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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, 8 June 2013
C
CRJ3432:05 PM
Has anybody experienced "ghosting" problems with Channel 4HD on Freesat.
I have a very strong signal 93%.
Spoke to Freesat and thgery claim no transmission issues.
BTW I using a Technomate 6800HD rather than a Freesat box
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CRJ343: What does the ghost look like and when does it appear? Does he have a bright suit and tie on and does he appear during episodes of Countdown? You say yes... That'll be Richard Whiteley then.
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CRJ343: "Ghosting" Is an analogue effect... It is not possible to get by digital reception. You would need to get some special software to even emulate it!
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C
CRJ3433:34 PM
Briantist: Maybe I'm using the wrong term...it's a "blurring" particularly of any fast action.
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MikeP
5:46 PM
5:46 PM
CRJ343
The effect you describe would often be termed 'pixelation' when the image breaks up into small pieces, especially on rapidly changing parts of the picture. When watching a fast moving object, such as a racing car travelling across the screen, it is not uncommon on a digital transmission to get a jerky effect. It is due to the amount of picture information on the digital signal not being sufficient to 'keep up' with the panning image. You never had this effect with analogue transmissions, it only affects digital TV, both terrestrial and satellite, as they try to get more programme channels fitted into a crowded spectrum and so reduce the 'bit rate' broadcast. To get as many programmes in as possible, especially the HD ones, the broadcasters use a technique of only sending the changed information but then update the whole image less frequently. So a still, or largely still, image would not suffer the effect (unless the signal quality drops to a very low level) but an image that moves rapidly across the screen will be 'at risk' of breaking up into individual pixels that can be very noticeable and possibly annoying to some.
As Briantist and others state, 'ghosting' is not possible with digital transmissions, it being an effect caused by multi-path reception that shows up on analogue signals as a displacement of a weaker/fainter image to the right of the intended image - usually termed a ghost image. Such multi-path reception of digital signals shows up as a poorer signal quality measure and possibly reception problems that can be specific to one multiplex.
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Sunday, 9 June 2013
F
Floyd7:46 PM
Luton
Ian from notts:
jb38 I have followed all of your suggestions which you made on June 1. First, I connected my old Goodman GDR11 and connected the aerial directly into my old BECO TV. The result was the same as with the Acoustic TV. No channels were found after repeated tries.
I also contacted most of the other tenants in the 2 buildings. Each building has a rooftop aerial but there is a visible cable connection running between the 2 buildings. I don't know if the connection is coming from the aerial or from the satellite dish underneath the aerial. I live in the building which faces Studley Road and does not have the satellite dish. The aerial on my building is right next to Malzeard Road and I live on the other end of the building.
I talked to most of the tenants in both buildings. 5 of them said they had Freeview and they said they had no problems. There are 2 entrances in my building. Only 1 of the people with Freeview live in my entrance. There was 1 other person living in the other entrance of my building, Both of them live on the top floor. I live on the ground floor and there is a large tree in front. But I think that should really not make any difference since the aerial is coming from the roof which is higher than the tree. But I am really quite far removed from the aerial since it is on the other end of the building.
Yesterday I tried another flylead and late in the evening I managed to install again most of the channels on the Acoustic. They had previously been erased together with all the programs. I got very good reception.
This morning around 10 am I tried the TV again and all the channels and the programs were still there. But guess what, I was out in the afternoon and when I got back the channels were still there, but all of the programs had disappeared. There was no signal level or signal quality on any of the channels. I left the TV on and left it on multiplex 24 because that was my best channel before. As of now, after several hours, the signal level turns on and off and the quality signal changes between none and poor. I still cannot get any programs at all. I am at a complete loss to understand what is going on here. It is driving me crazy and I don' know where to go from here. The freesat really is not a good option for me because I always watched channel 19-yesterday which is my favorite channel because of all the documentaries. Freesat does not have channel 19. The big question is since 5 other people seem to have no problem with Freeview, why do I have it and who can help me?
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Floyd's: mapF's Freeview map terrainF's terrain plot wavesF's frequency data F's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb389:25 PM
Floyd: All said in your comprehensive reply duly noted, although everything you have said is symptomatic of the signal received being at a level that's hovering around the minimum threshold required for reception, and when you select a programme from the EPG listings and it results in a blank screen its simply because that the signal has dived under level required to resolve a picture.
But though, when making any enquiries with neighbours the key thing to have asked them was "can you receive ITV3", because the residents that replied that they did not have any problems "might" be receiving Freeview from the local Luton transmitter at just under 1 mile away, and if they were then they would not be receiving ITV3 because Luton does not transmit commercial channels such as ITV3 / Pick TV / or Yesterday, these three programmes mentioned being representative of the three mux transmitters used by any main station.
Another aspect of what you had said that could be playing a role is the fact of you being located at the other end of the building from the aerial, as long cable runs are much more vulnerable to suffering from some form of mishap along the way in its travel from the distribution amplifier, and especially so if goes through one or two junction boxes before it reaches you, because to be perfectly frank I feel that your problem is being caused by something external to your apartment thereby effectively being out with your control.
Maybe you could try a test though "if" your receiver allows manual tuning, and being to go into the tuning menu / manual tune and enter mux Ch50 (Lutons BBC) into the box but do NOT press search or scan, because if you do not then in most devices the signal strength of the channel you have entered is usually displayed on the indicator bar.
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Monday, 10 June 2013
I
Ian from notts7:30 AM
Nottingham
CRJ343,Briantist,MikeP- If the Technomate is connected to the tv through a scart lead and a scart block with another device, There's a chance of ghosting if both devices are on at the same time.
Tho it does look like MikeP's reply is more accurate, even if it does defy the logic of HD if the first place
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Ian's: mapI's Freeview map terrainI's terrain plot wavesI's frequency data I's Freeview Detailed Coverage
G
Gary Parr3:16 PM
Sky box works in house but when tried in motorhome on drive, oyster dish locks on but tv says no signal received.
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R
Robin Walker6:08 PM
My Humax box used to receive Film4 from the Wenvoe transmitter but now when I click on it I get the message 'This channel is scrambled or unavailable' as if I have Freeview Light, not full Freeview. Is there anything I can do about this?
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