How can I stop a Panasonic flat screen TV from constantly asking to rescan as it has found new channels?
My mother-in-law has just come out of hospital after a stroke and due to her limited abilities sits for hours if we are not around watching a screen asking her to scan for the new channels.
Can this facility, usefull as it may be in normal circunstances, be disabled?

Well, the problem with not doing a rescan is that she may lose some channels.

Nothing worse (I imagine) than a MIL separated from her Coronation St.

My 70something year old mother has mastered the rescan process. Other than that she thought the BBC programme "Making the most of the Micro" was about cooking with her newly acquired microwave oven and used to settle down regularly waiting for Delia to give her some microwaving tips.

How helpful.

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To the OP, I would hope that Panasonic TVs can turn off that process somewhere in the setup menu.

But without the specific model it's hard to say.

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_G..._GB/index.html

Support at the top provides user manuals if you don't have yours anymore.

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I just randomly downloaded a manual for a Panasonic TV with built-in Freeview and this particular TV (under the Tuning Menu) has an option to choose to display a message or not when a new channel is found.

"New Service Message" Off/On

It's the same with the Panasonic DVD/HDD recorders with a freeview tuner. Have a look in terrestrial ,pvr , panasonic sub-forum. I've had to turn mine off also. The strange thing is that this has been going on for years (have a google) but has only recently started affecting some people. Doesn't happen with other kit and judging by the replies people have had from panasonic they don't seem interested.

Thanks for your responses, we are in the process of trying to educate her in dealing with this, as you say without tuning she could loose reception.
She gets very confused when we show her anything past channel 4!
Thanks again

As pmbond said in a previous post this does seem to occur on some Panny kit - it does on my HDD/DVDR but not on my TV - or did before I disabled it. She is not likely to lose channels.

The solution is to find out how to disable it on that TV and turn it off, you can always do a rescan at infrequent intervals to pick up any new channels or if there are any changes.

Our Panasonic TV just says 'New DVB service found - press enter to retune'.
After that it's all automatic and takes about 2 minutes. Surely even an old lady can press enter?

The only thing about this I don't like is that it doesn't tell you what the new channel is!

Andy2 - The problem is that it does it every day even when there are no new channels unless you disable it. On mine I notice that when you do a scan it starts with channels found at one and hence tells me on the led that there is one more channel than there really is.

It was the same on my DVDR which is why I just disabled it.

any distant signals from other tv transmitting masts which are borderline strength on getting to your location may make the equipment (such as Panasonic) bring up the prompt in error. Now that our park of the UK has gone through DSO, we get distant duplicate signals from 2 masts as well as the desired one. A real pain. But you can turn off the feature. Note, there are menu options for software updates as well, which you want to leave turned on, and also any EPG downloading in Standby. Only disable the New Service/new channels function.

Remember that once setup like this, the equipment will no longer add on or update for real changes in the Freeview service (eg, Sky3+1). You will have to trigger an auto scan manually in the menu, or turn the feature back on.

MY Panasonic tv does the same.
Whats the big deal about pressing the OK button for it to rescan.
Once it's done it returns to the tuner.

It's no hassle really
Most of the time the rescan is because channels have simply changed places rather than brand new channels so if she fails tp update she might lose some channels .

The last major change resulted in a lost ITV4 for many people

My Pioneer dvdr/hdd updates itself automatically twice a day so no need to rescan .
The only device that I don't get prompts on or auto updating is my Humax 9200 but I rarely use that as the Pioneer Freeview tuner and V+ cover most things I need .

I would guess my Humax channel lineup must be be woefully out of date

It's every day and takes a few minutes so is more than a little hassle. If disabling it has lost me any channels I certainly haven't missed them - every so often I will do a manually initiated scan.

It is a hassle, as it will keep happening, at least once a day, or even more often at times. Further more, depending on how strong (or not) these distant signals are, you may end up with, 1. Extra duplicate channels in the EPG, 2, the weak channels taking the place of the correct ones - so when you use them, you suffer picture and sound breakup.

Its one of the most major drawbacks of the DTT system.

It is always encouraging to receive so many views on the varied problems we encounter. The problem here, is nearly a daily requirement, as we obviously live in an area where the equipment is 'finding' these new channels.
My mother-in-law has come out of hospital with very limited mental abilities following the stroke.
She can turn the TV on and off, but beyond that, it is very clear she has problems, her reading/comprehension has 'gone'.
She appears to get pleasure from her TV.
I,have reasonable intellegence,but find new equipment difficult to get my head around it. Just look at the instruction manuals that come nowadays!
Apart from the publishers getting a good translation, some 'instructions' are, in my opinion only understood by the designers of the equipment.
Again thanks for the help.

Common sense would dictate that you do what I do and reset the relevant devices to do the updating when you are not likely to be viewing.

My Freeview gear does it at 5am.

If it does it everyday it's faulty.
My Panasonic tv requires an update every few weeks

If you are receiving distant transmitters there's still no reason for a daily update .

Daily updates apply to recording devices like my Freeview recorder and other hard drive recorders presumably to keep the EPG up to date but my tv is not that often at all

If it's faulty it's a design fault as many people report this with Panny DVDRs that are otherwise working perfectly.

It's not a hassle because it can be turned off and I don't have any channels missing that I notice - if there are any missing then they are minor channels that I don't watch.

Seems odd that my Panny is fine , maybe I don't receive transmitters that I shouldn't.

I have a Pioneer dvd recorder and it updates itself every day as long as you are not recording.

My Panny TV doesn't have this problem so it may be something in the way my DVDR firmware handles the weaker channels, I do live in an area that receives double broadcasts - turn the aerial and get different regions. WGG though has the problem with a TV so it seems model dependent.

It's not a major problem for me though because it can be turned off and that would definitely be my advice to WGG for his mother's TV. In her case a few missing minority channels probably wouldn't matter from the sound of it.

But the point is we dont want the equipment to update, as there is nothing new to add, but the update will pick up the wrong signals from other transmitters during the process.

On the other hand, leaving the function Off all the time means you dont automatically get actual changes to the Freeview service.

We are a bit lucky where we live, as the all the wrong channels are at the start of the tuning band, with the ones we want all at the top. So for now, I am triggering auto scans using the menu when I know there is a real change happening, and keeping the aerial cord unplugged until the progress bar is half way along the screen, then quickly plug in. But we still have to keep the auto channel scan service off otherwise the passive scan be it in the background or at night will find those channels are the begining of the tuning scale which were not there when I did the manual scan. The software would think a new service had been added.

For the future, I am considering switching the Wideband aerial for a Group C/D one, so it doesnt pick up the unwanted channels in the Group A scale, and should improve the reception of the channels we do want. I hope this will result in a smaller aerial too, as this is a very windy area and wind loading is still a concern.

For some area's a Grouped aerial is not an option, eg if the channels are spread over a very wide frequency range. In such situations I would opt for a Log period aerial, as although they are designed for all channels, they have a narrow signal acceptance angle - they should only pick up the transmitter in front, and none to the sides.

That sounds about right. Both our Pannys never picked up duplicate stations before DSO started. The signals were so weak before DSO, that the only ones we could pick up were the ones for us (from the closest mast, in front of the aerial).

This is just poor design of freeview equipment.

I had a Sagem DTT box (useless thing) that did this at least once a week. That was cured by turning off "network monitoring"

I also have this problem from time to time on an Alba STB8 set top box.

The problem seems to be dependant on where you are. Up here recently when a neighbouring tx went through DSO, the STB8's just went mad constantly asking for a re tune. I thing the data in the NIT being broadcast was wrong or corrupt.

If the set has an option to turn off auto scan or network monitoring, then turn it off, otherwise write some instructions for the minimum that she needs to do to clear the message (without necessarily actually doing a re scan)

its one of the reasons why I prefer Freesat.

In the town, they have there own Freeview Lite mast. This only has half the channels. The south part of the town is very close and right behind the mast. If they want the full freeview service from the main transmitter, their aerials end up pointing at the local relay (same direction), so constant reception of the wrong channel package.