InView/4TV ends Freeview box EPG updates

InView Technology, the company which provides 14-day updates to Freeview electronic programming guides, has terminated the service to certain receivers.

Some members on Digital Spy's Personal Video Recorders forum yesterday reported problems with their PVRs accessing the advance EPG data supplied by the InView-owned 4TV.

The company provides EPG updates to a variety of Freeview boxes, including several manufactured by Digifusion and two from Inverto, along with the Thomson DHD4000 and Sony SVR-S500.

However, InView/4TV has confirmed that the service has now been discontinued, with the final update providing EPG information until July 7.

A statement from InView/4TV, posted by DS forum member Albertd, said: "Unfortunately we are discontinuing the service as we are no longer able to have access to the delivery method that has been available until now.

"I know that this is not good news for you so I can only deeply apologise for your loss of service in advance. Your box should otherwise operate normally and have the now-and-next option."

When DS contacted the company, a representative said that the contract to distribute the updates has ended and so it no longer has access to the necessary bandwidth to maintain the service.

InView/4TV is also not thought to be in negotiations to renew the contract, meaning that the updates will most likely never return for the affected receivers.

The removal of EPG updates for the PVRs means that their recording functionality is significantly reduced as the box will not provide any advance programme information.

Users will have to rely on the EPG's now-or-next function or manually enter the date, time and channel number of the programme that they want to record.

Despite the situation with 4TV, InView will continue to supply advance EPG information to the following boxes: Thomson/Ferguson FDT2000, Grundig GDT2000, Grundig 1500T, Alba STB8, Pacific, Technika, Technosonic, Bush DFTA2, Bush DFTA1000, Audioline, HCW, Tivion, Dansai, April, Digilogic, Durabrand, Goodmans, Logik, Matsui DTR-3, Techwood, Bush DFTA3, Daewoo DS700, Matsui TUTV1, Ferguson FDT2500, Astratec TOPD1, TOPD2, TOPD3 and newer models.