcorder tapes to a hard drive but not sorted yet.  with a humax, would it be possible to transfer them to this, so in effect killing two birds with one stone?

thanks

I have a load of customers just like you.

MONEY IS FOR SPENDING.  DO IT…………. ;o)

on what my good man?  that is the question…..

Having moved my old TV upstairs so no Freesat I tuned it in but could not receive the HD channels. Turns out it does not have a compatible receiver for the UK.

Solution was extremely simple this for £10 it has built in receivers. Money is for spending wisely.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01F5L8M94/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

humax do a freeview box and a satellite box. not the same thing.

freeview and freesat offer pretty much the same amount of channels.

freeview is more stable, ie in bad weather. I would buy a freeview box.

Solution was extremely simple this for £10 it has built in receivers. Money is for spending wisely.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01F5L8M94/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

that certainly seems neater for a bedroom telly rather than a separate box, ill keep note of that, thanks.

I would buy a freeview box.

cheap noname freeview box or humax freeview box?  will the HD on a humax box allow you to transfer camcorder footage onto it with the right cable (whatever that would be)?  or any advantage at all bearing in mind id only need a HD for that purpose, i never ‘tape’ live tv.

thanks

Sadx – I have a new Manhattan hd freeview box, with SCART socket.  I bought it by mistake last year when I should have bought a freesat box.  In Spain tho but I ll be in uk in 10 days.

Scart is analogue – HDMI is digital. The two aren’t compatible and there is no lead.

s’wat i was thinking…… does it have an hdmi slot mate?

thanks

will the HD on a humax box allow you to transfer camcorder footage onto it with the right cable (whatever that would be)? or any advantage at all bearing in mind id only need a HD for that purpose, i never ‘tape’ live tv.

Not too sure what you’re trying to do here. A basic Freeview box will just show (free) broadcast TV channels received over your aerial. More advanced ones will record those channels also, and maybe have on-demand services if you hook it up to broadband.

To transfer camcorder footage, I assume you mean to watch on the TV, you’d connect the camcorder to the TV but depends on the cable output of the camcorder. Is it an old one? It might have a composite output and you may be lucky and there’s a composite input on the TV. Better svideo or better still it’s a digital output which might hook up to HDMI.

If the camera is digital, transfer files to a computer and you can get those on the TV in numerous ways.

Also  does the TV have “smart TV”? You can get various things via your broadband with that if it does.

If you don’t care about live TV, get a Amazon Fire stick and watch stuff from that.

Is there a USB socket on it? If so just buy a Roku or Fire stick. Simple solution without an ugly box. You won’t get freeview, but you get access to loads of free and payment based streaming services.

Is there a USB socket on it? If so just buy a Roku or Fire stick.

Firestick plugs into the HDMI.

we want live to air freeview, so a freeview box is a must.  be interested to know if named/more expensive is noticeably better than nonamed/cheaper, or if digital is just digital so itd be impossible for one to be better than another.  but…… we need a freeview box of some sort.

the rest is me trying to kill two birds with one stone if its indeed possible.  ive found a load of miniDV tapes which we have the camcorder for.  we’ve already hooked that up to tv and had a right old laugh looking at some of the footage, but there are about 10 tapes, some seem to have duplicate stuff on, some theres big gaps before the next clip so is there anything else on etc etc….  plus we have one hi8 tape from even earlier, and no camcorder for this.  i realise we’d need to find someone with an old one and borrow it to do the same thing as the miniDV tapes.

i know that once we’ve watched them, theyll be shoved back in a cupboard with the camcorder.  id like to be able to transfer these tapes/clips onto a HD os some sort so we can quickly go to them on a pc/portable HD connected to TV or whatever.  i remember we did do this with an old dvd recorder we had but thts long gone too.

TL:DR, we need a freeview box, and dont mind spending more on humax if we can transfer camcorder footage to its HD.

thanks chaps.

EDIT:  we already have apps on a bluray player, so no need for firesticks etc thanks.

If you can play them on the TV you might be able to “record” on to a hard drive connected to the TV’s USB.

On my Panasonic, I can record to a HDD. However, I can’t remember if it can be done manually or if you have to do it through the programme guide.

Although after all this messing about you could of just bought a 49″ 4K TV with a 5 year guarantee for £350.

https://www.johnlewis.com/toshiba-49u6863db-led-hdr-4k-ultra-hd-smart-tv-49-inch-with-freeview-hd-freeview-play-black/p3585732

i dont need a new tv.  just a freeview box.  and whilst looking into a freeview box im just seeing if i can pay a bit more for something which would be of extra use to me.  but if not, all i need is a freeview box.

thanks

I doubt a HD based box will record from an external input. Usually they just record from broadcast channels. But might be wrong.

Personally I’d transfer the video to a PC and get them reencoded to decent size MP4 files or similar to archive. May be able to stream them to the TV. If TV has USB input you can put them on a USB stick or HD. Or upload them to YouTube maybe or a cloud storage service and then a suitable app can play them on the TV, plus phone and can access from anywhere.

I don’t think a Freeview box with HD will do what you want with the DV tapes. They are set up to record the tranmitted transport stream and recording is setup via selecting from the program guide. I’d still recommend getting one though as recording is still useful even in the age of catch-up in my opinion. As with anything, a very cheap Freeview box is possibly going to be frustrating experience – slow to respond, poor interface etc.

For the DV tapes there are any number of companies that could transfer them to another format for you for very little money. You can probably find something local (eg. pretty the sure the photo shop in our local tescos does it), or just send the tapes off to someone.

thanks, think that just about makes my mind up on the camcorder issue, thatll be done separately.

with regards to freeview/freesat, im discounting freesat purely on the fact it doesnt have the channel 4 catch-ups.  but…… just when ive got my head around freeview, i read about ‘youview’ too!  a quick google suggests that this may be better than freeview, but i cant 100% find out whether its subscription or not, a bit like nowTV?

could anyone give their opinion on youview please?  better, worse or same as freeview?

ta

Youview is the branding for Freeview with integrated catchup services. Essentially you can scroll back through time in the programme guide and select something and it fires up the appropriate channel’s catch up app. No subscription.

If you watch anything not on BBC you are still better recording so you are not saddled with unskippable Ads.

Youview is the branding for Freeview with integrated catchup services

This is correct but there is also Freeview play available now which is essentially the same thing as Youview.

You dont need a subscription for Youview, however if you get a Youview box and are either a BT broadband or Talktalk BB customer then you can get access to extra channels for a small sub each month.

I have a BT Youview box(not a BT customer though) and its pretty good, has all the catch up TV services as well as Netflix, Amazon Video and Now TV plus a few others.

Pretty certain the USB ports on it are locked down data wise although there is power to them as I use one of them to power a separate Firestick.

thanks

If you watch anything not on BBC you are still better recording so you are not saddled with unskippable Ads.

this is probably quite a draw actually, hadnt thought about that.  few minutes at the start of the week to set a few recordings, sit down to watch something and instead of going through the ePG just pick a recorded show and watch, FF’ing through the ads.  im now drawn towards a humax/recorder type jobbie now.

thanks for that.

another question thats come up if you dont mind…..

im finding this freeview/freesat/youview/humax/hard drive stuff a minefield, and i always like to get to the bottom of what i really need before i buy 🙂

looking at different humax models now, is there a real world difference in these 3 models, all with a hard drive?

https://uk.humaxdigital.com/product-category/freeview/

i see the first one is freeview play, whereas the others are freeview +.  i gather the ‘play’ is all the catch-up apps integrated, whereas the other two ‘+’ boxes are ‘digital tv recorders’.  now bearing in mind the comment above, about FF’ing through the ads, my gut feeling is id be better off with one of the ‘tv recorders’ as itd be more versatile for me, rather than be tied to apps which may still insist you watch them.

is my gut feeling right?

thanks

Absolutely yes.

Only BBC do a good job of an app and even then it can crash. The itv app is horrendous.  I’d choose record ability over everything else.

All those on that webpage (that you can still buy) are recorders. I know someone with the the 2000T and i’ve got the older fox hdr (with custom firmware, which is the greatest thing ever). Interestingly after someone mentioned it on this very forum. A good few years ago, which i’m forever grateful whoever it was.

The only weakness is the humax remote. They all degrade badly over time. Needs taking apart and cleaning with alcohol every 1-2 years.

All those on that webpage (that you can still buy) are recorders.

ah yep, so the only difference is ‘play’ vs ‘+’ then, with play being all the apps yep?  so id want to choose a box with ‘+’.

and i’ve got the older fox hdr (with custom firmware, which is the greatest thing ever)

out of interest then, what does that do that the others dont?

thanks

Humax HDR FOX T2 with custom firmware is what I have too. It allows you to add various customisations and do things like set things to record via a webpage if you away from home. Trying to put this nicely…for someone who need to ask so many questions, I’m not sure I’d recommended going down the custom firmware route!

The various flavours of Freeview are all just marketing and keep changing. Just had to remind myself;  to Freeview+ means you can record. Freeview Play (and YouView) is the catchup app intergration (not sure if recording is mandatory for that branding or not).

Trying to put this nicely…for someone who need to ask so many questions, I’m not sure I’d recommended going down the custom firmware route!

agreed.  i dont need that so ill stick with one of the basic recorders.  thank you.

Most modern boxes are hdmi. I would get a BT humax box second hand (ebay), for about £50 it’d give you freeview HD, recording/pausing live TV and most of the on-demand smart TV features

sorted, just bought a humax 2000T from gumtree for £58.  hopefully ive made the right choice…..

humax are proper rubbish………………  ;o)  (not).