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Sony AF8 and Freeview

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cjowen
Explorer

Sony AF8 and Freeview

Had my 55" AF8 installed today by JL.

I have been left with YouView but cannot see how to access Freeview which I often watch in preference to Sky because of superior subtitles.

The set is advertised as having Freeview but I can't find it. Can anybody help please?

 

3 REPLIES 3
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royabrown
Enthusiast


@cjowen wrote:

Had my 55" AF8 installed today by JL.

I have been left with YouView but cannot see how to access Freeview which I often watch in preference to Sky because of superior subtitles.

The set is advertised as having Freeview but I can't find it. Can anybody help please?

 


YouView is an alternative UI that actually brings you all the Freeview channels, in the usual Freeview sequence. Take a closer look, and you will see that that is the case.

 

It also provides you the full set of major channel catchup apps, plus Discover and Search facilities on the programmes it covers. And the EPG goes a week backwards as well as the usual week forwards, and you can watch programmes that are marked as available to watch, in the backward EPG, just by clicking on them, when the relevant player will start and automagically show you the chosen programme.

 

However, some people just don’t like it, some find it slow to respond, some want to record programmes to HDD, which it does not support, and some want to rearrange the channels and have Favourite channels, which it also does not support.

 

To reach the FreeView interface instead, though, look in the FAQ at the top of this forum, where the instructions are given as the first entry under Android-Specific, a category  very near the top.

 

You will lose the itv Hub and the All4 players (though a search of this forum for Hosadiq will show you a way of getting them back, I am told), and certainly lose the backwards EPG, but you will gain the other features mentioned above as only available on the Freeview side.

 

But if you find none of these compelling, and you find that after all you would like the Freeview channels brought to you with the YouView UI and features, just reverse the switching procedure, and go right back to YouView. Noting that you can, actually, skip the retuning step, which makes moving between the two UIs as easy as Gary Sparrow time-travelling.

 

YouView Superuser, but not an employee of YouView, nor retained by them for this purpose. It's purely me speaking
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cjowen
Explorer

Thank you royabrown that is most helpful. Perhaps I'll persevere although the YouView picture doesn't seem as good as Freeview on my old telly, perhaps it's the new TV!

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royabrown
Enthusiast

@cjowen

 

The picture should be equally good (or bad) on YouView and Freeview.

 

But what you will find is that your new Sony TV will really show up the shortcomings of SD (Standard Definition).

 

Try an A/B comparison of one of the the HD channels 101 to 105 with its SD counterpart 1 to 5, and see if the HD version doesn’t blow your socks off :heart_eyes:

 

YouView Superuser, but not an employee of YouView, nor retained by them for this purpose. It's purely me speaking