All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
rachel scriven: Rachel - if the TV has a scart, then just connect that to the freeview box, and use the box's remote - the TV is just a screen. You should get a picture, but you need to select the scart as the source you want to watch. Otherwise your just watching the static from the analogue tuner in the TV, which of course no longer works.
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G GUY: I can't find the Bush box on the Argos website, but I'm guessing it looks much the same as this; Freeview Digital Set Top Box | Twin Scart | Goodmans
I've got one of these (ours broke, and it was cheap..) - and it has no manual tuning. Thats not a problem, but for the fact that it will start at the lowest RF channel and work up. If you look at Digital UK's tradeview, you've got Cwmgors just 1km away on Ch24, Kilvey Hill on Ch23, and Preseli on Ch43. Carmel is on Ch60...
I know its a pain, it takes me ages to retune it.
And if you've two transmitters on a similar bearing, it will pick up the lowest first (and frankly, all the transmitters are a similarish direction, but Preseli is so close to Carmel). David Lindsay's solution is to pull out the aerial for the first 30% of the scan, and hopefully it should lock on. Once tuned, never touch it unless you really have to!
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Briantist: The Ipod/Iphone/Ipad App is also excellent - very simple to use, whether streaming live or from the archives.
I mentioned KCRW in a previous post, and the Guardian's David hepworth has just mentioned the station, with regard to its Eclectic 24 music channel Next week's radio: from Eclectic 24 to November Dead List | Television & radio | The Guardian - he suggests that the BBC will do something similar - an excellent idea.
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david: Why is it wrong in principle? If you look at the figures, its very clear that everyone uses the BBC, to one degree or another, so everyone pays. If you have no TV, you don't have to pay at all.
And, as has been pointed out already, subscriptions cost money to maintain (again, check Briantists previous posts - he supplies actual figures), which would mean costs of collection would rise, thus bringing in less revenue. Fee, subscription - is there a difference when it comes to paying for a service?
If you want to suggest other models of payment, etc, then you need to supply the data to back them up.
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Steve McHarg: have you checked your signal strength and which transmitter your tuned to?
If you click on the 'home to mast plot' or Digital UK tradeview links, you can see you should be tuned into Sutton Coldfield or Waltham. If your signal strength is very low, then it might be another transmitter being picked up first, or if too high (90-100%) then that will also cause problems. If its too high, search for 'too much of a good thing' on this website.
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Craig: If you click on the DigitalUK link next to your question, you can see for yourself! Since your only 5km from the transmitter, the answer would be lots more than 20 (have alook at the top of this page for the full list).
You'll probably need a better aerial, higher up - have a google for 'ATV sheffield', which will tell you all about aerials, or ask on this site - there are loads of people who could answer better than I could.
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Briantist: Any change to a net based system would depend on fast enough speeds and a very high connection rate. Based on what is available currently, the answer would certainly have to be 'not a chance'. BT's contract to roll out broadband to rural areas Rural superfast broadband chaos due BT's 'near monopoly', say MPs | Business | The Guardian was heavily attacked in a report by the Public Accounts Committee last year, with BT and government both sharing the blame BT's great broadband scam | Aditya Chakrabortty | Comment is free | The Guardian
Our average broadband speed is still very low Average World Internet Speeds Climb to 2.9Mbps as UK Scores 6.5Mbps - ISPreview UK compared with Korea or Japan, and not much better than midway in the chart for OECD countries BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband World: Mapping the global picture
Remember that that is average speed. I live opposite my local fibre cabinet, and I'm in a town. If you are in a rural area, your likely to get a far worse speed, and possibly no broadband at all (AOL still makes a decent profit from many rural users in the US who have no choice but to use dialup - broadband simply does not exist for them).
Also remember that some 20% of the UK population have no access to the net, and possibly this percentage might not change much. They may not want the net, or their geographical/economic position makes it unworkable.
Lets not even start on 'net neutrality' http://en.wikipedia.org/w…ity, and the risk that a competitors pragromming stream might be throttled by your provider.
Also remember that streaming in HD takes a fair amount of bandwidth for the average user now, 4K is going to be a huge leap from that. Will there be capacity?
Its true that speeds and coverage will get faster (although who's going to pay for that is an interesting question - providers, broadcasters or customers?), but its probably not going to be universal. Its also the case that most TV's are now smart, and so its not impossible to stream directly (or via a new box), but considering the percentage of live TV that people watch, is it worth doing? And what will happen to the business model of the commercial broadcasters?
Terrestial generally works, needs no great leap in technology or capital equipment, can transmit to fairly remote places, and even has been used as the test platform for 4K transmissions. Perfection is the enemy of the good...
David: Although I work for a rival of Currys, most showrooms have a similar system, which normally involves a feed (normally Sky HD) being fed via HDMI to all/most of the TV's. This makes sense because you generally want all the TV's to show the same thing at the same time (much easier to compare sets - they certainly should look different), and it means that suitable content can be shown easily (which is why you often get cartoons at a weekend - thats when families are shopping, and no parent wants their children to see something too old for them).
However, most of our TV's also have a standard terrestial feed, and we're more than happy to switch them to that feed for a customer, either in HD or standard - if I want to show a particular feature, I might do that anyway. Personally, I's show the credits of films all day - very boring for customers, but perfect for showing the different refresh rates of TV's - which is what makes them different prices!
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Friday 17 January 2014 8:51PM
Brian: I've only just spotted your question, but I've got a 895, and I get a problem a bit like that - sometimes you can series link, and sometimes you can't. It tends to be on BBC1 & 2 only, and comes and goes.
I honestly have no answer, but at least I'm not the only one!
My biggest problem is not recording on BBC1 becuase it keeps picking up the 800's channels instead, and then not recording. I thought an attenuator would solve it, but it didn't. My wife is not happy when her programmes dont record, so Thank goodness for the X-Box, which has Iplayer.