So, here we are in June, almost July 2024, and there's just been an update to the Freeview service overnight (26-27th June 2024) and the Freeview channels I should be able to access as a resident in the UK (close to the Winter Hill, Lancashire/Greater Manchester mast) find that the overnight update has now "poisoned" the Freeview tuner format (as it did before in 2022) and I now have to tune my Sony DVD-RW RDR-HXD-870 to FRANCE, or some other country setting that allows it to work "partially" in the UK !! As the TV tuner is "dead" to all intents and purposes. You can't record anything other than manually, right then, right now, for however long the immediate record function will work for. As you cannot do a timed recording . . . as there is no TV tuner to use that functionality. All you get is access to the UK channels that are being transmitted there & then, anything that's on later in the day, evening, night you would have to wait up for if it is really on late at night and switch the record function on at the time the programme begins, and set the instant record function to cover that time period, which is not satisfactory at all !!
For about 12 to 18 months, apologies to all for not updating here that the problem I reported, was for me, and hopefully for anyone else affected by he same issue found it all having been fixed, (though it seems it was temporary right now) - by some means, as I don't know if Sony or the Freeview 'bods' had fixed what they had "well and truly messed up" and got it working correctly, with updates overnight working correctly and the tuner not "poisoned", with the digital TV guide functioning as it should, as it did when the device was new.!
That is because the 2022-2023 problem is back, so when I try to select a channel from the device's tuner, say channel 1 (BBC1) to channel 2 (BBC2) then (as the Digital Program Guide does not work - YET AGAIN, which I was over the interim period 2022-2023, though it was possibly early-mid 2023 when things were fixed (temporarily!) and thus allowed me to access all the usual Freeview channels, which has now been compromised YET AGAIN!
If the situation was fixed once then surely it can be fixed once more, BUT . . . why has it occurred yet again. Why can't these companies, Freeview and SONY get their communications sorted out so that they are aware that what they do needs to be done in a holistic way, so it does not compromise some users by creating this issue, that I had hoped had been fixed . . . never to rear its head ever again.
It really is very, very unsatisfactory!
I do have a variable and a set level attenuator but I have had no success with them at "curing" this "data poisoning" that Freeview have implemented overnight. I will try again, but it really is pitiful that a TV digital service provider (Freeview) CANNOT provide their service correctly!
In any case I should not have to be fiddling with attenuators from the distance I live from the Winter Hill mast, and if Freeview or the mast providers who provide the non-service (if it is they directly who are responsible for this farce) had not messed up, for the 2nd time, then I could use my device as I should be able to, as I did when it was new, but works as though it was new, it is just the service that has been compromised for a SECOND TIME!
