More Freeview boxes become obsolete
In May 2008, a bunch of Freeview boxes served by the Sutton Coldfield transmitter stopped working. Now it looks like boxes in Scotland have gone the same way.
Boxes powered by the SetPal technology, including those made by Daewoo, Labgear, Portland and Triax, lack sufficient internal memory to cope with the number of Freeview stations after a transmitter upgrade, and become useless.
More on the story, including a quote from our sister site, Radio & Telly can be found here: Daily Record 5 July 2008
There are believed to be between 200,000 and 350,000 affected boxes in the UK, and as the transmitter networks get upgraded ready for the Switchover, more and more boxes are set to become landfill fodder
I have a Fergusson FDT600 – I wasn’t getting any programme info for a number of channels so tried a re-tune. I’ve now lost all of the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV Channels except BBC4!
CAn anyone explain this?
I have a Daewoo which was working perfectly well up till two days ago. I bought this box at £80 a couple years ago. I am very disappointed with this service and I believe that this is all about getting people to spend more money(like we don’t already) I am not sure what I will do now, whether i should just buy a digital tv or a new box set cause i dont want to be buying another one every other year :-(
My Tosumi TOMSTB01 occasionally stops displaying any information about programmes on some channels. Cure is a quick rescan. Or was, first rescan lost everything on BBC ITV and C4. Reset to manufacturers defaults and scan lost everything.
Anyone got Dawoo’s UK address? – maybe we should all send out now worthless boxes back to them – they might (NOT!) get the picture then.
GOT SONY idtv KD32DX150U ALSO HAVING PROBLEMS SINCE TRANSMITTER UPDATE.(CRYSTAL PALACE).NOT ABLE TO RETUNE, NOW WORRIED IF I TRY AGAIN IT MIGHT STOP WORKING ALTOGETHER.
Have also complained to Watchdog about my Setpal set-top box from Daewoo becoming obsolete without warning or compensation.
I think they should provide free set-top boxes to whom have been affected, surely its a breach of trading standards?
The Mail printed my name with regards my Complaint regarding Daewoo and some of the comments { Re ‘ split NIT ‘ }
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044291/Up-250-000-TV-screens-blank-upgrade-leaves-Freeview-boxes-obsolete.html
Daewoo have put their foot in it as they claim ‘The two boxes from Daewoo that were affected were made before the digital tick logo, which set a standard for digital TV (in 2004).
Which sounds fair enough except I have proof on my Computer that the Daewoo SV900 did not go on sale in the UK until February 2004
I am still annoyed it all could have been avoidable if they had allowed a default switch as I did not want to update the list as I was happy with what I have .
Better to have 99 % than 100% of NOTHING.
..at least DAewoo are giving you something potentially back…I’ve got 2 labgears – one I stupidly rescanned…and is now a doorstop..the other one won’t stay stable and is poor…its only in the kitchen..
Pretty pieved about this… guess its “off to Asda to get a cheapo”
With regards Steve comment ‘ at least Daewoo are giving you something potentially back ‘
which would be true if they were willing to reset the units or offer a substantial discount but I don’t think a £ 10 reduction on a product I could Buy £ 20 Cheaper elsewhere is showing Good Faith.
Even if I was daft enough to buy a new Daewoo unit there is no guarantee that it will not self destruct in 2012 { the next time they mess about with the NIT }
All these Companies can get away with it because Consumers in Britain don’t protest enough.
My Daewoo SV900 has a Video Recorder but when I plug in a separate Feeview box it will not record as it claims ‘ There is no Channel’s set ‘ even although when the split NIT came about it could not handle the split so therefor it claims it cant find any Channel’s – So its a Catch 22.
I paid £ 130 in June 2004 and really a unit that has a life of four years is not what I would call Good Value.
There are others who bought it two years ago so they are worse of than me.
Actually the age of a unit is a smokescreen – they were making up their own standards and using cheap Buffers to make a few pence extra Profit.
I am sure anyone reading this thread will not buy any products from the Companies that have washed their hands of the whole affair.
I certainly will not be buying anything from Daewoo again.
Once Bitting twice Shy
—————-
By the way if their claim that only 1 % have been affected then it would not break their Bank Account by replacing all the units for free but I suspect they know that a lot more are affected so therefor unwilling to make that offer.
I have 4 Grundig GDT1000 one has v2.8,two have version 3.6 and one has v5.8 (including teletext +) the 2.8 works but some channels are mixed up, the two with v3.6 make a right mess off the channel numbers, the one on v5.8 works fine,I hope we get a OAD soon.In the mean time i’ve bought a Humax F2 FOX T (£49.95p freep+p at John Lewis Direct)as I don’t hold out much hope with Thompson/Grundig. My two Sagem IDT602 keep rescaning everytime I turn them on.The OLD Nokia Mediamaster (ex on digital) is as slow as it ever was but still works fine ! ! !
Sony are about to release an Over The Air software download to fix the acknowledged NIT problem on their IDTVs (including KD32DX150).
Deatais here
http://sonycic.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/sonycic.cfg/php/enduser/popup_adp.php?p_faqid=369&p_created=1216219189
Good for Sony but as my Daewoo claims there is no Channels even if there was a OAD for the Daewoo it would never see it .
With regards ‘ Dave’s ‘ two Sagem IDT602 they can be sorted.
Unplug both machines ‘ from the mains ‘ – wait a few Hours then plug them back in.
Go to BBC1 and search for new Channels and this time it will stop asking to rescan every few minuets.
———————–
The Humax F2 FOX T is a great unit its just a shame that other Companies did not stick to the standards.
Just to update you all my Labgear box is still working despite switching itself off last night. I did not accept the new channels when I switched it back on and it is fine. I would not have known that this was the right action to take if it not been for the helpful advice on this website so a big thank you to all. Why could’nt Freeview have given this advice?
Same problem here with a 200£ SAGEM box with 80GB hard drive.
I can’t believe those idiots didn’t bother making a page on one of their freeview channels warning us “NOT TO DO THE UPGRADE IF THE BOX IS OLDER THAN XXX ETC ETC…”
Does anyone know if there’s a way to go around this problem?
Hi there,
yep I’m another “victim” of a forced change with a Daewoo DS608P box. I was happily watching the Olympics on Friday 22nd via “The Red button” when there was a period of distortion of both sound and vision and a message appeared stating that the signal was weak and the Box recommended a re-scan, and then voila nothing!!
I find this shocking that nothing was publicised with regards this “known” problem, as I unfortunately don’t listen to Radio 2 or Five Live I didn’t hear the relevent broadcasts. However there was nothing in the local or national press as far as I’m aware. I was wondering if there is a recommended box that I could use via the RF channel as I have an old fashioned RF multicast ariel box, and it was good to be able to connect the old Daewoo box and “tune in” a channel as the digital channel for the various Televisions in the house without requiring a STB per TV. I have purchased a Bush DFTA16 box, but despite being advertised as having an RF loop, it needs a scart connection to work and rather than taking a sales persons advice, I was wondering if anybody else knows of a STB which will work via normal RF conectivity?
Many thanks and sympathies
Simon – I replied to your e-mail today – I would advise a ‘ Humax F2-FOX T ‘ which has a ‘ RF Modulator ‘ which is what you need –
so unlike a RF loop-through a on-board modulator with adjustable output channel – is useful for repeating the received Freeview channel to other rooms via coax cable.
Yes I agree they were bloody quiet over this problem but at least we can use this to our advantage and not buy anything from any Company who tried to wash their hands of the whole affair.
A copy of my message to Freeview. Don’t suppose it will get any action but I firmly belive quite a lot of Pensioners will be in the group affected and this is just another weight on their backs regarding the expenses they are expected to cover.
Copy
It is disgraceful that you have carried out this upgrade without making it backward compatible and informing people that it will happen or at least making some offer of recompense.
I was called by my 85 year old Mother complaining that she could not get her machine to work.
She is 3 hours journey from me and suffers greatly from Old age problems. She is house bound so depends greatly on her TV. She is also afraid of Technology so she was panicking. Thinking she had done something wrong I made the trip to her house to find that it just would not work. Not knowing about the changes you had made I decided to disconnect the machine and return home with it to see if I could work out the problem at home!.
Having searched the Internet for the machine and the problem I found that you had made these amendments which made the machines useless.
Thus you have made it a requirement for a new machine to be purchased to replace a perfectly operating one (less than 5 years old) which has been made useless by your actions.
This is an expense an 85 year old pensioner can well do without and the inconvenience you have caused is to say the least unacceptable.
The switch over to Digital is one which is likely to be very difficult for Pensioners to cope with (and accept) and the actions you have recently taken will certainly remove some of the trust in the systems in addition to giving the impression that there will be continuing expense to be accepted as a result.
We note you say only 2500 people have complained but we would ask how many have called out engineers etc because of your actions and how many are still trying to sort out the issue.
We fully believe that you have a responsibility to replace or refund the people involved for this absolutely disgusting set of actions you have carried out.
Perhaps the Government or trading standards people should be involved as there is a line of argument that the machines were sold but were unfit for the purpose as you do not expect to have to replace this sort of equipment in less than 5 years. TV equipment is now very reliable and for operators like you to change direction with NO regard to the inconvenience you cause is totally unacceptable. Maybe the government should review any licensing issues that may be in place to ensure that future occurrences of this type of thing are prevented or covered by a compensation package?
To ‘ John Perkins ‘ – Well done but I expect you will get the standard reply which points to everyone apart from themselves.
They have recently updated the link that takes you to
http://www.freeview.co.uk/features/transmission
but funny enough they have never admitted Sony had a problem although if that was true Sony would not have released the update for a selection of their IDTV’s but at least ‘ they did something ‘
Its a bit like ‘ Pass The Parcel ‘ as each Organisation will admit there was a problem but ‘ its nothing to do with us Governor ‘
I think you have highlighted a very important Specific problem.
There must be loads of OAP’s who don’t have a handy son/daughter to check out the problem and I bet some will call in repair men or think its their aerial is at Fault. Who knows how much is being spent to solve a problem that could have been sorted years ago.
We are now encouraged to buy ‘ digital tick ‘ equipment but none of us know how many years before that equipment becomes Obsolete.
We do know that the whole Country will be switched over but at this current time its not clear if units will still work when they add in a extra HDTV Multiplexes it may be the same as what happened over the split NIT.
At worst is shows a Huge Failure of Planning and someone should except Blame.
Take a look at http://www.berr.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html
It seems to me that as the split nit is part of the original Freeview spec that any manufacturer selling a Freeview box that did not conform to the Freeview spec is liable. Your claim however (up to 6yrs) is with the retailer who sold you the faulty goods. Suggest you all bombard your local trading standards for advice. If enough people do this then they are pretty likely to take action
Just as predicted they are blaming the Manufacturer and passing the buck to them.
Copy reply from Freeview
Thank you for contacting Freeview.
I am very sorry to hear that your mother has been adversely affected by the transmitter changes.
As you may already have seen from our website, the transmitter changes made by Digital Multiplex Operators Ltd (DMOL) were necessary to support the ongoing expansion of the digital terrestrial television platform and the Freeview service. These changes were entirely in accordance with the DVB-T standard for digital broadcasting. This standard has been in place
for many years and the vast majority of Freeview receivers and indeed Ondigital receivers, which predate Freeview, were designed and engineered to handle all aspects of the DVB standard. Unfortunately the software/firmware in some boxes, including your own, does not comply fully with the DVB standard and cannot handle the changed signal.
Freeview do not manufacture or sell digital boxes and our customers’ only recourse to compensation would be from the manufacturer or retailer of the obsolete equipment.
If you ensure that any replacement equipment you purchase carries the ‘digital tick’ logo, this is your guarantee that the equipment is fully compliant with the DVB standard and will work both now and during/after switchover.
Sorry once again that you have encountered this problem.
If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to
contact us by either calling us directly on 08708 809 980 seven days a week from 8.00am to 10.00pm, or again by email through
http://www.freeview.co.uk
Frank Burns
Team Manager
Freeview Customer Services
I have two Panasonic boxes rendered useless by this recent upgrade, some channels missing and others jumbled, e.g., Radio World Service on Channel 5 etc., etc., I know prices have come down but the Panasonics were expensive at the time in the region of £100. I’m just annoyed that we are expected to go out and buy another box !
You can add Segam to the list of BRICKS. Speaking to the technical support, they will take you through the process, but they know the box is a BRICk as soon as you mentoin the problem. Segam as always doesn’t give a stuff about it.
I heard from Panasonic today who said to restore to the factory settings and rescan which I had already done, but I still get the jumbled and missing channels.
I should have added that we were completely unaware of all of these upgrades until the box was rescanned two weeks ago but the message was appearing about new channels a week or so before. If I had known I wouldn’t have rescanned the box. The signal is picked up from the Mendip transmitter.
we have been having abit of problem for few months with our “digilogic dstb1000 (Bought in tescos few year ago!!)which might be labgear in diguise?,anyway kept asking me to update e.p.g all the time, then last week it just did not come on completely dead tried fuses etc ,but nothing at all ,wish someone had warned us about downloads,i could have stopped them and maybe box might not be going to landfill!!
This is a Right mess and its a shame that No one wants to admit its their fault.
One thing is certain – its not the Consumers fault.
Anyone who checks out the main Messages boards will see that right across the UK this is a major problem and not the 1 % they Claim .
How many people have been affected I have to admit ‘ I don’t Know ‘ – at least I have the balls to admit that but Freeview don’t have a clue either.
This has damaged Confidence in the freeview system and its all a matter of luck if you are affected or not.
One has to wonder what other so called improvments is in the pipe line.
My BT iplayer and others on Tacolneston transmitter. lost BBC1 yesterday. Coud be that iPlayers are also on the brick list. Very sad as there’s no prospect of a firmware update and there is nothing on the market that will do DTV and web access.
if you have a machine that is affected by the NIT Split once it has been updated – that’s it – You don’t have any Channels at all.
Seeing freeview only claim a very limited number of units are affected its difficult to know what units have been ‘ partly ‘ affected and what effect this has been having.
Clearly if your machine was working normally and on the day of their so called enhancements it starts acting funny then something is wrong.
If you have a box that is switched to ‘ update manually ‘ then you would be wise not to take the risk.
Most people who were caught out did not have the option to switch off automatic updates .
As I wrote before its far better having 99.9 % of Something than 100 % of NOTHING
I own two Daewoo DS609P receivers. Both of these have stopped receiving DVB-T Freeview TV. Having contacted Freeview, Daewoo, DMOL, and Digital UK, all parties apologise for the inconvience, but are not willing to offer any form of compensation. Daewoo correctly state that the units were supplied at a time when the original system operated as specified. However, now that the transmission system has been ‘upgraded’ to accommodate more channels and interactive TV, these models no longer operate. Really well advertised!
This leaves me with the no choice but to ditch the units to the landfill! The equipment cost about £150 for the two at the time. Looks like I’ve been well and truly had over.
Can anyone tell me if the two Panasonic TU-CT20 boxes I own should have coped with these upgrades please ? They were purchased in 2003 and are marked DVB-T. I’ve tried clearing all the channels again today and rescanning but to no avail. In my case the channels are scrambled and some are missing.
One of the boxes was £100 and the other was £50 when purchased with a Panasonic TV.
Re ‘ Ian’s ‘ message – if you check my post above ‘BRIAN CARSON : July 31st, 2008 at 2:01 pm ‘
You will see that if you complain ‘ louder ‘ to Daewoo they will offer a discount but seeing there is no guarantee that their current units will not go the same way as their older units ‘ Once bitten twice shy ‘
One second they say the box was DVB Compliant and then they say it was DVB-T Compliant so really they are as Confused as Customers .
It was just the luck of the draw – Units I bought ‘ two years ‘ before the Daewoo are still working so really it was just pure ‘ penny pinching ‘ and they are not admitting they are at fault –
My Daewoo SV900 cost me £ 130 so it was not a cheap unit so if they can wash their hands over that { and other units built by Daewoo } then they can wash their hands over units bought today so really I will not being buying Daewoo again.
Offering a £ 10 discount is just a insult.
Brian I think you might find this particular thread of interest to you …
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1101561
For those with boxes that have stopped working but have sufficient memory to handle split nit there a bunch of OTA updates coming up so check the list before ditching the box
http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/download_schedule.pl
To ‘ Graham Thompson ‘ – I am afraid you don’t appreciate that all affected units claim there is no Channels so therefor it does not matter how many OTA updates that becomes available it will be impossible to update any locked unit.
Its like shutting the stable door after the Horse has bolted.
With regards ‘Anne’s ‘ message.
Now I have encountered this problem before where someone claims to have a full refund but when you contact the Company they hide behind the DPA { Data Protection act }
Amazon were using the DPA years ago when a Box set was incorrectly priced so some Customers were sold the box set at the cheaper price but other Customers had their orders cancelled when they worked out how much they would be losing.
After a few weeks some people were refunded the difference but other Customers were told they could not get a refund.
This went on for Months and unless a person was willing to take them to court they can do what they want.
‘ CitySlicker ‘ had one thing going for him – he had a Journalist who had already contacted Daewoo on his behalf.
Although The Mail picked up on the story and they quoted some of my words at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044291/Up-250-000-TV-screens-blank-upgrade-leaves-Freeview-boxes-obsolete.html
its now a dead story so I don’t think it will be all that easy.
Anyway Anne thanks for your concern its just a pity that Commercial Companies don’t have the Customers welfare in their mind.
Well I have taken advise from “CitySlicker” – he got a free replacement from Daewoo–and have sent proof to them that I own a now useless DS608P.
For them to issue a free replacement is an acceptance of liability.
I urge all people with now useless equipement to approach the manufactures and demand replacements .
It isn’t the money – the boxes are cheap enough – it’s the principle.
Regards
“it’s the principle” – I thoroughly agree with you Kev.
its one thing to ask for a free replacement its another to receive one.
Daewoo now claim at
http://www.bignewsday.com/story.asp?code=DY1352600U&news=more_than_200000_tvs_scuppered_by_upgrade
“Judging by the number of calls we have received, we think tens of thousands of our customers are affected and we are trying to help them.”
Sadly my unit cost £ 130 and they don’t make a equivalent model and i reckon they are not going to make free replacements without a big fight.
Who on this board has ‘ received ‘ a free replacement ?
Maybe not here but track down “City Slicker” elsewhere.
You mentioned his name in a previous post.
Regards
There are two problems with a split nit. Some boxes will continue to work but are missing channels. These usually have sufficient internal memory to accomodate split nit but need updated firmwares. The other boxes do not have enough memory so will never handle the epg. If you have a dead box you can try a factory reset and a manual tune to receive a limited number of channels
Factory reset does not work.
Even though there is a part of the menu that gives a signal strength and quality another part of the menu says no signal being received and to “check the aerial”.
It scans and pauses just like it used to do when finding something but never shows any channels.
If the aerial is disconnected then it does not pause when scanning – obviously !
There is no manual tune on the DS608P.
It clearly states on the last page of the manual “FULLY DVB COMPLIANT”
Regards
The ‘ estimate ‘ they use is around 230,000 boxes but that is a load of Rubbish.
Lets face it ‘ they don’t know how many are affected and THEY DON’T CARE ‘
By the way if their claim that only 1 % have been affected then it would not break their Bank Account by replacing all the units for free but I suspect they know that a lot more are affected so therefor unwilling to make that offer.
If Companies had made it clear to CUSTOMERS before they bought whatever that the units they were selling were not a 100 % Compatible then at least we would know.
I own units far older than the two units affected and they have not been affected so clearly someone is rewriting History.
One second they claim units had to be 100 % compatible with the DVB standard and now they are claiming it had to be 100 % compatible with the DVB T Standard.
Now they are hiding behind the ‘ digital tick ‘ standard as they know fine well that only came out a few years ago.
They are moving the Goalposts to suit themselves.
When will Freeview give out a full list of all affected units ?
Once your box has given up the Ghost you can do a factory reset until your Blue in the face it will not solve the problem.
I’ll keep everyone informed of any Daewoo progress, or not, as the case may be.
Brian Carson – what did Daewoo say to you?
If it was a guy called Adam Mugford then get in touch with a different one — colin.millard@desuk.co.uk — he’s the guy who arranged for City Slicker’s free replacement.
Regards
To Kev – your right my first few contacts was with adam.mugford@desuk.co.uk
and at first he was blaming me for buying the unit. { as I should have had a crystal ball to know when the standards were changing }
I really went to town on him as clearly something has gone wrong – after a few e-mails he offered a £ 10 discount but now I have a new contact person I can jump all over him –
I now can go to town on colin.millard@desuk.co.uk
Thanks for the e-mail address – I will keep you posted as to what they offer.
Brian Carson.
If you have not done so already look for the posts by City Slicker on the digitalspy terrestrial forum.
It will be intresting to see what Mr Colin M has to say.!
Regards
sorry to hog the board but while looking for the serial number I discovered the Daewoo VCR/Digital Receiver SV900 claims to be DVB-T Compliant.{ as does a sticker on the unit }
Now seeing Daewoo was offering a discount on some units that were also DVB-T Compliant they do appear to have got a bit teletubby confused.
Now we have a person colin.millard@desuk.co.uk who may be able to replace daewoo units for free it make sense to make his day and get in touch with him.
Clearly point out its a DVB-T Compliant unit so should not have been affected by the recent changes.
Good luck
Pity that the https://www.frequencycast.co.uk/freeviewlandfill.html
page does NOT mention BBC/ITV FeeSat as an option for those having to buy new hardware anyway!
Why only line the pockets of Murdoch or Branson!
Further to my purchase of the Humax F2FOX-T, I’ve had this box for 3 weeks now and apart from being a bit more sensitive I don’t think it’s a patch on my old Grundig GTD1000 with the v5.3 firmware that is still working fine. The Grundig will keep the present program on while I can scan through the 7 day prog guide with extended info,and had Teletext Extra. The Humax box just shows the guide in silence with now and next extended info. I can only hope I can find a repeat of the update to make the other 3 Grundig units usable without having to keep a list of channel numbers by the remote.Regarding Brian Carsons suggestion on the Sagem boxes I think my 2 are a bit to old,I looked on Sagems site and they suggest the same remedy but again it seems to be aimed at an later firmware version.
This whole episode is turning into a right mess ! and just as the powers that be are trying to get the public convinced about digital T.V.
P.S The Grundig GDT1000 (got it right this time) is marked DVB but also has in the other corner of the front panel FTV (FREE TO VIEW) with the V as a digital tick !!!
And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I found this gem on http://www.dvb.org/
DVB Steering Board ratifies DVB-T2 specification for second generation DTT Transmission (June 30th)
A DVB press release issued today confirms the approval last week of the new DVB-T2 specification. The specification, which will now be sent to ETSI for publication as a formal standard, promises 30% to 50% increase in capacity over DVB-T in equivalent reception conditions. It is available for download as a DVB BlueBook.