Wednesday 30 November 2011

8320HD's will need to be re-tuned next week

The dearth of 8320HD news has made me look at the wider Freeview picture and we have a new "terrestrial" channel coming up next week. Don't get too excited, it's just Channel 5+1 (yep, in glorious SD) turning up on Freeview on Tuesday 6th December.

This will require a re-tune of your 8320HD, because the box doesn't recognise any new channels (or moving around of existing channels) automatically - witness the utter fiasco of the last major channel launch - BBC One HD - which the 8320HD blissfully ignored until a re-tune. Don't be surprised if there's no EPG logo for Channel 5+1 either (which may require a firmware update to turn up).

I must question the usefulness of +1 channels to 8320HD owners who already have twin tuners for programme clashes. I also don't like the fact that sometimes the original channel has no onscreen logo and yet the +1 version does! As for Channel 5, it's a disgrace that they don't have Channel 5 HD available on Freeview HD and that's surely more important than another SD copy of Channel 5 shown only an hour later?