Some news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7202014.stm

I wonder how or if this will affect the general public's perception of the non-digital BV8? It's being heavily promoted here in the UK, but does not ship with a digital tuner nor accepts one.

yes ,and the dvd recorder / hd recorders with built in 'analogue' tuners

they'll be VERY useful in a few years time.. 

The Beovision 8 will accept digital freeview boxes and you can control some using the STB software , allowing you to use the bang & olufsen remote control.

There are plans to have an integrated digital tuner in this set , but not available currently.

taplow:

There are plans to have an integrated digital tuner in this set , but not available currently.

We're very aware that you can connect an external DVB-T box. Snag is a) it's a £3000 TV and b) why the additional hassle? You see?

Why should people watching cable or satellite pay for a DVB-T?

20+ is not an age for a BeoVision. I don´t believe we´ll use the same tuners in 2030.

Daniel:

Why should people watching cable or satellite pay for a DVD-T?

20+ is not an age for a BeoVision. I don´t believe we´ll use the same tuners in 2030.

This is a bizarre comment on multiple fronts. B&O are proactively promoting the B&O to the general public in the UK, particularly through various websites. Secondly, Freeview/DVB-T is the standard over here and generally now regarded as the minimum. People don't expect to be on cable or satellite, but expect Freeview (digital). Also, analogue signals are starting to be turned off in the UK from now onwards.

2030? Are you suggesting that B&O intend keeping the BV8 design until then? Sheesh, they could review it next year if they wanted!

Also, have you heard of modulisation? The smallest Freeview box is tiny, so could easily be integrated in to the BV8.

Lastly, why should people pay for a DVB-T? You can get Freeview boxes for next-to-nothing these days. It's a £3000 TV! Think about it.

mainly as freeview is FREE ( ish ) and will eventually be in HD

it's bad enough we pay for a license fee for some of the dross the bbc foist on us 

i don't see why i should give my dough to murdoch too , ta very much 

So, because you don´t want to pay for extra channels, 80% of the households must pay for a free view box they don´t need?

This is how Swedes watch TV:
- Cable: 20%
- Satellite: 20%
- Terrestial with extra pay channels: 40%
- Terristial (free view): 20%

It´s only free viewers that have to buy a tuner. The rest will get one from the distributor. Of course the must pay for it through the fee, but they don´t need a free view box.

The share of free view will probably be lower in the future as many will watch TV over broadband instead. They will also get a tuner from the telephone company.

Freeview should be in all TV's in the house - for Sky multiroom you need a receiver in each room and for each person that wants to watch a different channel (and it costs extra per month) - Sky isn't a really sensiblr option for "through-house" Freeview TV.

i agree

what is crazy - and bno just don't seem to get it - is that every single tv in the uk has freeview built in - from a crappy pile of junk bush from argos all the way to a top of the range sony or panasonic , you can buy freeview boxes from asda and tesco for £30 now

every tv - apart from theirs of course

..it's an option on bno's cutting edge state of the art tv's costing £3k + --- whatever...

 and they wonder WHY their market share is dwindling ?? 

If you are paying £3000 you are paying a little over the odds , some dealers have it at £2500 , stands extra of course, Works well with Humax and Topfield digital boxes I'm told .But even better with the Sky HD box .The white 32" looks great.

Flappo The Grate:

mainly as freeview is FREE ( ish ) and will eventually be in HD

it's bad enough we pay for a license fee for some of the dross the bbc foist on us 

i don't see why i should give my dough to murdoch too , ta very much 

The likelihood is that Freeview will never be HD. Freeview in the UK is almost all encoded in the MPEG2 codec, which is uselessly low quality (the same codec used for audio in DAB) even when a higher bitrate is used (as is the case with current Freeview services). To transmit an HD signal, the amount of data transferred would be insane. In order to make Freeview HD, an upgrade to MPEG4 must happen. The problem is that while a lot of Freeview tuners support this, the cheaper ones don't and whilst the rest of the industry is producing decent tuners at say, £50 a box with MPEG4 compatibility, there will be some company shipping a Freeview tuner with packets of cereal which only works on MPEG2, making the likelihood of an MPEG4 switchover impossible...

Not sure whether the B&O tuners support MPEG4 or not.

only £2,500 ! that's a bargain.. and i get to take up an expansion slot with something that should really be standard equipment

seriously - are you even aware of the competition ? are bno ?? 

However in B&O's defence they do build in a set top box controller, giving the customer choice in the way in which they receive digital programs and it's upgradeable as technology changes - such as HD etc. Biggest plus point has to be that you can controll the box you choose with your B&O remote. On the other hand for the cost of building in Freeview then why not do it when all the other TV's in the UK have it as standard,

ajames:

However in B&O's defence they do build in a set top box controller, giving the customer choice in the way in which they receive digital programs and it's upgradeable as technology changes - such as HD etc. Biggest plus point has to be that you can controll the box you choose with your B&O remote. On the other hand for the cost of building in Freeview then why not do it when all the other TV's in the UK have it as standard,

I can see why one can make an argument for not having DVB in built and that a set top box control offers the best compromise.

The problem I have with this; having spent 3-7K on a TV I dont want some crappy £50 box via STB control hanging from the back of the set, I used a panasonic with the avant, here were  always problems with freezing and going 'out of sync' so  one has to turn it all off and start again. What a way to expect a customer to operate an expensive TV. Loewe has the right idea- a premium price for a premium product.

There is simply NO excuse for B&O not to build DVB into the sets and if individuals choose to use STB control- thats their choice. The cost to bring this in as a standrad feature on the BV8 for example cant be more than $50 and for the price they are asking it is beyond comprehension.

355f:

There is simply NO excuse for B&O not to build DVB into the set

My argument was that the PCB required for this would be tiny. At the very least, it could be a modular option. It's not was if they'd need much space in the TV to accommodate a Freeview DVB-T.

335F is right though. One of the best elements of a B&O is the lack of cables and remotes, required. They are supposed to blend stylishly in the background. By requiring a separate Freeview box, you'd need to hide this somewhere and also accommodate the extra cabling.

my avant has 3 remotes as the sony freeview tuner in rgb 1 and the sony hd recorder in scart 2 don't have any bno compatible codes

tbh it looks a total mess and if bno don't get their act together on this front , when it comes to changing the tv for an hd model in a few years , i wont bother with them at all 

 when i bought the avant in 2003 i was assured there would be a freeview module ( never materialised ) and a hard disk recorder that slotted in the back ( more bs )

moxxey:

One of the best elements of a B&O is the lack of cables and remotes, required. They are supposed to blend stylishly in the background. By requiring a separate Freeview box, you'd need to hide this somewhere and also accommodate the extra cabling.

This is an argument I like!

But what about those with DVB-S or DVB-C. Can B&O build these to, or are they not standard?

 this is another nail in the coffin for b&o ,not as forward thinking company as we like to think, the company logo should say (customers always wrong )  [:'(]

I can't believe I never thought about this when I bought my BV8. I have SKY+ and a DVB for Italian channels plugged into the back of my BV8. Yes I have had to hide them away, but this wasn't such a big deal. More importantly I am able to use both boxes (and the TV of course) with my Beo4.

have fun plugging a ps3 in , etc 

Have done already. And a Wii.

I may be totally missing the point here, but I really don't get this "they should have built in Freeview/DVB" and whatever.

As Daniel points out above, in most markets people are getting their tv-signals from a variety of providers, with an increasing portion of the same offering decoders/tuners for you to be able to access their signals.
I have a Pioneer Kuro with DVB built in, which I can't use because the Freeview standard here is MPEG4, not MPEG2. But I get every single available channel through an STB that's nicely placed out of view, through my remote.

In my market the Freeview is considered the last resort of those who can't get the richer and better signals (and number of channels) provided by cable and/or satellite. So I just don't get the fuss on this particular one - I'll criticize B&O for a lot of other stuff, but this one's a no-show on my list of complaints. 

it would be mine too , if it wasn't for the paucity of inputs on the average bno tv 

once you've plugged in all the stuff that SHOULD be standard equipment on a tv costing so much , you're not really left with much in the way of alternative  input arrangement

certainly not exactly what i'd call future ( 2012 ) proof 

soundproof:

I may be totally missing the point here, but I really don't get this "they should have built in Freeview/DVB" and whatever.

As Daniel points out above, in most markets people are getting their tv-signals from a variety of providers, with an increasing portion of the same offering decoders/tuners for you to be able to access their signals.
I have a Pioneer Kuro with DVB built in, which I can't use because the Freeview standard here is MPEG4, not MPEG2. But I get every single available channel through an STB that's nicely placed out of view, through my remote.

In my market the Freeview is considered the last resort of those who can't get the richer and better signals (and number of channels) provided by cable and/or satellite. So I just don't get the fuss on this particular one - I'll criticize B&O for a lot of other stuff, but this one's a no-show on my list of complaints. 

The UK is one of the biggest markets for BnO and therefore it should offer DVB inbuilt - in order to suit the market they are attempting to do business in.

It is doubtful if sat gives a better signal in the UK rather than freeview( unless its HD) and many individuals( me for one) dont want sky.

Given these facts, what is not acceptable is to pay nearly £3000 and then have to go to Argos and buy a £30 DVB box in order to operate it with STB. On the many units I tried out with the Avant ( panasonic and topfiled) very often the box would not respond to commands and you needed to reset the unit- how bad is that?

Compare this to loewe- why dont they or any so called upmarket brand NOT include DVBif its such a good idea to use external boxes.

Whatever ones views for this kind of money they should include it anyway and there is no excuse for not doing so.