What is behind the 30 September Freeview retune?

Why exactly do you need to retune your Freeview box on 30 September 2009?

Why exactly do you need to retune your Freeview box on 30 Septe
Published on 31st July 2009 at 18:15 by Brian Butterworth
"All Freeview boxes, Freeview+ digital TV recorders and digital TVs will need to be retuned for viewers to carry on receiving all of the services available to them, including Five, ITV4 and BBC Radio stations. Without a retune on or after Wednesday 30 September, viewers will not be able to access these channels."

If you are wondering how to retune your Freeview box, please see how to do a Freeview retune.

There is a gap in this year's switchover scheudle. The Carmel group of transmitters finishes on 23 September 2009, with the next at Llanddona starting on 18 November 2009.

This leaves time to sort out the multiplex configurations before the introduction of the Freeview HD service on 2 November 2009.

Things are going to get a little bit complicated, as a game of musical chairs has to happen. Here's a diagram to help your understanding.



First, the BBC needs to move all of the services it operates from multiplex B, because after November 2009 the post-switchover version (PSB3 or BBCB) will be operating in DVB-T2 mode and will be invisible to standard Freeview boxes.

However, the BBC also needs to run non-switched regions for the next four years. For this reason, all but one of the BBC television and radio channels will move to a statisitical multiplex block of 16Mbps. In non-switched regions this will be multiplex 1, in switched-over regions this will be two-thirds of multiplex BBCA.

This will look to most people like BBC FOUR/CBeebies moving from Mux B to Mux 1.

The BBCi services will then form a block of 8Mb/s that will comprise the final third of multiplex PSB1/BBCA, or will be carried as multiplex B before switchover.

The public service channel FIVE will move to Multiplex 2 as part of the bandwidth swap that allowed BBCB to be used for Freeview HD. This deal also puts BBC Parliament on Multiplex 2. In Wales S4C and S4C2 will also need to be carried on D3+4 multiplex.

ITV will be moving ITV4 to Multiplex A (a swap with FIVE) that will restrict this channel to the full Freeview service transmitters.
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D Bowskill: I guess you will be wanting Freeview HD then!
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Monday 28 September 2009 12:23PM GB
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Trevor Goodenough: If you really think that, then I'll pop around and swap all your modern gear for a 1960s 405 line TV...
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Monday 28 September 2009 12:25PM GB
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Briantist,
>>>"Until Wednesday, BBC One was never statistically multiplexed"

yes, that's what I meant - it is now *going* to be statmuxed, and that makes me worry that the pic quality on BBC One will thereafter be compromised by whatever video content happens to be simultaneously taking place on the other BBC channels... :-(
Posted by Alan Huthing (2 posts) on Tuesday 29 September 2009 2:49PM NL
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Alan Huthing: Or, if you want to look at it another way, all the spare bandwidth lost before in the inefficient reserved bandwidth set-up is free to improve the other channels...
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Tuesday 29 September 2009 5:41PM GB
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Sad and expensive news for some Freeview viewers.

According to the BBC web site at;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8280067.stm

About 20,000 old Freeview converters will no longer work.

The boxes are;
Daewoo models DS608P and SV900,
Labgear DTT100,
Triax DVB2000T
and Bush IDVCR01. (map)
Posted by Mark Agiusbronze (48 posts) on Wednesday 30 September 2009 12:34PM GB
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Mark Agius: Thanks, these are listed on the TVs and boxes that do not support the 8k-mode | ukfree.tv - independent digital TV + switchover advice, since 2002 page
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Wednesday 30 September 2009 1:40PM GB
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Dear Brian
I said my last goodbyes to my slow but trusty Philips DX6370 last night (bought on the first day of the OnDigital tramsmissions) as I was under the impression that it would no longer work after National Re-tune day. However, after re-tuning, it's still working. Can I assume it will still work after 'switchover day' on December 2nd?
Posted by Ian (1 post) on Wednesday 30 September 2009 5:55PM GB
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Ian: No,it won't take the 8k mode. It's right at the top of the list here - TVs and boxes that do not support the 8k-mode | ukfree.tv - independent digital TV + switchover advice, since 2002
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Wednesday 30 September 2009 5:57PM GB
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As I understand it the recent need to re-tune was to enable 500,000 viewers to recieve Ch5. The result is that those of us on relay transmitters have lost ITV3/4. Is this fair?

Will we ever recieve the full service?
Posted by Ron Duncan (1 post) on Saturday 3 October 2009 11:09AM GB
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Ron Duncan: Yes, that's right. ITV3 and ITV4 are not public service channels, but FIVE is.

No, the commercial operators will not expand their service onto the public service transmitters.

You can, of course, get ITV3 and ITV on Freesat.
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Saturday 3 October 2009 11:14AM GB
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Time to stop messing about with this inferior service, Freesat here i come .!
Posted by Graham (1 post) on Tuesday 6 October 2009 1:40PM GB
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Graham: Please see Freesat | ukfree.tv - independent digital TV + switchover advice, since 2002 !
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Tuesday 6 October 2009 1:46PM GB
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After the re-tune I lost ITV3 and ITV4; Freeview UK says this is because I get my signal from Ystalyfera relay station yet your site says I should be getting it from the main transmitter at Carmel. The compass bearings for these two locations are NNW and WNW, so quite close together, is there any way of restricting it to Carmel? (map)
Posted by Sylvia Hill (1 post) on Thursday 15 October 2009 4:25PM US
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What chance is there of C4 HD and C5 HD turning up on Freesat at the same time they appear on Freeview? It would seem a bit cockeyed to have more HD content on terrestrial where bandwidth is limited than on satellite where there is buckets of the stuff (and compatible receivers already out there to boot!) ... (map)
Posted by Stooriefit (10 posts) on Thursday 15 October 2009 9:08PM GB
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After the retune our Phillips DTR220/05 freeview box has really bad signal on BBC1 and BBC2 and a few others (FIVER).

We've done a total retune, back to factory settings twice now and nothing seems to help.

We live in SW London. Your site thinks that Crystal Palace is our aerial.

Before the retune, the signal was fantastic on all the channels.

Any help would be great.

Sarah (map)
Posted by Sarah (1 post) on Tuesday 20 October 2009 8:26PM GB
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Why can I not any many channels (including ITV, Channel 5, and others) on my Freeview box? I did the re-tune back in September and things got better for a while, but now they are as bad as before. has there been another re-tune that I haven't heard about.
PS I do think that your site's text is too technical for us normal people (all this talk of multiplex Muxs,PSB and ARQA and ARQB. Just what does this all mean?

(map)
Posted by Geoff Bultitude (1 post) on Thursday 1 April 2010 3:13PM GB
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Geoff Bultitude: You could be using the Oxford transmitter, where there is ongoing work that causes some people loss of Multiplex 2, please see Freeview on Oxford TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice for details.

"PSB" refers to the public service broadcast multiplexes after switchover, ARQA and ARQB are the name for multiplexes C and D after switchover.

This was quite a technical post.
Posted by Briantistplatinum (22,318 posts) on Thursday 1 April 2010 3:24PM GB
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