All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Claire Butland: I can only agree with Michael - it could be that your signal is just really strong. Since you gave a postcode, you can see that your not far from Crystal Palace. You could just have a really powerful signal, even without an aerial. In fact you can check yourself on the TV.
LindaB has an excellent point - gold plated cables make no difference at all. However, its now really difficult to find ones that are not gold plated! And thats a very good point about carpenters as well...
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mel: About 85%(?) of the population doesn't need to use Freeview Light transmitters. If you live in a remote or little populated area, your unlikely to have a vast range of shops, a huge hospital on your doorstep,fantastic broadband, and be ten minutes from an international airport. Commercial broadcasters dont think its worth it to extend their channels to light transmitters, and thats up to them.
Of course if you can use a dish, such as Freesat. But what about mobile signal reception? Coverage would have to be as good as the current Freeview system, and why subsidise 4G operators? And the amount of bandwidth would have to be fairly large compared with today.
It all seems much more complicated than keeping the current system, at least for a while.
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Annie: You may already have a Freesat/sat tuner hidden in your TV. A lot of older Panasonics had Freesat, and recently its come back into vogue, with higher level Panasonics and mid to high level Samsungs having Freesat tuners. LG's pretty much all seem to have a gerneric sat. tuner from 2013 onwards (although they dont talk about it), and many Sony's are now doing the same. If you have make and model number, we can check. However, just have a look on the back of the set - if its got a screwon fitting like the back of your Sky box, then its got one, and can be used in the same way.
If you want to record and watch - then follow JB38's and Brianists advice - buy something decent - its will seldom be much more expensive that something rubbish, and will be easy to use. Humax is the one I normally recommend. The Humax 1010 is good value at the moment, since at £249, its only £50 more expensive than the 500gb version without wifi - both of those are features which would be worth it for the long term.
If you just want a box to watch (just like your Sky box), customers have given good feedback on this: http://www.johnlewis.com/…1121 - for less than £50 you get Iplayer as well.
Personally, I recommend you take a digital photo of your dish, showing how many connections are currently coming out of it, and go to a proper shop, and ask their advice on buying a box, etc. Humax is the gold standard, but there are others around.
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Rosemary: If your tuned to Crystal Palace, you should do. The engineering works took place very early in the morning, for obvious reasons. Check your aerial.
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con hacon: My HX895 was fine last night (my transmitter is Waltham), but after I saw your original post this morning, I had a look at the machine - and its been in update for the past couple of hours, at the very least.
Its not the end of the world - we have Iplayer, etc - but its is a pain. I couldn't be bothered with the whole 'reset to France' type thing last year, so I might just switch off at the wall and see if comes back into normal mode. I assume that a similar glitch to last year has occured - some one has decided to change the EPG info in some way and the software has thrown a hissy fit.
I suspect, as John E pointed out, that nothing much is going to happen over the Bank Holiday, so I'm just going to see what happens over the next couple of days, until its sorted out.
As for Sony hoping they will 'die a natural death' - Sony/Pioneer dont even make recorders any more (Pioneer dont make TV's now either), so I suspect its not a part of a plan for them to sell you a new one. However, from Sony's point of view, having a product with your name on it not working twice within a year does not want to make you particularly buy a Sony product again! Thats a shame, because I really liked most of Sony's TV lineup last year, and this year its looking pretty good.
As I said last time, PVR's etc are as much software as hardware these days, and a glitch can really damage your brand instantly, in a way a hardware problem probably cannot.
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Briantist: I think Jame has laid out the issues very well - for most people the question is largely what is the easiest, most reliable and most cost-effective system/s?
Your also right to point out that this probably a decade away, at least. I understand exactly why 'Freeview' are fighting so hard for as much spectrum as possible - without any spectrum fro Freeview, there is no Freeview, and hence no business. And even though more advanced codec's, etc will allow a more efficient use of spectrum, Freeview are fully ware that saying yes to whatever the mobile industry says now will set a prescident for what is to come, which would be even less spectrum for Freeview. You have what you hold....
However, using broadband/4 or 5G to 'transmit' TV does throw up its own problems. There is of course the problem of capacity and reach - buffering is alive and well, thanks to low speeds in both rural and urban areas, and Moore's Law does not cover the general increase in capacity we would need, at least not on our present course.
That capacity will have be more larger that currently to keep up with the demands of both internet use and new TV technology. Samsung reckon that 4K Tv's will be where the market will be within 5 years (the highest level Panasonic this year is 4K, whereas even Samsung have a Full HD in that bracket). Sharp are going to launch a 4K recorder in Japan (who are going to try out 4K broadcasting) - a1Tb hard drive will record just 52 hours of 4K TV, whereas SD would get you 400 hrs, and HD around 200. Thats a lot of data, and of course you have to think what a household will use.
The other problem is 'net neutrality'. Its barely been mentioned here in the UK, but its certainly big in the US. There is a good guide here : The FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal Explained | The Nation . Think about the UK - if BT/Virgin/EE want to restrict speeds of rival services or ask for a 'fee', will that be something that is good for the customer? It will be interesting to see how Ofcom will handle this.
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John E: I just did the 'switch off at the wall, wait 30 seconds' thing, and its seemed to have worked. I know what you mean about the idea of a status website - it would be useful. Hopefully, someone will:
a) test to make sure everything works OK (considering that the said unit has had a previous problem)
b) have a system in place to tell people whats going on - a twitter storm can move very fast these days, so best to have something set up to deal with such problems.
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LindaB: To be fair, any changeover is not being mooted until about 2025-30. If you mean 'older customer' your talking about someone whose say, 75, they are only in their early sixties now. And my customers in that age group vary from knowing nothing about the net, TV's etc to those who love new technology and are buying OLEDs.
However, your right in that not everyone wants or needs the internet (be it broadband, 4G, etc) or lives in an area where that can be easily supplied. Like lots of things, the technology might move quicker than human nature - and I suspect that what the market wants will govern the pace of change and its direction.
Brianist: It would be really interesting to have an article about the run up to digital switchover, from its being announced to the public to its actual start. I know you did one about Greg Dyke and Freeview, but a look back at what the media thought would happen (and the TV industry) would be very interesting. It might also be worth seeing what people on this site thought, and were they correct?
Such an article would offer some perspective on such changes, and how people react to them.
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John Martin: 'When it gets down to EMP burst i don,t think anyone of us will be worrying about Freeview or can I use my mobile'
If that happens, Semaphore is going to be huge.....!
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Wednesday 21 May 2014 10:07PM
Scott: Looking at where you are, you are pretty close to Pontop and there is nothing in the way. So there shouldn't be a problem, and yet....
Could you check to see what transmitter you are are actually tuned into? If you look on the Digital Tradeview link, Pontop is at 232 degrees. Although Bilsdale and Chatton are way off, its not impossible your tuned to them instead, especially since Pontop Pike is on channel 58, and pretty much everything else is lower down.
If you are on Pontop Pike, then Paul has a point. As you point out, 'inclement weather' causes problems. It could be that your cabling/connections has a break which allows water to get in. Its not great at the best of times, but when moisture gets in, the signal gets killed totally.
I'd go through each possible cause, and sort out each one. It may be you've got more than one problem, but at least you'll find out what they are.