Product Support

Can I watch a third channel while recording two others?

Yes, you can watch a third chan­nel while record­ing two oth­ers, but it depends on which chan­nels you’re record­ing. This is because digit­al TV chan­nels are broad­cast in groups called multiplexes.

A mul­ti­plex is a group of digit­al chan­nels broad­cast togeth­er on the same fre­quency. In the old ana­logue TV days, each fre­quency could only carry one chan­nel. With digit­al TV, that same fre­quency can carry mul­tiple chan­nels — that’s why we have so many more chan­nels avail­able today.

Here’s how it works with the T4•R’s two tuners:

• If both record­ings are from the same mul­ti­plex, you can watch any oth­er channel
• If the record­ings are from dif­fer­ent mul­ti­plexes, you can only watch chan­nels from those same two multiplexes

For example:

• Record­ing BBC One HD and ITV1 HD (both on BBC B mul­ti­plex)? You can watch any oth­er channel
• Record­ing BBC One HD (BBC B mul­ti­plex) and Film4 (D3&4 mul­ti­plex)? You can only watch oth­er chan­nels from those two multiplexes

Mak­ing it easi­er to choose chan­nels #

To help identi­fy which chan­nels you can watch while recording:

1. Go to Home → Set­tings → Menu Pref­er­ences → Flag Unavail­able Channels
2. Turn this set­ting on
3. Chan­nels you can’t cur­rently watch will be clearly marked

Oth­er view­ing options #

While record­ing two chan­nels, you can always:

• Watch a pre­vi­ously recor­ded programme
• Use stream­ing apps like BBC iPlayer
• Watch live chan­nels with­in apps that offer them

Note: The T4•R will warn you if select­ing a chan­nel would require stop­ping a recording.

For a list of which chan­nels belong to each mul­ti­plex, vis­it the Freeview chan­nel list­ings page and look for the ​“Mux” column.