[picbits]

Well my foray into Freesat started earlier this week when I was so fed up of my Sky box telling me my card was about to expire that I got off my arse and set up a decent aerial in the loft for the MythTV setup I have. I spotted a Freesat package in B&Q for £40 so gave that a go.

Big mistake the box was cheaper than cheap, the remote was worse than cheap and there was a constant humming coming through from the TV on every channel. The even spelled the word "Guide" as "Gudie" in the menus

Needless to say this went straight back the next day. But I'd got the Freesat bug. I have a nice 42" 1080P telly so did a bit of research and found the Bush HD box. Not a bad price at £68 from Argos so reserved one and picked it up next day. I'd read good and bad things about it but the good seemed to outweigh the bad so thought it was worth a punt.

Got it home, plugged it in and it couldn't have been simpler. Everything set up without a problem, all Freesat channels were there and I watched the Memorial service in full HD.

Then I decided to put in the other FTA channels. What a faff !!! With this box (on this firmware) you have to put in each frequency seperately, H or V polarization etc etc. I got to my third frequency when the box froze.

No amount of turning on and off cured it, it needed the plug pulling out from the back.

Carried on and got another few channels entered before it froze again.

Another reboot

Then did a check on the firmware version. It was running on 1.4.44. The current (I think) version is 1.5.46

There is no way to force a firmware upgrade on these and it appears its not being broadcast at the moment anyway so I perservered with 1.4.44.

Manage to eventually get all the channels in. Couldn't find them anywhere though. Had a play and the only place to get hold of them is to press the channel list then swap. Woohoo all my channels were there.

But ........ the only way to get to them was to press the channel button, swap then use the up/down arrow to scroll through them. Once a channel was selected you could change through them on screen but this was less than idea. You couldn't add one as your favourite so if you wanted to watch a channel in the middle of the FTA then it could take 70-80 button presses to get to it.

Not ideal.

Then the box totally locked up, I had a black screen and nothing would happen.

Another reboot.

The kiddie has just got home and started flicking through channels - total loss of sound. Then total loss of programs - every channel came up with "no service"

Another reboot.

I have to say that I'm rather unimpressed with this box. You can't put in the FTA number to access a channel thats not on the Freesat list, to get to the FTA channels you have to jump through hoops - it takes a few minutes just to change a channel. There is no now/next on any FTA channels and the Freesat EPG seems slow to load/update and seems to reset itself constantly.

Currently toying with returning it to Argos and getting a Humax Foxsat HD instead (Grade A jobbie) for £22 more.

Are the Humax Foxsat much better on being able to access the FTA as well as the Freesat channels ? Can you add FTA as favourites ? Are you able to rearrange the channels to suit your viewing preferences (both FTA and Freesat ?)

Feeling rather like returning the box and waiting until there is more news on HD on Freesat before forking out extra money on two part time HD channels.

[Geofbob]

I also have the Bush box, & agree with most of your complaints about difficulties in navigating, especially with regard to non-Freesat channels. In these respects it is very inferior to my previous cheap & basic Fortec Star FTA box. However, my Bush has not frozen in the way that yours has, even when I've spent ages downloading - then mostly deleting - non-Freesat channels.

My software version is 1.7.48, which sounds as though it's later than the versions you quote, but may not be. After reading about problems following a recent upgrade, I've chosen the manual update option - though I have no idea how this works - hopefully there'll be an onscreen message when an update is available, & I can then decide whether or not to take the risk.

PS Like you, I'll be interested to see responses to your queries re the ease with which the Humax box deals with non-Freesat channels.