Massive disruption to local TV services from midnight...

[dutchman]

Some time between midnight and 2.00am non-digital channels BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Channels 5 will shut down for good and the clocks on older video recording machines will cease to be accurate.

Between 3.00am and tomorrow afternoon many Freeview digital channels will also disappear without warning.

These are not faults, please do not call your TV dealer or aerial contractor, they have enough extra work to do already.

From tomorrow all Freeview receivers will need to be rescanned. Some will have to be reset to factory condition and others replaced completely. In some cases programme timers will also need to be reset as existing settings wil be wiped clean.

The work is not due to finish until 6.00am in Coventry and Kenilworth. mid-morning in Leamington and mid-afternoon in Alllesley. There is little point in resetting anything before then as you will probably have to do it all over again later.

Satellite and cable users are not affected.

[dutchman]

According to Digital UK, all transmitter work in the Coventry area has now been completed.

[rebbonk]

I'd lost a lot of digital channels this morning. Quick retune (took about 3 minutes) and all was well again. - Just need to go and reset my favourites now.

[dutchman]

You were fortunate Rebbonk. My Pioneer set top box has to go back to the factory to be modified. In the meantime I've had to replace it with a cheap Freeview box, rewire my entire A/V system and reprogram the digital inputs on my surround amp!

[dutchman]

My cheapo Freeview box (Alba STBX3) went up in smoke the other night and we're still waiting to hear from Pioneer if they've managed to upgrade their own boxes to cope with the change in signal.

In the old days I could have simply substituted another television set but that won't work any more as the spare ones only have analogue tuners. We now of course need a separate digital box for every TV in the house, not just the main living room set.

Londoners are now beginning to feel the effects of the Digital Switchover for the first time as transmitters go off-air overnight while pre-DSO work is carried out.