[simpfeld]

Freeview launched in 2002 with TV and a declining number of STB
but increasing number of PVRs,

I don't remember that, I remember at Freeview launch no DVB-T TV's and lots of ITV digital boxes and the Pace DTVA. Then tons of cheap converter boxes appearing for a number of years before integrated sets started being the norm on new TVs. That's purely from memory.

[Neil Jones]

Yeah, the ITV Digital boxes (or the On Digital ones they didn't round to rebranding) were the bulk of the viewership for Freeview, though a lot of the free channels never actually went off air, it was just the company behind the platform that went bump.

Freeview would have probably been doomed if they'd decided to rip all the infrastructure out and start again and then everybody had to have new boxes. Ultimately that did happen a few years down the line when they changed the way it works that rendered the ITV Digital boxes obsolete, but by that point we were starting to have Freeview as standard on TVs and other STBs and what not.

[WillPS]

Freeview didn't launch with a declining number of STBs available, that's simply not true. In fact, the first consumer FTA STB in the UK had only just been released, the mighty Pace DTVA:
www.digitalspy.com 

Affordable Digital TV? The Pace DTVA.
Pace's new FTA adapter might have picked a bad time to come to market but for wi…
  Source: www.digitalspy.com

There was also an influx of Nokia and Philips STBs which had been manufactured for ITV Digital which were available through Comet/DSG in great quantities. There might have been a dip in supply when these eventually dried up (ISTR some of them were thrown out at £50 each in the post-Christmas sales), but before the first 'Freeview boxes' arrived in 2003.

The ITV Digital boxes, along with a number of other non-compliant earlier STBs and IDTVs including the Pace DTVA, all died at DSO.

As a 13 year old ITV Digital refugee who couldn't convince his parents to resubscribe to NTL or Sky, as I remember basically nobody I knew at school or whatever was watching early on; even the ones who had ITV Digital.

It wasn't really until Channel 4 made E4 FTA in 2005 that the platform really started gaining traction, it was about that time supermarkets started throwing out Vestel boxes at <£40 (unusually for Vestel stuff these boxes had arguably the best and speediest UI at the time).

[James2001]

I had one of those refurbished former On/ITV digital boxes! Lasted for years... then DSO made it obsolete.

Was horribly slow though.

[London Lite]

I had one of those refurbished former On/ITV digital boxes! Lasted for years... then DSO made it obsolete.

Was horribly slow though.

Yes, it was horribly clunky even by early 2000s standards.

The Vestel Freeview boxes were snappy in comparison.

[cable]

The green and yellow menus of the ITV/ON boxes were surprisingly modern looking considering what came after them, UI of STB/PVRs did not improve for sometime after Freeview launched.

[Stuart]

The green and yellow menus of the ITV/ON boxes were surprisingly modern looking considering what came after them.

No, they really weren't.

I doubt that's why the whole company failed.

[Neil Jones]

The green and yellow menus of the ITV/ON boxes were surprisingly modern looking considering what came after them, UI of STB/PVRs did not improve for sometime after Freeview launched.

I had a range of third party Freeview set top boxes for one reason or another before I bought a TV that had Freeview built in.
It soon became obvious to me they were all running the same software, including the software for the Freeview in the TV, so it had the same options, the same look, the same everything - the only difference was the choice of colours and how responsive the box was (or wasn't as the case may be).

Can't comment on ITV Digital / On Digital look though, as I never had one.

[i.h]

The green and yellow menus of the ITV/ON boxes were surprisingly modern looking considering what came after them, UI of STB/PVRs did not improve for sometime after Freeview launched.

I had one and I thought the UI was incredibly basic compared to even Sky Digital's early versions.

Since I had the Nokia box it was also incredibly slow! I think I used it for a bit longer post-bankruptcy until Sky launched their multiroom product and I switched to that instead.

[cable]

modern looking meaning the aesthetics rather than the functionality of the software especially for something conceived around 1998, obviously the later ones had a EPG and operated faster but the menu systems were quite ugly. The UI of DTT equipment only started improving around 2010, the 2006 TUTV DTR did have a better UI compared to other equipment at the time. but most boxes software was quite ugly, I guess HDMI and HD equipment necessitated improving upon this.