All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
David Hathaway: If you have an aerial, then just connecting up a cheap digibox to it is cheap and easy - a Goodmans one can be had for about £17. Admittedly it has no manual tuning, and therefore can be a right PITA to set up (I have one), but you just put a scart into the TV (or even via the aerial socket if it has no scart) and off you go.
| link to this comment |
Nick ASDL UK: Actually, Panasonic's tend to have more audio options than Samsung's - try 'Audio Correction' - see this thread - Sound levels on the Freeview HD mux. - Technical - Digital Spy Forums - it may help.
The equalisation for audio will be in the TV setup, using the particular input/output, generally not the soundbar. Use HDMI, then digital optical, then 3.5mm - in that order with your soundbar.
| link to this comment |
Dave: perhaps the fact you've had a new booster aerial fitted, when your just 16km from the transmitter. Check your signal strength - there is a good chance yours is too high, especially in view of the fact that your using a humax box, which is known for its sensitive tuners.
| link to this comment |
Una: Unfortunately, there isn't any help available, as far as I'm aware. Digital UK did have a scheme (paid for by the BBC) The Switchover Help Scheme can help you make the switch to digital TV. | Switchover Help Scheme - but its was for those over 75, or disabled - and has now closed anyway.
You should have been paying for the analogue service (around £4 a month, according to Wiki), so who did you pay that to? Do they have a scheme you could sign up to?
The best thing to do is to find out what equipment you already have. If your in a flat, does it have a spare dish? Or if you are in a house, or at least somewhere with a loft, is there an aerial already set up? If you have either of these, then you've got a decent chance of getting TV for relatively little outlay. An aerial is easy - your TV probably already has Freeview built in, and if not, a £15 digibox will be fine. If you have a dish with at least one cable coming out of it (or the capacity to do so), then an old Sky box, or a Freesat box (£49 on the High St.) will get you a signal. You may not be able to record for much less than £150, but at least you'll get something.
If you have neither, then your looking at Sky, Virgin, or if the planning rules allow, an aerial. These are all going to cost, although the aerial is at least a one-off. Expect to pay £100 plus for an aerial to be put up. Dont really bother with an indoor aerial - you have very little chance of getting a signal, even if your not on the ground floor. Having said that, if someone has one spare, give it a go - you have nothing to lose. It needs to point to Sandy Heath, which is probably about 65 degrees as a bearing.
BTW - your postcode is missing the last digit - if you just put the whole postcode into the site next time you ask a question, loads of info is available from the little boxes next to your question.
Good luck.
| link to this comment |
Una: Just to follow up - your not alone, since a number of people have asked questions about the MK service ending, and there seems to be a discussion here: Re: Milton Keynes Analogue Cable Service - Page 4 - Help & Support Forum
| link to this comment |
Malcolm Godden : Ok - you've asked other people in the area, who have the same problem, and you've described the problem, which is that the picture is breaking up. You have put a 4G on your new aerial, but (perhaps unsurprisingly), that has made no difference, and you have tried an attenuator, but that has not worked (what was its strength, and what was your signal strength after you installed it).
Almost certainly the problem you and those near you have is that your signal is far too strong, since you are a stones throw (perhaps literally!) from the transmitter. Since the engineering work in October, the signal strength went up, and its tripped your tuner. There is no one you can 'contact', for its no one's fault - its just one of those things. A new aerial has probably not helped, since its possibly even more sensitive than the old one.
Check the signal strength on your TV - its must be 100% (or very close), and then get some stronger attenuators - I've just got a 6db one (less than £2 from Amazon), which lowered the signal strength by about 10%, so perhaps 12 and 18db ones might be better (you can always put them in series, to increase the effect). The other thing you can do is to buy a cheap indoor aerial - just £10 from some supermarkets - plug it in, and it might be fine.
| link to this comment |
Mike Dimmick: I dont think you need to see a secret plan for an upgrade to t2 tuners by Arqiva, etc - the market is already taking care of that.
The first T2 tuner arrived on high level TV's about 3 years ago, and by the next year was on pretty much everything from the major brands. Although Toshiba still makes 'Freeview' TV's, and of course the cheap non brand sets found in supermarkets and the like will tend to have standard tuners, most sets on sale right now are ready for HD out of the box, and any flat screen can have a T2 tuner added on.
If you are looking for a SD turn off of around 2018, then thats five years of TV's/recorders. etc being replaced by T2 equiped sets, and so on.
Pretty much all the early DVI flat screens will have gone by then, as will almost all CRT's (the last ones would have been sold around 2006). By then, it will be an HDMI world (although of course even my CRT can hook up to a T2 tuner via scart), and therefore it might be that 80-90% of TV's are either HD or have some sort of HD tuner connected to them.
For those that are left without a T2 tuner, there will be plenty of options, but by and large, any charge will have already occured on the ground, with the SD switchoff being just a push to the small number with very old equipment.
As for the people who think that children's TV is a waste of spectrum - obviously you dont have kids! Cbeebies/CBBC is a godsend, and has some of the best TV around - and of course, it simply time shares with BBC3/4 anyway.
| link to this comment |
KMJ,Derby: I'm getting large numbers of customers who bought a flat screen 4-7 years ago, in 32in-37in sizes, who now find that the TV is rather small. They are buying 40-42 or 46-47in screens instead (they probably underbought at the time, and of course a modern 40in screen is barely wider than a 6 year old 32in).
The tv they already have is not being dumped, but instead will go down the food chain, perhaps to the bedroom, spare room, etc. Many of my customers tend to have a set until it either dies (which is my wifes outlook), or when it just becomes too big, too poor or too heavy. Remember that the UK already has some of the highest market penetration of flat screen TV's in Europe, so the percentage that are left over are not vast.
CRT's are pretty reliable (I hope mine is....), but the last ones came off the line seven years ago, and its unlikely that most will make it to 2018. If they do, then you can of course fix up a T2 recorder to it, providing the recorder has a scart. I did have a customer the other day whose CRT was 20 years old, who wanted to buy a DVD player (which we no longer sell, as I said, its an HDMI world), but most have TV's rather younger than that, although our record for a returning customer was 32 years with the same set!
If you look at the buying cycle of most people, 6-7 years is not unusual for the main TV, and of course they will get vastly more for their money these days, so the chances are that most non HD capable sets will be replaced in that time.
| link to this comment |
KMJ,Derby: Thats quite true, although you can currently buy a T2 settop box for less than £50, and I suspect that price will come down significantly.
Ultimately, its will hinge on whether people will simply be happy having HD for a main TV, and not want to bother for any others. Experience would suggest that if you are used to a better picture, you'll want it in other rooms as well, at least if the price is right. In fact I was amazed at the number of people who dumped older TV's floowing switchover when a cheap digibox would have been all that was needed (we did try to tell them...), but often customers want a clean sweep.
It should also be remembered that there will be a fair number of surplus T2 tuner equiped recorders around at that point - recorders tend to be bought more frequently than TV's, since they are less costly, often add extra features for not a particularly large outlay, and have hard drives which often look small within five years or less (my own recorder was described in What Hifi in 2008 as having a 'huge' hard-drive. Its 250gb, whereas 500gb is now perfectly standard, and 1TB fairly normal) - they will often end up partnering the older TV, as the main room recorder gets an upgrade.
It would be interesting to know just how many HD ready TV's are in the UK, and how many ones with T2 tuners have been sold. Unlike B & W sets, we have no absolute figures, but it would be interesting to see the trend.
Anyway, since I still have a CRT TV, I'm happy for T2 to be standard only after I geta new one!
| link to this comment |
Saturday 30 November 2013 10:11PM
Malcolm Godden: Looking through your posts, three things jump out:
1) You havn't actually spelled out what is the nature of the problem - your channels are 'unwatchable' in what way? Is it all of them? And is your signal strength very low, or 100% (too high)?
2) Does anyone else in the area have the same problem/s?
3) Have you checked that your system is working properly, such as cables, etc?
Forgetting about 4G for a moment, the facts are this - following the 20th October, your signal became unwatchable. If, however, we consider that that was about the time Lambourn had engineering work, and if it follows type, then the signal strength went up, then too much signal might be a result.
Since you are just 300 (!) metres from the transmitter...I'd check your signal strength! It might be more than a touch high. As Jamie advised, kill off any boosters etc. JB38 often advises just getting a long bit of wire, and sticking it into the aerial socket - if your getting an OK signal, then your signal is very strong.