All posts by John Ormerod
Below are all of John Ormerod's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Rowridge: picture quality and signal power relationship?
Mux1 and MuxB are shown as max power, yet BBC1 and 2 have a blurrred quality (analogue wins hands down), though BBC4 is fine. Yet Mux 2 is shown as low power, but Ch4 picture quality is fine. I had been assuming that BBC1/2 poor quality was due to low power signal that would improve when analogue is turned off. Now, I wonder if this is as good as it gets?
This is Winchester, external aerial, using a Sony tuner/hard drive recorder, into a Philips 28in CRT set.
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It was searching for a reason for the poor signal on the Rowrdige FM transmitter that I found this site several months ago. Briantist kindly explianed that it was being rebuilt. A few weeks ago the signal improved and sure enough, the info under the map said it was working OK.
At the weekend, I noticed that the signal had dropped off, and sure enough the info is now back to saying 'possible waek signal' (actually, it's a definite weak signal!).
Is it being rebuilt again, or are we suffering poor service for another reason?
Regards, John
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HD on Freeview
Hello
Until a few weeks ago, I'd assumed that HD would need extra bandwidth and was limited to satellite. It seems that's not the case. What I am not clear about is what exactly is available? Yes, I have just looked at the FreeHD page, and am not much the wiser.
We don't have a HD-capable TV or digibox, but we could make the move, if the content is worthwhile.
We just had a couple of weeks holiday in France, and the TV in the flat had 4 or 5 of their main freeview channels in HD and standard.
The impression I have been under is: there is just one BBC HD channel that shows selected programmes from BBC1 and 2. Though a glance at this week's listings showed some programmes in HD on 1 and 2 being broadcast at the same time... hence my confusion.
The FreeHD page suggests that there will be a BBC1 HD service starting in Nov... so now am even more confused (and disappointed as there is little worth watching on BBC 1 these days). How about BBC4 HD - if the French can do it...
If this is explained somewhere, I'd be grateful if someone could provide a link to the site.
Regards, John
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Mike Dimmick
Thanks very much for explaining the HD situation - all is now clear.
I'd assumed that all transmitters carried HD (well, all plugs for programs on HD imply that it's there to be used), and the reason the Guide in my digibox recorder didn't show any HD channels was because it isn't HD-enabled - as far as I know.
My reference to Nov was from looking at the FreeHD tab at the top of this page - just re-looked and it's saying BBC1 HD starts Nov 3rd. Again, the headline implication is that it will be available everywhere.
Thanks again, John
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Hello
This seems the place where someone might know the answer to a sightly tangential question.
Does anyone know if anyone is making, or planning to make, a radio tuner (for plugging into an amplifier) using Freeview?
Seems to me that this would offer better quality than DAB can achieve with its limited bit rates.
I've recorded a few Radio 3 concerts using my hard-drive recorder. Sound seems pretty good even though I'm having to use Sony's probably cheap and cheerful DAC, plus 30 feet of connecting wire from TV to pre-amp.
Another question - I record using the HQ setting, in case this means higher quality for audio - does the audio use more bits in HQ, or am I wasting disk space?
Regards, John
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Sunday 2 January 2011 6:52PM
Briantist
Just a line to thank you for replying to my question about Rowridge FM transmissions. I guess I will just have to watch (or listen to) this space. Happy New Year, as well.