My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do? Is it my SCART ca
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV It is a feature of television signals that they can be effected by the weather. Aside from the obvious damaged that can be caused by wind or torrential rain, the onset of summer can cause a more intriguing problem called "inversion".
Basically, when the sun heats up the land, the hot air can get trapped below cold air at high level. This creates an "inversion layer" which acts like a polished mirror to TV signals. This causes two problems: you can receive both the original and a reflected signal from your own transmitter (on analogue TV this appears as "ghosting") or interference from TV transmitters that are normally too far distant.
The ITV/C4 multiplex of channels (ITV-1, ITV-2, ITV-3, ITV-4, CITV, C4, More4, E4, Quizcall) use a transmission "mode" called 64QAM, and it is sadly much more prone to these problems.
So, whilst a loft-mounted aerial will provide reception at some time, it will fail at others. The only real solution is to mount the aerial (or a new Class I aerial) outside on a pole, but some people report that changing the cable from the aerial to the set-top box to the high-grade satellite cable can also help.
The SCART connection, by the way, only carries a single TV picture, not the Freeview transmission multiplexes, so if this is disconnected it will result in degradation to every channel at once.
All questions
In this section
Saturday, 1 November 2014
Dave Lindsay
1:21 PM
1:21 PM
Mr Mark Sandeman: Caradon Hill is just under 15 degrees anti-clockwise of Redruth from your location so you could potentially find that it is picked up instead, particularly as Caradon's channels (frequencies) are lower than those of Redruth and so will be picked up first during the scan. Having the aerial unplugged for the first 30% of the scan (or up to UHF channel 30) should avoid this.
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Annette6:11 PM
Utv, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have recently disappeared from my tv. I have 2 other Tv's which pick the channels up perfectly, can you tell what the reason could be?
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MikeB7:24 PM
Ian: Your just 15km from Winter Hill, so you should get a cracking signal. Could well be water in a junction box. Best thing to do is to eliminate each possible problem, and if you've got two TV's, you can narrow it down to the point where the signal splits, etc.
If you look back at the comments who have problem like yours, its not always the weak channels that disappear first, it can be a lot more random than that.
Let us know how you get on.
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Mr Mark Sandeman7:56 PM
Dear sir,
All sorted out thank you very much !!!
....turns out missing channels were due to a poor connection from my aerial lead to the back of DVB recorder, re made coaxial lead, manual tuned all channels 44,48,51, etc,etc
Thank you very much for your week end time !!
Mark Sandeman
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jb389:13 PM
Mr Mark Sandeman : No problem! Pleased that your jumper lead repair has been a success, and that you have now managed to recover the channels that were missing.
Thanks for the update!
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MikeB10:48 PM
Mr Mark Sandeman : Its a classic case of where the little things trip us up - good news its sorted, and worth thinking about for other people who have a similar problem.
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Sunday, 2 November 2014
R
Robert Reid 7:13 PM
Hi there we seem to have lost itv on our free view we have most channels I've reset the tv retuned in several times now still can't get it is there any reason why this as happened
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Wednesday, 5 November 2014
J
John11:14 PM
Harwich
Hi to the Forum. I have problems with my setup after changing from Sky to Freeview.
Setup is:
VCR Freeview: Philips HDTP 8530 with
One HDMI
One SCART
Two Audio connectors (red & white)
One SPDIF connector
TV: Sony Bravia KDL-46V3000 with
AV1 SCART
AV2 SCART Smartlink
AV3 Video and Audio sockets
Optical OUT
AV4 HDMI IN
AV5 HDMI IN
AV7 HDMI IN
DVD/Video Recorder: Panasonic DMR-EZ47VEB
HDMI AV OUT
Optical OUT
Audi Out
Video Out
S-VIDEO OUT
AV1 SCART (TV)
AV2 SCART (Ext)
Soundbar: Denon DHT-FTS including separate subwooder with
Optical Out on "Digital2"
Optical Out on "DVD"
Coax In on "Digital3"
Two Audio connectors (red & white) on "TV"
Currently Connected Up as:
AV5 HDMI from TV to Freeview Box
AV2 SCART from TV to DVD Recorder In
SCART from DVD Recorder Out to Freeview SCART
Optical cable from TV to Soundbat "Digial2"
Red & Whiye sound cables from Freeview box to Denon Soundbar
Aeriel goes into Freeview box
Problems:
Not sure what settings are right on TV/Freeview box to get optimum picture/sound.
Sound Bar is not getting the volume/quality it used to when I had Sky.
When I switch off the telly black screen comes up and runs off AV2 DVD until I switch on Freeview box
DVD AV2 seems to be driving everything instead of Freeview box.
I have a spare HDMI and Optical cable but cannot see where they fit in.
Any suggestions are gratefully welcomed.
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John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 6 November 2014
M
MikeB1:59 AM
John: I'd start with the basics.
Your TV is the most important thing, and you have the advantage of 3 HDMI's, optical, and even 2 scarts. Its got Freeview built in, so I assume your using the Philips as both a PVR and Freeview HD box (I assume you meant PVR, not VCR - which kind of threw me for a moment!).
Your right in having the Philips feed into HDMI 1. The Panasonic also has HDMI, so use it!
The HDMI also upscales. HDMI2 will be fine, and why bother daisy chaining it to the Philips via scart? The Panasonic has its own Freeview tuner, and you gain nothing by feeding it via scart from an HD source. Yes, you could archive from the PVR in theory, but do you actually need to do that? I'd simply leave both devices to feed into the TV, and record what you want to either recorder, just using the source button on the Sony remote to flick between the two. If you do connect them, get everything else working first.
You are of course daisy-chaining the aerial via the Philips, via the Panasonic to the Sony? Personally, I'd shorten the chain by splitting the signal, but whatever works.
Lastly, the sound bar. I like Denon gear, and didn't know they had made a soundbar, so thats taught me something! The Denon seems to have two opticals, a coax, plus RCA's. Your lucky enough to have RCA imputs on the Sony (which went a couple of years ago), but why go for RCA when you could use the opticals? In fact, why are you using both?
The normal advice is to have everything come in and go out of the TV together. So the best thing would be to have the optical come out of the Sony, and into the Denon. The opticals should be inputs (or at least one of the should be), since the Denon produces no audio of its own, and therefore shouldn't have an output at all.
That way, when a video/audio signal comes into the TV, either from Freeview, the Philips, or the Panasonic, it will flow out to the Denon, no matter what the source. You should be able to setup the audio output in the setup menu, but being a Sony, you can normally split the audio signal, so you can offset volumes for different sources.
Hopefully that should improve the sound quality, and I suspect that part of the problem was that the audio was via the Philips, with no output via the optical - you often need to tell the TV to use the optical - its a dumb connection.
You have a spare HDMI (and lots of leftover scart leads, which can go to the loft), so think what you want to do with it. Yes, you have Freeview HD, via the Philips.
If your lookinging for smart capacity, then that HDMI would be perfect. A Smart Sony/Samsung Blu-Ray can be yours for as little as £50. Not wifi at that price (£85 for the award winning Sony 5200 if wifi will make your life a lot easier), but you will get at least Iplayer and Ch5, you can perhaps replace the Panasonic if your just using it as a DVD player, and of course you can use it to play Blu-Ray's, so your TV's 1080 spec (and I'm not sure I want to know how much you paid for it) can be used properly.
If you just want to stream, then there is Chromecast (Android and cheap), Apple TV (if you have Apple products, this is perfect), Ruku or even Now TV. Very cheap, and works pretty well for getting streaming TV. My 7 year old has no problem using it!
Obviously if your looking to replace the set, then hold off a bit, since the smart features should be standard. Your current 46in is slightly larger than Sony's 50in W8, which is an excellent set, and is currently around £740.
Let us know if it works!
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John10:41 AM
Harwich
Hi Mike, thank you so much for getting back to me on the Forum. There is so much good information here.
With the current boxes that I have what would you say is the best set up please as I want to use the Phillips to record/pause/rewind TV mostly, get good sound from the Denon soundbar from TV/Philips/DVD&VHS Combi.
Would you say the aerial should go into the Sony TV rather than the Freeview for instance? Use only HDMIs and optical cables and no SCARTs at all? And the RCAs (white/red) go too?
I was thinking what cable goes into what connection as I don't have any real background in electronics, just what I pick up reading. If there are any steps to say connect this then do this that would be really good.
I have had the boxes for about seven years so they have served me well. As I had Sky+ before cutting the cord it was relatively easy but with the PCR (thank you for correcting) it suddenly got more complicated.
I also stream from a laptop (using VGA/Phono connection) and have an Ethernet cable to the router for iPlayer if that makes a difference.
But thanks again for taking an interest for me.
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John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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