[IanJRedman]

A few months back, I stayed in a hotel in Cheltenham. The TV in the room was a cheap-ish model, but it had Freeview HD. I tried to settle down to watch the evening news, but I found BBC One HD on channel 101 was totally mute. Every other channel was fine, including HD channels, and BBC One in SD on channel 1 worked - it was just BBC One HD that had pictures but no sound.

I twigged what had happened pretty quickly. The TV evidently hadn't been retuned since the regional variant of BBC One HD launched on the local transmitter. The service label was still "BBC ONE HD" (no regional name). For whatever reason, the TV was still able to "see" the video stream but it wasn't decoding any audio. I was able to access all the settings, so I took the liberty of doing a quick rescan, and hey presto, BBC One West Midlands HD appeared on channel 101 with sound.

I wondered if that telly subsequently had the best setup in the entire hotel

[London Lite]

It shouldn't take much effort for one of those IPTV outfits to restream a NOW Sky Sports stream at 1080p50, although I couldn't tell if there was the logo that shows it's an online version of a Sky Sports channel from the pic provided.

[Spencer]

Not quite hotel related, but I remember a slightly surreal experience about 15 years ago, having travelled around 2,000 miles from home in Yorkshire to Skiathos in Greece, we walked into a bar which was showing Calendar on the big screens.

We later found out that the bar was being run by an English couple from near Hull, so it made a bit more sense.

Presumably though, this was before ITV moved to a transponder with a narrower beam, but even then, I was impressed that it could be picked up so far south and east.

[Daveuk]

Is the picture smooth or is it glitchy that would be an obvious giveaway if it’s iptv ie 1080p25

Image is smooth and very watchable but defo not a legit TV source.... when switching channels you can see either a IPTV mag box or once was the IPTV Smarters app via a Firestick!

[Aaron]

We stayed in a Premier Inn on the Isle of Wight last year and the BBC and ITV regions were both different parts of the country… ITV was Yorkshire if I remember correctly.

Channels 1 to 5 on the telly were as you’d expect but then they had a random selection of Freeview channels like 5USA, Yesterday & More4 in the slots up to about 28 (not on their usual numbers) and that was your lot.

The EPG worked and it was Freeview branded in the top right, so I had wondered how it worked?

I had the same surprise at a Premier Inn on the Isle of Wight (Sandown) with a mixed selection of channels. BBC One was South East and ITV1 was West; so both incorrect.

GB News was the only news channel (on 7) and whilst there was CBBC HD, ITV2 HD and 4 seven, all the others were 5 offshoots and every version of the Pop and Great TV channels, including +1.

[JexedBack]

Hate it when hotel TV’s are locked down and you can’t retune them.
I consider it my public duty as an anorak to update them!!
One hotel room I stayed in had FTN as one dead channel!

[nwtv2003]

Back in the 1990s we frequently stayed at DeVere Hotels when they were a thing (we got discount as one of my parents worked for its parent company, Greenall’s) and the TV set ups were pretty decent at the time. Almost every one we stayed at had Sky as standard running throughout. Granted they didn’t supply you with all of the channels, but they had Sky News, Sky Sports and Sky Movies in most of the rooms. They also had their own in house pay per view system, which was as good as video on demand, which for the 1990s was pretty good.

I remember on one break I took a pocket TV with me and to my surprise I was picking up the Sky channels on that also. I’m not sure what system they used, but it amazed me as a kid.

[Rdd]

When I was in Dublin for a few days I decided to channel surf and found ZDF and one of its sister channels ZDFneo, along with the Irish channels (and a few UK channels thrown in for good measure). Technically I could also pick up ARD in the mornings as ZDF shows ARD's morning show Morgenmagazin following their own morning show also called Morgenmagazin. The channel list also claims you can also watch the German Euronews though you actually can't get it.

It used to be fairly common for Irish hotels to have UK channels - I imagine it is probably still common in Dublin, though I’m finding it less common down the country now, more and more places seem to only provide Saorview in-room, and it’s a toss up to what you will find (the bigger chains will usually still have UK channels however). In any case the bar will almost always have Sky, of course!

[Andrew]

I was recently in Tenerife, and the TV in the apartment must have had near enough 100 channels. Spanish channels, UK, French, Italian, possibly some other countries as well.

No BBC News Channel or BBC World but there was a Spanish 24 hour news channel

BBC One was London, but there were two versions of ITV - Channel Islands (which I suppose is the nearest region and kind of fitting for the Canary Islands) and bizarrely Border. There was also STV, and not even the central belt version, it was the Grampian version.

Also of note all the bars were showing the Rugby World Cup via ITV1

[Stuart]

BBC One was London, but there were two versions of ITV - Channel Islands (which I suppose is the nearest region and kind of fitting for the Canary Islands) and bizarrely Border. There was also STV, and not even the central belt version, it was the Grampian version.

If they were pulling them from DSat (with a very large dish), then they will have selected BBC One London for obvious reasons. ITV1 regions are all labelled just 'ITV1', so they probably picked the first one they found. The same goes for STV.