Freeview viewers: can you get Sky3, Film4, ITV Play?

Film4 and ITV Play are widely advertised as now available on Freeview - but actually a significant number of Freeview viewers probably won't be able to receive them.


Certainly in my house we have three aerials (Midlands, North West, Wales) and only the North West aerial picks up all Muxes, with the other two just picking up the first four.


I was going to make this a poll but it's probably easier as a discussion. So if you have Freeview, can you get all Freeview channels? Have you been able to improve reception with a new aerial or perhaps you can't get Freeview at all.


For those of you who aren't familiar with how it works, the Freeview channels are split onto six "mux's" as follows:

Mux 1: BBC1, BBC2, CBBC/BBC3, BBC News 24

Mux 2: ITV1/2/3/4, CITV, C4, E4, More4, Quizcall

Mux A: Five, S4C (Wales only), ABC1, Bid-TV, QVC, Price Drop TV, Top Up TV (with subscription)

Mux B: CBeebies/BBC4, BBCi (301,302, News Multiscreen on 303), BBC Parliament

Mux C: Sky Three, Sky News, Sky Sports News, E4+1, UKTV History

Mux D: UKTV Bright Ideas/FTN, Ideal World, The Hits, TMF, ITV Play, Film4 (previously More4+1, Big Brother Live on 305)


So just out of interest - and to see how many of you can't get all Freeview channels, tell us what you can and what you can't get!


Here I can get all muxes on one of our three aerials, with Mux C & D not available on the other two.

When I last moved house, all I could get was Mux's 1 and D on the existing 'grouped' aerial.

After having a new aerial installed, I now get all Mux's, although I get bad picture break-up from time to time on Mux 's 2 and B.

I'm getting the aerial people back at the weekend to try and sort it, as IMO they've made a crap job of the installation - cheap aerial, and just inches away from next door's aerial! Incidentally if anyone has any advice on dealing with aerial installers who will inevitably try to bullsh*t me, it'd be greatly appreciated.

On my old arial I could only get Mux1, then I bought a brand new arial and lead and all 6 come thru no problem

Wait until they are up the ladder, take a firm grip of the bottom and then bring up the issue!

Again, we have three regions (Granada, Central and HTV). Prior to 2000, we only had Central and when we signed up for ITV Digital we could only get muxes 1-B off The Wrekin, but unusually got mux D from Winter Hill (completely opposite direction). Eventually we switched over to Granada completely where we get all 6.
Never been able to get Welsh DTT; local relay provides analogue because of terrain, so not until 2009!

Again I've said this before - ensure that your aerial is an entire-band arial with a black plastic knub on the end - any other colour (Such as green or red) won't be adequate.

Alternatively pop down to Argos and get a small, 20 quid indoor aerial, which will work just as well - doesnt need installation, easy to adjust for different Muxes and transmitters, and best of all, you can take it with you if and when you move house.

I've always been able to get all channels upstairs on my Pace Freeview box but downstairs we have another Freeview box that only picks up a few channels (ITV, Ch4, radio etc) and the signal is always weak - even with new aerial/hi-gain cabling etc. It also recieves from a transmitter miles away from where I live.

While we're on the subject - sorry to hijack Brekkie's thread - if anyone knows how it can be improved let me know.

Last night had no end of trouble picking up anything at all that was being aired on Mux D. Managed to get a stable picture if I sat in a certain fashion though.

I seem to have no end of trouble with the Mux D channels. As things stand there's not a fat lot worth watching on the channels that uses this Mux (I can live without The Hits/TMF and everybody can live without Ftn ) at the moment, though that might change if Film4 airs something I might actually want to watch.

When we first got our freeview box I was unable to get Mux 2 (No Signal displayed on the box) and Mux B was very shaky aswell.

Becuase our family likes classical music (sad as it may sound, one of the key reasons for getting freeview was the extra proms concerts), we upgraded to a wideband aerial. This sorted Mux B most of the time, and on occasions Mux 2 would work aswell.

We called back the aerial company to see what they could do and they gave us this little box which apparently sends power up the aerial cables and helps with the signal (it wasn't just a booster, because we'd had one of them already). Since then we haven't lost any channels...

Sorry for the long post...

I can get all DTT muxes fine thorugh an indoor aerial, this depsite living on the relative fringes of reception fom Emley Moor, and Mux D being on 4kW when the others are at 10.

what is mux and muxes? also... is a DOG the logo in the corner of the screen?

You've been on this forum 3 and a half years according to your profile, you really should have picked these things up by now.