I mainly wanted Freeview for the HD programming and I got all excited when I was able to get UHF to work at my location. Now I'm starting to think that maybe Freeview is just another example of not getting what you don't pay for.
First I discovered that apparently only TV One, TV2 and TV3 even bother to broadcast in HD. That's not really surprising but then I read that only TV3 broadcasts 5.1 audio while the other two just have two-channel stereo. That really did disappoint me and it leaves me wondering what the point of HD on Freeview is in the first place.
That aside, I can't seem to get any 5.1 audio reception in any case, also not on TV3, and I don't understand the reason. I have an Orton 7000 PVR with an audio digital coax output and the options menu lets me choose between PCM and RAW. I have set it to RAW and I do get good normal audio quality but my amp says it is always 48khz PCM. I'm not an expert at any of this but I believe PCM is analogue audio that has been repackaged for digital transmission. Does this just mean that TV3 is also only broadcasting two-channel analogue audio or is there an issue with my tuner or setup?