With the latest plans for the future of Freeview (TV) submitted to the GOV I was wondering what the alternatives to internet only TV on a boat or caravan will be.  With the potential switch off of TV channels for aerial or a satellite dish in the future, is there a viable alternative.  I have freeview via aerial at home and on the boat.  Home is easy to fix for a price, no doubt for a monthly subscription.  The change in freeview is still a few years off.  Replacing the diesel engine on the boat for an electric motor might be more pressing by then.

I only use streaming over the internet on the boat, much easier than repositioning and aerial or sat dish every day.  Cost £20 a month for unlimited data whilst on the boat.

ditch the TV

enjoy the countryside

Both Rob and Tonka's responses are the answer (or at least in our case!) 

 

NB mobile not-spots do occur but same happens with sat dish or terrestrial aerial, especially in built up areas.

As I understand it OFCOM proposed three possible options to the government regarding the future of Freeview. Either upgrade Freeview, reduce it to provide core public service channels only, or to phase it out in favour of IPTV. A decision hasn't yet been made, and although the BBC wants to to turn it off the government will make the final decision. 

 

Until we know for sure what option the government goes for, it's difficult to give any advice on alternatives as we simply don't know at this stage. If I was pressed to guess what might happen, judging by the furore when the BBC was about to turn off the red button text service which caused a reversal of that decision, I imagine they'll at least keeping Freeview going with basic core channels.   

Freesat looks like it will go once Sky drops off the satellite and goes fully online as there will not be the finance there to keep the satellite going.

I would think that with Freeview the HD stuff will disappear and we will be left with SD only.

I've ditched Freesat and have moved pretty much online when away from the house, still using terrestrial TV at home but less and less.

BTW Freeview and Freesat are I believe owned by the same company these days. 

I would think transmitters are very expensive to run, so there would be a push to get this all online?  This was certainly one of the arguments used by the BBC to drop the Radio Teleswitch service at Droitwich next month..... as well as parts!

2 hours ago, robtheplod said:

I would think transmitters are very expensive to run, so there would be a push to get this all online?  This was certainly one of the arguments used by the BBC to drop the Radio Teleswitch service at Droitwich next month..... as well as parts!

 

Oh yes, the BBC would be very keen to shut them down, as well as shutting down Freesat transmissions via satellite as it all costs a lot. 

 

But the government needs to consider the consequences of this, ie not being able to receive any TV unless you have some sort of internet subscription which is not ideal for the poorest in society. Hopefully the government will come to a balanced sensible decision!

11 hours ago, Rob-M said:

I only use streaming over the internet on the boat, much easier than repositioning and aerial or sat dish every day.  Cost £20 a month for unlimited data whilst on the boat.

I hate streaming anything other than the BBC. The others force you to watch adverts. I prefer to record things via the aerial onto a PVR. Then I can wizz through the adverts in 8 x fast forward.

adverts can be quite entertaining,

and there’s plenty we look back on (after a few decades) with some affection,

 

can’t thinking of many off top of me head at moment, 

 

there’s an advert I like where the bloke’s dancing about hoovering and doing house stuff,

then wife turns up and looks at him to say what you been doing all day. 
🤷‍♀️

I think he was left to sort the car insurance or something or other that proved so easy he had time to hoover and clean,

 

yes I think adverts can be more entertaining than a lot of the programmes 

5 minutes ago, 5239 said:

adverts can be quite entertaining,

and there’s plenty we look back on (after a few decades) with some affection,

 

can’t thinking of many off top of me head at moment, 

 

there’s an advert I like where the bloke’s dancing about hoovering and doing house stuff,

then wife turns up and looks at him to say what you been doing all day. 
🤷‍♀️

I think he was left to sort the car insurance or something or other that proved so easy he had time to hoover and clean,

 

yes I think adverts can be more entertaining than a lot of the programmes 

And many are quite dire. But yes, in the past there were some good ones. The Hamlet adverts were the best. I particularly liked the model submarine one.

1 minute ago, Alway Swilby said:

And many are quite dire. But yes, in the past there were some good ones. The Hamlet adverts were the best. I particularly liked the model submarine one.

It wasn't Hamlet it was Condor. youtube link

Some good ones. But only some. And then only once.

 

I still resent wasting about 15 minutes every hour with terrestrial TV though. So I avoid programmes with adverts as much as I possibly can.

14 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

And many are quite dire. But yes, in the past there were some good ones. The Hamlet adverts were the best. I particularly liked the model submarine one.

It wasn't Hamlet it was Condor. youtube link

Hamlet was Rab C Nesbit??

 

10 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

So I avoid programmes with adverts as much as I possibly can.

no adverts with Eastenders 👍 a 30min documentary of cockerney life,

 

2 hours ago, Alway Swilby said:

I hate streaming anything other than the BBC. The others force you to watch adverts. I prefer to record things via the aerial onto a PVR. Then I can wizz through the adverts in 8 x fast forward.

You can use a PiHole to automatically get rid of most of the ads on streaming platforms... 😉

 

(but we use a PVR too, with buttons to skip forward a minute at a time and back 15 secs)

3 hours ago, Alway Swilby said:

I hate streaming anything other than the BBC. The others force you to watch adverts. I prefer to record things via the aerial onto a PVR. Then I can wizz through the adverts in 8 x fast forward.

 

Ads are bearable if there are two of you. One goes to fetch the beer, or put the kettle on, or goes for a comfort break, while the other sits through the ads and presses "pause" when they are done.

 

Also, it may just be my imagination, but I think there are fewer ads when streaming (on ITVx, at least) than there are when watching live TV. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Ads are bearable if there are two of you. One goes to fetch the beer, or put the kettle on, or goes for a comfort break, while the other sits through the ads and presses "pause" when they are done.

 

Also, it may just be my imagination, but I think there are fewer ads when streaming (on ITVx, at least) than there are when watching live TV. 

 

 

I think you're right. We watch Channel 4 catch up a lot for The Last Leg, Formula 1 and Taskmaster and I'm sure the advert breaks are a lot shorter on catch up than when we watch them live.

Much as I prefer to watch without ads it's not the end of the world. It provides a wee / coffee break.

I would miss Freeview if it disappeared, I hadn't realised that might happen.

I'm one of the suckers that pays to stream ITV and Channel 4 ad free. A couple of pounds a month and worth it to avoid adverts. We very rarely watch live TV as it is transmitted any more.

I installed a microwave in the camper where the TV used to be.

Edited May 13, 20251 yr by Boaty Jo

22 hours ago, Rob-M said:

I only use streaming over the internet on the boat, much easier than repositioning and aerial or sat dish every day.  Cost £20 a month for unlimited data whilst on the boat.

 

£20/month is pretty expensive. Have you considered a prepaid data SIM? I paid £80 for about 16 months from Amazon but that's only for 500GB/month. You can buy unlimited prepaid data SIMs but 500GB is plenty for me.

 

5 hours ago, Ange said:

 

I would miss Freeview if it disappeared, I hadn't realised that might happen.

 

Me too, although I have a satellite dish on the boat rather than an aerial so watch Freesat. When's it all supposed to disappear? What about old people in homes without WiFi, what are they supposed to do? Isn't there going to be a pushback against this similar to the way banks have been forced to keep a number of branches open for people who don't do online banking?

Edited May 13, 20251 yr by blackrose

We only watch catchup services (cancelled our TV licence) and the adverts are shorter than if you watch live and very often non existent... they put the ad break up then it comes straight back, especially on older shows etc - i like other people to record everything and me choose what to watch...

 

You all forgot the best ad though..... the kitkat dancing panda!!  

 

Edited May 13, 20251 yr by robtheplod

12 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

We only watch catchup services (cancelled our TV licence) and the adverts are shorter than if you watch live and very often non existent... they put the ad break up then it comes straight back, especially on older shows etc - i like other people to record everything and me choose what to watch...

 

You all forgot the best ad though..... the kitkat dancing panda!!  

 

Clearly you don’t watch BBC catch up or any live broadcast on a catch up device then because you wouldn’t want to break the law now would you ?

Edited May 13, 20251 yr by Chris John

9 hours ago, IanD said:

You can use a PiHole to automatically get rid of most of the ads on streaming platforms... 😉

 

(but we use a PVR too, with buttons to skip forward a minute at a time and back 15 secs)

PiHole looks interesting. Looks like it needs a Rasberry Pi or similar to run on. Another bit of kit to find wall space for in an already crowded electrics cupboard. Unless it would run on my Victron Venus GX but I suspect that wouldn't be possible.

 

Our Panasonic PVR records "Chapters". When you get to an ad break press the skip to next chapter button and continue watching the programme.

I agree that streaming will force you to watch adverts, many of which I find to be irrelevant  boring, upsetting and offensive. Even the BBC are plugging their own shows and I cannot but feel this will get worse. Indeed, is there an appetite to pay the licence fee these days?

2 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

£20/month is pretty expensive. Have you considered a prepaid data SIM? I paid £80 for about 16 months from Amazon but that's only for 500GB/month. You can buy unlimited prepaid data SIMs but 500GB is plenty for me.

 

 

Me too, although I have a satellite dish on the boat rather than an aerial so watch Freesat. When's it all supposed to disappear? What about old people in homes without WiFi, what are they supposed to do? Isn't there going to be a pushback against this similar to the way banks have been forced to keep a number of branches open for people who don't do online banking?

To be successful, new technology has to be better functionality or cheaper price, or both if we are lucky. Hence, older stuff will usually be much more expensive, exacerbated by a declining user base. The figures in the OFCOM report underpinning their statement are quite surprising - a remarkably small proportion of viewers do so at the time of terrestrial broadcast, either using catch up or alternative streamers.

 

One of the changes has been the imminent removal of all analogue phone services to houses and so an ever increasing proportion of people will have wifi - whether they realise it or not! (The problem with the long wave services out of Droitwich was that there are no makers of the large thermionic valves involved and Droitwich had all (I thing, but certainly almost all) the remaining stock - I think in low single figures. Better to replace in a managed way rather than wait until a sudden closure when the last one gives up.

 

Lots of technology has died out in the past on the same basis and we just have to learn how to manage the changes as compassionately as possible. For the most part, I find that claims that all old folk cannot cope is just an excuse for parading as a luddite, more for fun than anything else, whilst oneself using the new opportunities. 

I imagine any switch off is at least 10 years away.

 

I think the OFCOM report projected that 27% of households would still be getting their TV through Freeview in 2040, so it seems likely the government will opt for some sort of half way house arrangement, at least for a while.