September 30th was National Freeview Retune Day. This was a reshuffle of channels proceeding the introduction of High Definition on Freeview. Despite it being widely trailed beforehand, the confused of the nation still caused the website explaining the changes to crash and were calling the Freeview helpline at a rate of 200 calls per minute seeking advice.
Its always going to be difficult to help everybody though a change involving so many different types of set top box and the technophobes as well as technophiles, but with digital switchover coming up fast its worth learning all the lessons we can.
One interesting concern I noted was the worry that a set top
box might not
work again after retune. The offending boxes were publicised on
the Retune website and linked to from the BBC News website, however they were
listed by model number. I was left thinking how many of us know the model
numbers of anything we own? I suspect that those who do are not the ones
needing any help retuning. It would be enormously helpful for most of us if
pictures of the offending boxes were provided so we could recognise them.
A picture would help us recognise our box more quickly than the list above
Another thing that caught my eye in the same listing was a category of set top boxes for “Products that have not received an OAD freeze when receiving the first multiplex.” A technically precise title no doubt, but one likely to have little meaning for a set top box owner or users of multiplex cinemas! The main question is do people need to buy a new set top box, or is there something they need to do to fix the current one?
Picture credits: TV retune website, Review Centre
Comments