All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Ron Eccles: Put your postcode into the website - it will bring up a lot of links which will give location of transmitters, terrain, etc.
As you say, you might have locked on to the wrong transmitter anyway
A booster can screw up your signal if its too strong - you might not need one at all.
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Greg woodhouse: Put your postcode into the site - it will bring up links about terrain, transmitters etc. Once you've worked out what you should be getting, you can work out what the problem is.
a) check signal strength - low or high?
A low signal points to a dodgy system, but check which transmitter your actually on - could be the wrong one.
And while some muxes might look perfect (check signal strength), others can be totally shot by a dodgy cable.
Test each part and narrow it down - you certainly shouldn't just get a new aerial.
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Terry Reef: Check your signal level - if its too high or low the sound can burble - and obviously keep checking to see if its on a particular channel or mux.
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e needham: If you can't find it, its likely to have gone bust. Try Google to find out.
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Tony Jones: If you'd posted on the Midhurst Freeview page, you could have seen yourself what channels are available. But it doesn't.
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Different TV's have different tuners, and one might be more sensitive/less sensitive than the others. But you need to check the signal level on that mux on that outlet - you've decribed symptoms, not hard data.
Poor quality might be too high a signal, or too low - until you have a reading, you wont know what the problem is. And we couldn't tell you what your level should be from the fragment of postcode you gave (its a large area, and I cant be bothered to guess) - but put your full postcode into the site and it will bring up lots of links.
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RJ: Try changing the aerial lead from the box to the TV - different tuners have different sensitivities, so check signal strengths that its not the system and the TV has gone first.
But if the box is fine, then so should the TV, unless whatever is connecting the two together has a problem, in which, check the fly lead...
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Briantist: Firstly, I'm delighted to see you back with more articles - its been great that you've kept the site going at all, but with so many changes in the media world, its good to see your articles again.
OK, so why do people not watch more TV in HD? I've sold TV's and other equipment for almost a decade now, so these are the reasons I would put forward:
1) Habit and placing on the EPG.
The second point in the article is right - you might have to search around for HD channels, which are usually to be found in the 100's. TV's automatically default to BBC1 as the first channel on the EPG, and people have used 1 since the time of the dinosaurs, so 1 rather than 101 is the channel most people will still automatically go to.
Most people dont tend to bother rearranging their EPG - they dont have a clue how to, so instinct tends to rule. We are creatures of habit, and its takes a long time for people to get out of it.
I had a couple yesterday who'd bought a new 40in 4K set, but said they could only get a picture with black bars on it. I eventually worked out that they had been using their old SD Humax box for so long, that although they set up the TV/box correctly, they hadn't actually used the TV's internal tuner at all - they were still watching the set through the very old Humax box, which was messing up the aspect ratios.
Once the DVT-T2 switchover happens, then that problem will go.
2) Not everyone has an HD tuner.
The UK had the highest penetration of flat screen TV's in Europe years ago, and frankly, a lot of people havn't upgraded the tuner (I had two customers in the past two weeks still using old CRT's). They are pretty cheap, but again, people are creatures of habit, some strangely think that have an HD panel means an HD picture (no), and sometimes, even if they do have an HD tuner, they dont actually use it.
I remember a young couple who said they had Sky HD, but the picture wasn't very good. I asked them which cable they were using to connect their current TV (they were buying a new one anyway). They looked at the back of the dept's then Sky box, and pointed at the scart socket....
And until recently, a lot of cheap TV's could be sold as HD, while not mentioning the lack of an HD tuner. The four big brands had the bulk of their sets (although not all, there was an LG just last year...) with an HD tuner pretty soon after digital switchover. I still get customers asking if a TV has Freeview built in, so they might not even be aware that a TV really should have an HD tuner.
Older people certainly are less likely to use HD - my father watches a great deal of TV, but will happily watch everything in SD, even though the TV has an HD tuner - pure habit (he also watches something called 'Keep it Country', which is in SD anyway).
3) People stick to what they know, and certain myths tend to be difficult to dislodge.
In our store, we show most TV's in HD, (even though they are mostly 4K) simply because that a realistic picture to show customers for when they get home (we are not Currys). 8 years ago, we showed them on SD on our HD sets, for much the same reason. Curry's do like to show lovely 4K demos (that ones a 4K Sony one for the OLED, which looks lovely - its not a 3D demo), but even when putting HD on (which we can all get from our aerials), I still get people who say that you can't see the difference between SD and HD.
This is nonsense - you can, and we flick over one of the 32in sets to the SD channel of what we are showing on all of them, and the difference is clear. But people still dont always believe you. In much the same way as people used to argue that there was no point in HD under 40in, 'because you can't see the difference' (you can, trust me), there is an article I spotted the other day saying the same thing about 4K (again, yes, you can).
And HD is much better if your vision is worse - there is simply a lot more data on the screen - I'm 50 and watching HD is much better. Put it this way, I'm still stunned that walking into any HMV, the bulk of boxsets for NEW shows will be on DVD, so are being bought in SD, even though they were made and broadcast in HD!
So you get an often circular logic - I will stick with SD, because I know where it is, and HD isn't really any better anyway, and I know that because....aaahhh!
4) Programmes are not in HD
True, but only sort of. Programmes on SD channels like 1, 2, ITV etc will often look better than their counterparts 20 years ago simply because they were originally made in ...HD.
So the amount of data that was originally captured is pretty good. Same goes for films - most are now broadcast using blu-ray quality, so even an SD broadcast of 'Where Eagles Dare' on Spike last year looked really good, because they were using an HD version. Same goes for ITV4's SD channels 'Jaws'.
On the other hand, members of my film forum complained at how rubbish 'Hero's of Telmark' looked - its because the studio hasn't bothered yet with an HD version, so they are using an SD picture. Thats not great on SD on a HD panel, but worse still on an HD channel on an HD panel.
Watch an HD presentation on HD, and it will be very good - even though BBC2's versions of 2001, LA Confidential and Ipcress File were all being shown at 1080i, they looked so good that I had to go and get LA Confidential in Blu Ray, just because my DVD version just wasn't up to it.
But even programmes made before 2009 will look better on an HD channel, because they are being upscaled at source, or have access to better sources than were originally broadcast. Watch Dad's Army on BBC2 HD - it will look better than if you watch it on SD DVD (a blu ray with upscaling will be closer, but still). Same goes for Frasier - the C4 HD broadcasts look slightly better than my DVD's with upscaling.
To be honest, I dont think its a rational choice that people make when they dont bother with HD for an older show - its just ingrained habit.
Whats going to change this shortfall? Death and the move to T2 tuners, to be honest.
The reality is that younger viewers are more aware of HD - they are simply less likely to accept SD when they have the choice - and because they are more likely to stream or game, they are much more likely to want to do so in 4K (the Netflix trailer for The Crown is stunning - which isn't surprising, since 4K is the res for a multiplex).
An Xbox One will get you 4K gaming, and I was talking to a customer the other day with a 4K set (middle aged, actually!) who uses Netflix all the time - 50% of what he watches is in 4K.
So as that older generation dies off, that screen res will become the new normal. And with 4K sets the de facto standard now, you will need HD to get a decent picture out of them - SD looks horrible. 4K programmes are already being made, not just for streaming, but for broadcast - Blue Planet 2 (like Planet Earth 2) was made in 4K, and released on 4K discs (you could even stream a 4K clip from Iplayer for Planet Earth).
And once the DVT tuners go, then its potentially HD all the way, and so that will be the broadcast standard - you press 1, and you get 1...in HD. Problem solved.
I'm still stunned at the number of people who still go an sit at their desktop, and watch Iplayer on a 17in screen, when they have a smart TV with Iplayer built in, but I recognise that people often do things in the same way they have always done, because thats the way they've done them. Technology can't change human nature.
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Fred Davies: Look at the Digital UK link - if your tuned to the nearest transmitter, you just 3 miles from it! Check signal strength - could be way too high, and having a booster would make tat even worse. Secondly, which transmitter are you actually tuned into? You could be trying to get a signal from a transmitter which isn't suitable.
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Wednesday 4 October 2017 6:34PM
Andy: Com 7 is on a quarter of the power of the other muxes, so I'm glad it helped, but 9% is still very low (do you get Com 8?), so I suspect the problem is ultimately further up the chain.