Mainstream broadcaster Five was set to launch its HD channel on the Freeview platform later this year, but it’s just been announced that the regulators have withdrawn Five’s Freeview HD licence.

It seems that Ofcom has been chasing Five for information about their plans and schedules for the Five HD service, and these have not been forthcoming, a clear indication that Five is not in a position to launch an HD offering any time soon.

It appears that the HD licence now reverts to the BBC. In 2011, another Freeview HD slot will be up for offer, so in theory if Five can get it together, they could apply for a licence then, and start broadcasting in 2012.

A quick heads-up to anyone looking to buy a Freeview HD box. You could opt for the Humax Fox T2, priced £150 – or save yourself £50 and go for a Bush Freeview HD box.

This Freeview HD box is available for £99.99 on pre-order, with estimated availability on 31st March 2010

Full details: Bush DVB680 at Argos

Two new Freeview HD Tv sets have gone on sale today at Comet.co.uk. The Sony KDL32EX403U (32 inch) and Sony KDL40EX403U (40 inch) Freeview HD sets use the Bravia engine for top picture quality, support 7 day EPG, have a built-in Freeview HD receiver and support “full” 1080p HD resolution.

Available today for a reasonable £549 (32 inch) or £749 (40 inch) from www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet

More on Freeview HD

A few days ago, we announced the arrival of the first Freeview HD set-top box, the Humax HD Fox-T2. Mere days later, we’re able to announce the first integrated TV with Freeview HD.

The Panasonic TX-P42G20B has built-in Freeview HD and Freesat HD receivers. It’s a 42 inch plasma TV that goes up to 1080p resolution, with a refresh rate of 600Hz. An optional wirelss dongle offers Internet access, and there’s an SD card to let you view photos and videos.

The Panasonic TX-P42G20B Freeview HD TV set

The Panasonic TX-P42G20B is available now in the UK from Comet.co.uk

For a limited time, get £60 by using the code AW60 at the online checkout. Code expires 27 Feb 2010.

The race to get the first Freeview HD receiver to the UK market has been won – by Humax.

The Humax HD Fox T2 is now available, offering subscription-free access to BBC HD and ITV 1 HD.

The Humax HD Fox T2 has an 8-day EPG, HDMI socket, 2 x SCARTs, Dolby Digital Audio Output plus Subtitle and Audio Description support. It has a USB socket for playback of xVid, MP3 and JPG from a conected memory stick or external drive. It supports contents sharing with other devices such as PC and NAS through Home Networking, and has an Ethernet port for connection to online services as BBC iPlayer (coming soon).

It’s important to note that at the moment, Freeview HD is only available in the Granada and London regions.

The Humax HD Fox T2 is on sale now, but hard to find. We’ve listed online suppliers and the best prices on our dedicated Fox T2 page.

More details, photos and specs at http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/humaxhdfoxt2.html

UPDATE: Our podcast team has released an audio file of their first impressions. Take a listen at Humax HD Fox T2 First Impressions

Freeview has just launched its first iPhone app, offering access to TV listings for over 50 Freeview channels, including BBC HD and ITV 1 HD.

The Freeview HD App includes a “top ten channel list”, a powerful search option, the ability to re-order your channels, and access to Freeview’s Twitter feed for news and programme recommendations.

When you view a listing, you’re also presented with “if you like this, we also recommend”, which throws up some rather interesting results on occasion!

An odd choice to call it “Freeview HD” when Freeview HD’s availability is currently so limited, but this may mark the start of Freeview’s big push to increase HD awareness.

All-in-all, a well designed and powerful little app, great for iPhone and iPod Touch wielding Freeview fans.

“Freeview HD for iPhone” is available for free from the iTunes App Store

Our podcast lads have been hard at work again, and a new audio podcast has just been released.

Catch up on the latest with Freeview HD, the new BT Vision box, more HD channels, some Freesat updates, plus your latest email feedback.

Listen online or download the update from www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html. Or, if you have an iPod or iPhone, get us from the FrequencyCast Podcast page on iTunes.

Two new channels have just been added to the Freeview line-up, to co-incide with today’s launch of Freeview HD:

• BBC HD – Channel 50
• ITV1 HD – Channel 51

These channels have been added to the lineup for Crystal Palace, London. We also expect these to be added to Winter Hill (Manchester/Granada) shortly.

As a reminder, there are no Freeview HD receivers on the market in the UK capable of watching Freeview HD. Freeview HD will only be available in the London and Granada areas initially, and ITV1 HD is not set to launch until early next year.

More on Freeview HD on our Freeview HD section.

Our latest free podcast is out – Take a listen to our December edition of FrequencyCast.

FrequencyCast covers Digital TV in the UK, and in this show we look atthe upcoming launch of Freeview HD, an update on Freesat and the iPlayer and other TV and tech news.

In this new show, also look at wireless hotspots, a new kind of magical TV remote control, and a desktop Chumby. We also answer listeners emails, texts and podline calls.

If you’ve not tried FrequencyCast yet, please give us a try. Our shows are free – you can listen online, or download shows to your iPod, MP3 player or desktop computer.

The latest show is available now from http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html

Got iTunes? Add FrequencyCast to iTunes.

We hope you enjoy our Decemeber show!

Setanta Sports used to offer subscription to those with a Freeview TV or set-top box. Those with a Freeview TV needed something called a CAM, which is a metal card that slides into the TV set and accepts a subscription card.

Setanta used to sell these cards to customers. When Setanta ceased to offer their service in the UK, ESPN took over to offer a sports service to the UK, but they didn’t offer a CAM to customers. This left many potential ESPN subscribers scouring the net for old Setanta Sports CAMs

Until recently, viewers had to resort to EBay to get an old Setanta CAM, but a month or so back it became possible to get a suitable CAM direct from Top Up TV, who manage the UK ESPN subscriptions.

Now, ESPN CAMs are much easier to find, and you can pick one up quite cheaply online from Laskys.co.uk. These kits come with a CAM and subscription card (plus a month’s free ESPN).

For more details on getting a CAM for your Freeview TV, see our ESPN CAM page.

The BBC has just released their official timetable for the rollout of Freeview HD.

Manchester and London will be getting Freeview HD at the start of December, as the Winter Hill and Crystal Palace transmitters get the upgrade – although there are unlikely to be any set-top boxes available on the market at the time of launch.

The Freeview HD rollout has been accelerated with an advance network to allow Freeview viewers in London, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds, Bradford and Birmingham to get Freeview HD by the end of March 2010, with 50% of the UK able to get HD by the end of June 2010.

Freeview’s Managing Director, Ilse Howling, said: “This is great news for the millions of Freeview homes and viewers who are looking forward to getting high definition with no subscription next year.”

For the full Freeview HD timetable, see our Freeview HD Information section.

It’s been announced that from ‘early 2010′, a number of Sky channels will be available on Freeview… soft of.

You may remember “Sky Picnic”, which was Sky’s proposed way of getting their pay-TV channels available to Freeview users. Picnic died about a year ago after trouble with the UK regulators.

Now, Sky over Freeview is back on the table, but this time through a link-up with UK firm IP Vision.

IP Vision are the firm behind the TV-over-Internet service Fetch TV. Their Smartbox 8000 (pictured) is a Freeview PVR that has an Internet connection. Fetch TV already offers a small selection of on-demand content, including content from the BBC iPlayer, and this week’s announcement will see Sky add their content to the Fetch TV offering.

Fetch TV 8000 Smartbox

According to Sky, Sky Player will be a standalone service on the Fetch TV box, offering a range of live TV channels (including Sky Movies, Sky Sport and entertainment channels). Existing Sky TV customers will be able to access a range of content for no extra cost based on their core subscription, whilst non-Sky customers will be able to sign up to a choice of TV packages via a monthly subscription paid directly to Sky.

More on Fetch TV on our Fetch TV section.

Wednesday 30th September, is National Freeview Retune Day.

If you’ve got a Freeview box or TV, you will need to retune sometime after lunchtime on Wednesday to ensure that you have all of the channels. This also affects you if you have BT Vision or Top Up TV.

Reception changes

Many Freeview users in some parts of the UK have struggled to get Five. Part of the changes mean that Five to be available to around half a million extra homes, but those homes may no longer get ITV3 and ITV4 as a result of the change.

The 5% of homes that have completed the Digital Switchover will also find that the BBC radio stations have moved, and many in North Devon and West Cornwall will see some other channels disappear until they retune.

New channels:

Quest documentary channel on channel 38

Freeview channels renumbering:

The following channels will be changing channel number: Price-drop TV, Super Casino, Rocks and Co, Smile TV2, Babestation and Partyland. You’ll find the new lineup, as we understand it, at www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewchannels.html

How do I re-tune?

The changes are expected to be completed at transmitter sites by lunchtime on Wednesday the 30th, and you should rescan for channels as soon as possible after lunchtime, to make sure you can still get all of the channels.

Each Freeview TV or-top box is a little different, so the process is different for each manufacturer. In general, this will mean going into the Freeview menu, and looking for an option like “Channel setup”, “Tuning”, or “Scan for Channels”. BT Vision users should select BT Vision > Settings > TV Settings > Add channels,

If you need help rescanning for channels, see the instructions at www.tvretune.co.uk or you can call the automated National Freeview Retune helpline on 08456 05 11 22. You can also ask for help in our Freeview forum

More on retuning: www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewhelp/retune.html

Good luck everyone!

Thousands of Freeview set-top boxes in Scotland have suddenly become obsolete, after a transmitter upgrade. The same thing happened in the Birmingham area a couple of months back.

Affected boxes include: Daewoo DS608P , Daewoo SV900 , Labgear DTT100 , Portland DP100 and the Triax DVB2000T, which apparently lack enough internal memory to hold the full list of Freeview channels.

The story broke in the Daily Record 5 July 2008, and includes a quite from this site.

There are believed to be between 200,000 and 350,000 affected boxes in the UK, and as the transmitter networks get upgraded ready for the Digital Switchover, more and more boxes are set to beome landfill fodder

Show 26 of FrequencyCast, our online radio show, has just been released.

In this show, we cover the BBC iPlayer, Virgin Media, new Freeview channels and news of FreeSat. We also take a look at the Eee PC, try a new Wii game, and talk surge protectors, iPhones and much, much more.

Download Show 26 direct to your MP3 player, or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html

Got iTunes? Play, download or subscribe: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=142899029

Share and Enjoy!

Finally, High Definition looks set to come to Freeview. UK Regulator Ofcom has announced that we can expect up to four high-definition digital TV channels to be delivered via a TV on Freeview as soon as 2009. One of these four channels will be offered to the BBC, with the other three reportedly up for tender.

The space for these channels will be freed up by getting the existing Freeview services to shift to a new transmission standard called DVB-T2, make of MPEG-4 compression technology, combined with some channel reshuffling. These changes are expected to happen side-by-side with each TV region’s digital switchover programme, so it won’t be until 2012 that all 4 Freeview HD channels are available across the whole UK

It’s expected that viewers will need to get a new Freeview box to get HD, but existing boxes will continue to work for non-HD Freeview channels.

More on UK HD