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Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV For the last six years, I have answered many thousands of personal emails that you have sent to UK Free TV.
Sadly, I am unable to offer this personal service at the moment.
Until I can restore this service, please can you leave any questions you have on an appropriate page, where they will be answered as soon as possible, or below, if you can't figure out where to ask.
I look forward to your questions!
Help with TV/radio stations?
In this section
Saturday, 31 March 2012
M
Mike9:44 AM
I have a TV with a Freeview HD tuner. The local transmitter (Rowridge) only started HD transmissions on 21st March, and now I find that from time to time the screen goes completely black for a brief moment on all HD programs, which is sufficiently irritating to make them unwatchable. The TV maker (Samsung) say it's due to the broadcaster switching between progressive and interlaced scanning and there's nothing wrong with the TV. I've contacted Digital UK and the BBC's Switchover Help scheme, but neither can help. Am I lumbered with a useless telly? Or will the broadcasters stop messing about with the signal? Anyone got any ideas?
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J
jb3810:52 AM
Mike: Apart from what Samsung have told you and the others not, but the screen going blank for a brief period could possibly be caused by a somewhat easier to prove (or disprove) reason connected to you having referred to your "local" transmitter as being the powerful Rowridge station, that of the possibility of your TV receiving a slightly excessive level of signal, and something which usually always affects HD reception before SD, Samsung tuners being particularly sensitive to this.
Signals being received from anywhere always have slight intermittent fluctuations in their level, this either being up by a sudden reflection or down by obstructions, and "if" your signal is slightly excessive then it could be taken over the top by a reflection from some object like an aircraft turning or even the aluminium sides of a large vehicle, both not necessarily being immediately local to you.
Although this is not always accurate as indications can be upset by a strong signal, but have a check at the level being seen whilst of an HD channel, and depending on circumstances even try a set to aerial connected into your TV and see if HD is still there, and if it is check results by viewing it for a while.
It would though have made it easier to assess your signal situation with knowledge of your post code, or at least one very near to like a shop or whatever, as there is always the element of working in the dark without it.
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R
RAY KNAPP8:00 PM
Andover
Can i get euro sport online TV or any other way for free.
why do we have to be blackmailed by sky/virgin
we pay enough through our licence but the BBC. does not supply a good sports channel any day of the week.
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RAY's: ...
Sunday, 1 April 2012
T
Tony9:03 AM
Morning,my sky keeps doing the following
freezing, won't record,won't show any items in planner,show the words POWER CUT when i go to planner to watch a recording may say power cut 24 minutes (say) will do any of the above at differant times.Have had a company that we pay for insurance do all the usual re boots etc but still does it .I'm also on my 3rd box I think it's one of the leads that must be breaking down????????????
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Mike10:22 AM
jb38, thanks for your suggestions, but the answer to my flickering Freeview HD came in an email from Samsung soon after I posted my desperate plea. After several unhelpful replys from Samsung, someone in their customer service department realised there was a firmware update designed to resolve this problem, and gave me all the information to find, download and install it. So far it seems to be working OK, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
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jb3810:25 AM
Tony: If you know for certain that there hasn't been any problems with your mains electricity supply (temporary low voltage) or even the socket you have the Sky+ box connected into, then I would be inclined to try a new power lead, as although the dishes LNB and coax leads to still remains as the common factor with any box that might have been tried, should anything be amiss in that area it shouldn't result in the indications you have seen.
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J
jb3810:32 AM
Mike: Thanks for that update and pleased that the firmware update appears to have solved the problem.
I would be obliged though if you could let me know the model number of the Samsung TV involved, this mainly for notebook purposes although I would also like to check the detailed reason (technical) for the update being necessary.
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Mike1:21 PM
jb38: The TV is a Samsung UE40D5520, and the reason for the update is to resolve the problem described in this information from Samsung:
"The flickering is caused by the switching between progressive and interlaced transmissions being received. Interlaced refreshes half of the entire picture at a time whereas progressive refreshes the entire picture, therefore if the display is flickering it is because the transmission is constantly switching between the two."
Hope this information is helpful to you and any others who suffer from the same problem.
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jb383:26 PM
Mike: Yes, thanks for that, and I am sure that your info will be of considerable assistance to anyone else with that model should they experience a similar problem, me having tagged this fault against the manual for that set.
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Monday, 2 April 2012
P
Paul Jones7:52 PM
Burry Port
Hello, can someone help me please? In our main living room we have a LCD TV, Sky HD box and a DVD Recorder which has built-in Freeview. We've recently put an old LCD TV in our second living room and I've connected this to the main TV using a HDMI cable (so we can watch Sky) and an aerial cable. We have an external roof top aerial and I've split this cable between the two TVs using a splitter/amplifier box. My first problem is that my second TV often loses the BBC channels, BBC1 and BBC2 etc. All the other channels are fine. I've retuned the TV number of times. The BBC channels are on UHF 23 which is usually poor to average at best and all the other channels are on 25, 56 and 28 etc. which have good signals. If this wasn't frustrating enough I've now noticed that on the days that I can get BBC on our second TV I lose the signal as soon as our Sky box is switched on in the other room. Everything is usually OK when the Sky box is in standby mode. I've checked all the cables and tried various combinations with no success. Does anybody know how to resolve this issue?
Also, sorry to ramble on but have I connected my main TV correctly? Split external aerial signal into Sky box. Then RF cable from Sky box to DVD Recorder and finally RF cable from DVD recorder to TV. Also all three devices are connected by separate HDMI cables. Plus there is a Scart lead linking the Sky box and DVD Recorder and I have also connected another bedroom TV to my Sky box using the RF2 slot.
Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks
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Paul's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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