All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Colin Campbell: In theory, yes, but as we explained last April, its more complex than that, and frankly, you dont need to.
Use your main aerial for Belmont - you'll get the full number of channels. Brianist pointed out that you could use a diplexer to allow you to get the local transmitter from another aerial. Its not even very far, so you could even get away with a set-top thing, or certainly one in the roof.
You subsequently said that you have a dish on the side of the house. My advice then is the same as now - buy a cheap Freesat receiver, and use that for your local news - you can set the region. Thats the cheapest and easiest way to get both the full number of channels (via Belmont), and local programmes (via the dish).
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Sandra Blickem: Do you have actual data to support any of those very vague accusations? Biased? To who?
I hate sport, but at the weekend, there is a lot of sport, and they only have two channels to show it (BBC3 & 4 share with CBBC & Cbeebies) - in reality they dont show sport on all channels all day.
And if someone is covering a terrible disaster or questioning a politician, why would I want them to be other than 'too serious'. And the sound not being perfect on Jamica Inn is no more than a storm in a teacup. Sound is generally worse on all TV's these day - try listening to the other channels - the BBC is no better or worse.
Martin Baines: Think of what would happen if there was no BBC. No Proms, no real kids TV (trust me, Cbeebies and CBBC are fantastic), but lots of reality shows, soaps and 'dramas'. I dont always like the BBC either, but when I look at other countries output, I'm not always impressed either. I think Roy Greenslade made an excellent argument as to why the BBC should contine in its current form: Why the public must rally to support the BBC licence fee | Media | theguardian.com
I'm sick of the 'American TV is best/we have Netflix's' arguement. Firstly, we get the cream of the crop of US shows. Much of its is dross. In fact most shows dont make it past the pilot, never mind the first series. And while there is a lot of fantastic drama from the US, its a media market at least five times larger than our own. I'd expect more great drama.
HBO, Showtime, ANC, etc are all cable channels where you subscribe, and where the programme makers are often allowed to take risks without fear of advertisers, language, content, etc. Have a look at the main US broadcast channels. Do you really think Hawaii 50 is better than Line of Duty?
Netflix's? Netflix is a distributor of content, although like most other distributors, from the time of the 2 reelers, its moved into production as well. Its first big production? An adapation of a set of books made famous on TV by an TV adaption from the BBC...
Netflix is great if you have fast broadband, and you want to watch a lot of different stuff (although relative poor compared with what the US site has to offer). Yet the huge majority of TV watched in the UK is live - its not even recorded.
Sport? I hate sport generally, but if the alternative is paying money to Rupert Murdoch, then the BBC should be allowed to cover sports.
Drama? There are fantastic drama's on the BBC. Its been a really good year. Yes, some want more risk-taking, but overall, its been great. There should be no need to say US is better than UK - both have great stuff, but do things in slightly different ways, as this article pointed out: American vs British drama: why do we have to pick a side? | Television & radio | theguardian.com
Arts? The BBC produces a huge amounts of stuff on the arts - and although Sky has two channels devoted to it, you have to pay more than your licence fee to watch them, and I suspect that they (and Sky Atlantic) are loss leaders to encourage people people like me to make the leap to Sky. If there was no BBC, then I suspect they would go in an instant.
News? Not always great - and I complain when its isn't. But overall, its has a huge range and can be brilliant. I have no desire to get my news in the same way as the US - which is perhaps why NPR uses the World Service so much. Are there really shackles on its news gathering? The joy of the World Serive is that it is seen as not just government propaganda. It might be the cheapest 'soft power' weapon the UK has, and its would better if the Foriegn Office coughed up for its upkeep, but thats not the BBC's fault.
You yourself admit that the BBC is very good at what it does, and I'm in total agreement. But you then say it should be broken up because the market can do it better, and that its a compulsory tax. I'm not sure the market can do it better, and if doesn't, then it will impossible to put the BBC back together again.
The tax thing is a bit like the whinging you get from libertarian types - 'its because of 'fredum' and 'rights'. Its rational, but only within a very particular worldview, and totally misses the point. Your 'made' to pay for lots of stuff you might never use via taxation, but why pick on something that you do use?
Since 99.9% of people in the UK use the BBC on a weekly basis, and 98% use BBC1, we have made our choice, and its seems to work. We get relatively high quality stuff to watch and to listen to, with no adverts, on an 'all you can eat' basis. For 40p per household, per day. Can the market come up with a better offer - I doubt it. If we did slice and dice, for what are purely ideological reasons, I suspect, as the song says, we dont know what we've got til its gone.
The BBC gives us a mix of great TV, has a huge cultural reach, and keeps the rest honest.
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Dave Roberts: Streaming via their website, or Freesat, or Sky
S4C How to get S4C Digital
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David Toman: Sorry you've had possibly incorrect advice, but we are not perfect (this from someone who works in JL EHT), but in theory, the Samsung remote should work. However, it can be a bit hit and miss, which is why I tend to advise brand to brand if you want them to sync perfectly..
As this question about a Humax and Samsung combo points out : 32 H5500 Series 5 Smart Full HD LED TV (UE32H5500AKXXU) | Support | SAMSUNG UK - the person put in the details of another brand, and got the Humax working. Since I dont know who makes Manhattan (I did try to find out a while ago), it might be worth putting one of the Vestral brand codes in (Goodmans, Bush, Toshiba, etc) and see if it goes for it.
However, I dont know if your trying to programme the Samsung remote to work with the Manhattan, or using via HDMI, and therefore trying to use CEC Ask HTG: Why Can I Control My Blu-ray Player with My TV Remote, But Not My Cable Box? - not everything is compatable, but obviously if your not using HDMI, then thats worth a try.
If not, then its using two remotes, rather than one, which is not the end of the world. Use the Manhattan for the Freesat, and possibly volume, and the Samsung for the Smart stuff. The 5600 is a really nice set, and our standard 'goto' for someone wanting all the features on a 22in for a good price.
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Fred Perkins: You've allowed youself to be seduced by an ideological viewpoint, rather than a practical one, even though you admit that the BBC is good value for money.
Is the BBC actually 'crowding out' the commercial sector, and has it strayed from its original remit? If we take its original remit to be the Reithian "inform, educate and entertain", then the answer is no. Entertain means just that, and there is nothing wrong with the BBC producing programmes that we might actually want to watch and listen to. I'm sure there must have been people tutting that the BBC played light music and had comedy back in the 1930's, but we all seem to have survived. Think of all those classic BBC comedy programmes over the years - did that mean there were no decent comedies anywhere else on TV? Or drama?
As for crowding out, this is one of those free market bits of nonsense which pops up a lot, especially in the US. Thomas Frank basically has a whole chapter in 'The Wtecking Crew' devoted to shooting this meme down - pointing out that if you think 'guvment' is the problem, then anything it does well is bad, because government is bad. If the BBC is crowding out the private sector, then by that logic, so is the NHS, police, HM Revenue and the Army - all of which could be done by the private sector.
In reality, governemnt tends to help the private sector a great deal, as the book 'The Entreprenerial State' explains.
The BBC trains huge numbers of technicians, actors and directors. Think just how much drama the BBC makes each year - they are the single largest producer of drama on the planet - and then think what would happen if the BBC wasn't there. Brianist pointed out the results of such a report a while back - the conclusions were not good for the UK economy. And a huge amount of talent got their first break on the BBC. Anthony Mingella didn't start writing Oscar winners immediately - he started writing scripts for Grange Hill.
If the BBC was to produce only non commercial programmes, what would it look like?
We would perhaps have a 38 part series on the atonal composers from 1948-1982, documentaries on cheese making (just like National Lampoon's European Vacation), endless round table discussions on coastal erosion in Namibia and perhaps programmes on Mongolian throat singing. Possibly a film or two from the Swedish national film collection, showing the early works of a particularly gloomy director, obscure Scottish poets, and redubbed vintage Eastern Bloc animation (and a documentary on said animation). Cheap and very worthy children's prgrammes (here's bran, kids!), a series about the abandoned footwear found on Hadrian's Wall (actually, I would happily watch this), and an adaption of a famous 1923 Slovak play all about peasants, in the orginal Slovak. And dont forget the OU!
Of course as soon as you put on this deeply high-brow stuff, the free-marketeers would immediately say that nobody watches this, and if they do, they should pay for it. Head they win, tails you lose.
In fact Sky was cheeky enough to try this argument some years ago about Eastenders - its popular, therefore commecial. In which case, it should be on Sky, which, although commercial, has produced remarkably few popular programmes.
The BBC has to supply a mixture, so as to inform, educate and entertain. Thats fine. I dont always want serious stuff. But, for those who think the BBC is dumbing down, this is the serious stuff from Radio 4 today. Thinking Allowed, Tweet of the Day, Start the Week (really good today), A Book of the Week about living in different houses, a drama about Syria, a documentary about horses on a housing estate. A History of Ideas, a series about the history of Mossad, an afternoon drama, a music quiz (with a lot of classical music), The Food Programme, a series about Scottish poets, Beyond Belief, a programme about the word Mongol(!), Crossing Continents, Shared Planet (about mangroves), The Book at Bedtime, and a programme about 'The Queen of African Music'. And of course Today, The World at One, PM, The World Tonight, and all the hourly news.
As for TV - have you seen BBC4? And there are some really good stuff on BBC3 - their Afghan programme is incrediably powerful.
'Arguably, the BBC could achieve its remit with a budget a fraction (10%??) of the licence fee revenue - giving government something else on which to 'spend' the surplus. ' - Thats saloon bar handwaving. C5 has currently a £200m budget. Its makes bascially no content itself, buys its news in, and of course has no radio operation of any sort. And most of it is rubbish. You get what you pay for. BBC radio currently costs £650m - so almost double the £350m you suggest would cover everything. Your entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Lets see the data behind your thinking.
I think that the BBC makes a good case here - BBC - Blogs - About the BBC - Why the licence fee is the best way to fund the BBC
What I find is that those who argue against the licence fee is that they have no workable alternative, and seem largely to have an ideological problem with it, rather than anything fundermentally practical.
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Steve: It probably would be helpful to put in a postcode when you next post, so we can the signal path etc. However, its seems your right - the PVR is fine (ok, not fantastic, but if your are on the edge of reception, understandable), but not the TV. TVOnics tuners should be not much different from Humax (if I remmber the reviews), and I know Sony turners are really sensitive.
Ok - is the signal coming into the the PVR, and then being looped through the PVR and sent on to the TV? If so, it might as simple as a duff aerial lead! Try replacing the one from the PVR to the TV, and see if it makes any difference. Frankly, if you go to Poundland, you might get some Belkin ones for a quid, so buy two and see if there is any difference when you replace both.
If there is no difference, at least you can cross it off the list, for a couple of quid.
BTW - this new layout isn't really working all that well, or is it just me?
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Michael: You tried in with another device - what was the transmitter the TV was tuned into, and what where the signal/quality levels?
Assuming they were fine, and it was to Sandy Heath, two things occur to me.
Firstly, your problems are still with BBC1 & 2. They tend to be more powerful signals, so if you do have too high a signal strength (and you are really pretty close to the transmitter), they will be the first ones to really have a problem. The TV you tested might just have a rather less sensitive tuner than the box.
There is no reason why BBC1 & 2 might have become weaker suddenly, so logically, if the signal is weaker, it must be something in your system at fault. Since the TV you tested was fine (it would be nice to know the make and model, as well as the readings), I suspect that its the box, and its simply a bit more sensitive, hence the no signal problems, etc.
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Reid: I suspect you might have too strong a signal, since your potentially as little as 4km from a transmitter, and just 8km, if your using Storton. Even ones further away, like Moel Y Parc, are not all that far.
Check your signal stregnth, and what your tuned to, and then look here: Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you
Its strange that the person you paid didn't think about this, but its not uncommon. If you have a booster, then that could make things worse. Needless to say, that might explain your neighbours problem as well.
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Sunday 23 November 2014 6:30PM
mark: I agree, thats the trend - in London is already above 50% for digital. FM isn't going to disappear any time soon, but its not going to be the main means of radio listening nationally for much longer.
nickwilcock: DAB wasn't generally put into cars as standard for years, but now most new cars will have the option, or have then as standard. DAB coverage is also being extended to fill the gaps, so we are less likely to hear 'bubbling mud' (although the hiss of analogue isn't great either).
In fact mobile radio is with us now, and for many drivers, they are already streaming radio direct to their car stero's - in fact BMW is now including such a system in many of their cars, and I suspect others will follow.
I'm not a digital geek, and I suspect Mark isn't either. Personally, i'm happy with whatever works for the particular person, but Mark has laid out the facts - the trend away from analogue is clear.