Freeview TV Aerial

[BunkMoreland]

Hi all.

Just visited my parents this evening and they were watching Sky News on Freeview. The picture quality was terrible. They don't have an aerial on the roof, so I suggested buying a nice one from somewhere like Amazon.

Quick peruse shows many on Amazon, but I'm sceptical of the ones advertised at £13 from brands I've never heard of that claim "4k picture quality" and seem to have 35K positive reviews!

Not looking to spend a fortune. Maybe £30 tops. They are about 6 miles in a straight line to their nearest transmitter tower so it shouldn't need to be the size of a beer fridge.

Any suggestions for a quality item gratefully received

[scorcher]

Do they have broadband? Buy them a Firestick

[Rough101]

A half decent one in the loft will be a great improvement if you can get a wire up there.

[Daz68]

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9501067?clickSR=sl...

Bought one of these and use it indoors. Works a treat.

[CorradoTDI]

As long as they have 70MB+ Broadband I wouldn't bother - just Roku stick and use the internet, not sure how long aerials will be around for

[nicanary]

I find it interesting that there's never been a roof aerial. Depends how old the house is, I suppose. There should be an aerial input socket on the wall in any house, there from when it was built. Freeview would have provided a co-axial cable with the set.

[clockworks]

scorcher said:

Do they have broadband? Buy them a Firestick

How does that work for live TV? Catch up services for all viewing?

Googling suggests there's a new service called "Freely", run by the company behind Frreview and Freesat. From what I can make out, it's a front end that brings together all the live feeds on various catch-up services, making channel hopping much easier.

Looks like it'll be the answer - eventually!
From what I can see, no "big name" brands offer it yet, just a handful of cheap TVs and some Chinese Android set top boxes.

For now, the only way seems to be faffing about with iPlayer, ITVX, etc. Possible, but who wants to waste a couple of minutes changing channels?

Shame they didn't manage to launch it widely for the Euros and Olympics, as it looks like the BBC is rolling out 4k via the "red button".

Edited by clockworks on Sunday 23 June 10:57