# Best freeview box (with RF mod)?



## cleudo (Apr 7, 2002)

I've ditched my Sky sub - (way too expensive) and will have Freesat by midnight tonight.

Family rebellion looms, however, at the lack of E4, More4, ABC1 etc... so I thought I'd add on a Freeview box in a dual setup.

I understand that I need a freeview box with RF mod to feed the RF input on the Tivo, so can anyone recommend a box currently on sale, that's stable, handles the cbeebies changeover, with said output?

Other than that.. has anyone heard of anyone modding a tivo to feed in AV into the circuit board in place of the RF demod?

thanks,

Jim


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Quite a few here seemed to say good things about the Wharfedale 832BN box from Argos, although others say it has issues with sound glitches. Anyhow Argos have now deleted it from their website although when I was in a high street Argos on Monday they still had four of these boxes in stock.

You can read the reviews on all Freeview boxes at:-

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/reviews/

I can recommend the BT (Netgem) IPlayer+ for stability and features (built in web browser and email client +keyboard as well as being a Freeview box) if it has the last software release if you can find one on Ebay.

There is no magic bullet Freeview box unfortunately as the only Freeview box to ever get rave reviews from Sony has an issue with getting stuck on the timeshare channels like BBC Three and Four showing an off air screen from CBeebies and CBBC. Sony only seem to expect you to use the box for live viewing (where this wouldn't be a big deal) rather than with a Tivo or with another hard drive recorder.


----------



## cleudo (Apr 7, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Quite a few here seemed to say good things about the Wharfedale 832BN box from Argos
> 
> BT (Netgem) IPlayer+ for stability and features .


I don't think either of those has an RF output though Pete... (the netgem seems to have an RF passthrough).

Do you know of any with RF modulator?


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cleudo said:


> I don't think either of those has an RF output though Pete... (the netgem seems to have an RF passthrough).
> 
> Do you know of any with RF modulator?


I use my Netgem with an external RF modulator I feed the Scart signal into before it then goes to the aerial socket on the Tivo. But of an expensive option though by the time you have bought both.

Try the following for RF-Modulator Freeview boxes.

www.pricerunner.co.uk/sound-and-vis...a_3163=&a_4327=&a_2345=&autofilter=on&filter=


----------



## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

The Daewoo SetPal is easily the best box. Three reasons
1) RF modulator
2) Brilliant Tuner (still works where others won't)
3) You can disable MHEG - no more "PRESS RED" daubed over all your recordings
4) You can disable auto update - if you ever record programs in the small hours of the morning, this is a godsend
5) Fanatical devotion to the ...... Wait.... I'll come in again.

Worth scouring ebay for - like TiVo it's now an enthusiasts product.


----------



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

terryeden said:


> The Daewoo SetPal is easily the best box. Three reasons
> 
> 2) Brilliant Tuner (still works where others won't)
> 
> >>snip<<


My mate got a LabGear SetPal from Ebay £25 that works fine with his set top aerial in his bedroom. Gives perfect digital reception despite the analogue picture being mostly snow.


----------



## cleudo (Apr 7, 2002)

Thanks. Labgear or Daweoo seems to be the ones to go for then.

Jim


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cleudo said:


> Thanks. Labgear or Daweoo seems to be the ones to go for then.
> 
> Jim


Other users seem to have had issues with them in the past though.


----------



## Fred Smith (Oct 5, 2002)

Any of the six Setpal models should be fine. My two Labgears are fine (one in daily since new use with my TiVo). Just make sure the firmware is as late as possible and at least 0059 or later. The first 0050 will green screen with at regular intervals. The latest and last firmware was 0157.


----------



## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

Any advance on this thread?

Its actually quite hard to source a decent freeview box with the ability to output the Digital channels on RF rather than Scart. The reason being most feature & specification pages might state it has RF IN & OUT but not whether its only an RF through port.

I have a couple of Echostar boxes which are pretty reliable, they are good quality, don't need restarting but unfortunately only have RF through and I now need to change one of my Tivo configurations to a Dual Source.

Regarding the last but 1 message above, I thought the SetPal boxes only had RF through also?????


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

healeydave said:


> Any advance on this thread?
> 
> Its actually quite hard to source a decent freeview box with the ability to output the Digital channels on RF rather than Scart. The reason being most feature & specification pages might state it has RF IN & OUT but not whether its only an RF through port.


Dave,

I'm rather surprised to hear that a Tivo expert such as yourself would need to seek the advice of us lay Tivo using folk!  

However can I perhaps assist by directing you to:-

www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewboxes.html

This shows all the remaining Freeview boxes which have a modulator with the symbol "Mod" being shown against them. These are now precious few indeed but include the Humax F2-FOX T and Humax's two current Freeview PVRs (8000T and 9200T) the Hauppauge DEC 2000T mini DTT box and perhaps surprisingly the top end BT Vision V-Box Freeview PVR/IPTV device and 
also the Topfield TF5800PVR. And that now seems to be it amongst a total of over 50 different current Freeview devices in the marketplace. But as all of the Freeview PVRs with an RF modulator have potential conflict issues in also being used to serve as a Tivo program source that leaves you with only the Humax F2-FOX T, which has been out for absolutely ages but is allegedly still available.

Otherwise you are left with one of the older boxes supporting an RF Modulator such as any OnDigital box.

Your only other alternative is to buy a separate Scart to RF Modulator converter box (there are quite a few different ones for sale on Ebay). I have one such converter serving my Netgem I-Player as a secondary Tivo program source via RF but after a year or so of being left on 24/7 the Scart to RF modulator box blew a diode somewhere and the signal now outputs with a high pitched whine on the sound. I have been meaning to get round to replacing it for ages but haven't done so thus far.....................


----------



## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

Hi Pete,
I have spent a good few hours trying to find "current" production set-top-boxes with RF Modulator and indeed found the resource you mentioned above. I also came to much the same conclusion as yourself. I think the Humax F2 Fox T box looks like a good option. 
I also think the Hauppauge DEC 1100T looks an interesting box, I'm thinking I could mount this inside one of my Tivo's and run it off the 12v spare HDD connector 

A post here is always worth it just in case I missed something or even better find someone using the same device one's thinking about and find they might confirm or deter 

Regs
Dave.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Dave,

Its certainly good to see you post here but I notice that you not seem to feel the need to post quite so frequently as your more Heavenly Tivo pre-configured hard drives rival.  

As all RF inputs to the Tivo record with a uniformly much inferior picture quality (even to one who finds RF Scart input recorded at Basic quite tolerable a lot of the time) one thought that did strike me was is if there is a way to hack the Tivo to tell it to look for all the Freeview channels on the Aux Scart socket in addition to the Sky Digibox channels.

Surely all that one then needs is a Scart combiner device but the problem comes with the fact that the Scart signal output from both the Sky Digibox and the Freeview box would then always be active (confusing the Auto Scart socket switch) and so the only way around this would surely be if one could attach a device to say the Serial port of the Tivo and develop a Tivo app to send instructions from the Tivo to the Scart switch to tell it which digital box source it should presently have selected to display?


----------



## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Beware of the 1100T. I got one at the same time as my TiVo (2002ish) and the TiVo was not able to control it. It also had a separate "radio" button which meant that, even if the TiVo could have controlled it, it wouldn't have been able to switch to any radio channels.

T


----------



## britcub (Jan 19, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> Your only other alternative is to buy a separate Scart to RF Modulator converter box (there are quite a few different ones for sale on Ebay). I have one such converter serving my Netgem I-Player as a secondary Tivo program source via RF but after a year or so of being left on 24/7 the Scart to RF modulator box blew a diode somewhere and the signal now outputs with a high pitched whine on the sound. I have been meaning to get round to replacing it for ages but haven't done so thus far.....................


Of course, one of the cheapest ways to get a 'Scart to RF Modulator converter box' is to buy (or bring out of retirement) a VCR.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

britcub said:


> Of course, one of the cheapest ways to get a 'Scart to RF Modulator converter box' is to buy (or bring out of retirement) a VCR.


A VCR has rather a high power consumption of at least 20W or more in On mode though, whereas my dedicated Scart to RF signal converter only used about 3W when it was working. I calculate the extra power consumption of a VCR at about £14 a year, assuming it only uses 20W and not more than that.


----------



## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

terryeden said:


> Beware of the 1100T. I got one at the same time as my TiVo (2002ish) and the TiVo was not able to control it. It also had a separate "radio" button which meant that, even if the TiVo could have controlled it, it wouldn't have been able to switch to any radio channels.


Hmmm, found my old post
http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101925

It was the Hauppauge 1000 - not the 1100T.

T


----------



## MrNoisy (Jun 5, 2002)

terryeden said:


> The Daewoo SetPal is easily the best box. Three reasons
> 3) You can disable MHEG - no more "PRESS RED" daubed over all your recordings
> 4) You can disable auto update - if you ever record programs in the small hours of the morning, this is a godsend


That's because some of the team that worked on the SetPal software had TiVos!


----------

