All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.M
Millburn Muir (West Dunbartonshire, Scotland) Freeview Light trWednesday 19 June 2013 3:06PM
Peterborough
Dave Lindsay: My Bad!!! (should have had the coffee first...)
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Trevor Stockdale: have you checked the signal strength? HD signals are often the first to be hit if the signal strength is too high. Ideally, you should be around 75%, although up to 85% might be fine. If it is too high, then follow the advice below:
Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | Digital switchover | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice
A lot of people have had problems of this sort following the recent retunes, and obvuously the first step should be to remove any boosters to see if it makes a difference. (PE12QN)
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john Broadhurst: A lot of my customers are in North Norfolk, and this area has generally been poor for Freeview. My parents-in-law live in Barnham Market, and they certainly used to get regional Yorkshire news, rather than Anglia, becuase of reception problems.
If reception continues to be poor or with only limited channels, then Freesat might be a better solution.
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sheila: lets start with the basics - your freeview signal seems rubbish, but if you include your postcode there might be a way to work out why. If its not really fixable, then Freesat/Sky would be a perfectly useable way of getting TV, but obviously Freeview is slightly easier, since all TV's and most recorders have Freeview tuners. I'm assuming for the moment that Freeview is unuseable.
Ok - Swapping out a sky HD box for a Humax Freesat PVR is perfectly fine (whether you can keep your programmes is something only someone who knows about Sky can answer!)and there are instructions on this website. If you want to stay with Sky, thats up to you, and you can do the Sky multi-room thing.
My brother has the Humax Freetime PVR (the latest), which he says is well made, but the software is 'buggy'. My parents have the Freeview equivalant (YouView), and have no problems, so hopefully Humax will learn and sort it out....
There is (in theory) no problem about making your other TV's receive Freesat as well. Although Freesat equiped TV's are relatively uncommon and are not cheap (as I pointed out here Freesat reception - all about dishes | Free satellite - general | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice a Freesat box is much cheaper, and even an excellent Humax receiver can be had from Humax itself for £69 - HUMAX UK Direct Sales Website .
You will of course have to wire them all up. This is the theory, since I've had to do it personally, but I'm sure there are loads of people who have who can guide you.
You have twin LNB's on the end of your Sky dish already (which you use for your main TV), and its possible you may have an extra two unused connectors as well (check underneath the bit where the wires come out - for more details look at Satcure's information http://www.satcure.co.uk/…tm).
Assuming you just have two connectors (which is fine for a Freesat recorder, but no more), the easiest thing to do is to put up another dish with a quad LNB, which means you could connect up to 4 Freesat receivers (from your other TV's). You could buy all the stuff from Satcure, etc, and do it yourself, or get someone in to do it, but I'd read Satcure's info and perhaps ATV's as well - both very useful sites. In fact if you ring Satcure they might give you advice on a particular point.
Dont go to your local DIY shed - you'll get better and possibly cheaper by going to Satcure, etc.
If your going down the Freesat route, its £249 for a Humax Freesat PVR retail (a graded one from Humax is a bit cheaper), plus around £70 for a Freesat receiver (various brands) (Humax graded around the same price). You'll need one for each TV (connect via scart/HDMI - try 7dayshop for the latter - very cheap on multibuy).
The dish is £36 from Satcure (includes a quad LNB), with the fittings for fixing it to the wall not being especially expensive.
To connect it to the various rooms, you'll need satellite quality cable ,grommits, plus inside wall plates to connect the cable up to the boxes, and F connectors. Most of the bits are not particularly pricey, and WF/WT100 coax cable can be bought in 50m reels for about £21. If you have anything left over you can make very nice cables to connect up your boxes.
You sound like you have thick stone walls, so drilling the holes for the cable might be the hardest part of the job...
If your Wifi is rubbish (thick stone walls...) then the Powerline type things might be fine, and you can use your hub to give you wifi in areas which make the most sense. You dont say how fast your broadband is, but if your in a rural area (if your Freeview isn't good...) its probably isn't going to be very fast. If its OK, and your blu-ray is a year or two old, then it might be smart, which means you could get Iplayer and possible Netflix/Lovefilm. If your broadband is very slow, don't bother.
Your TV is about 4 years old (BTW - where did you get it - I don't recognise it at all, I assume its European rather than UK), but its unlikely to be able to record to a HDD via USB. Plus the fact that is a vaguely rubbish and inflexible method anyway.
A Samsung TV that age should have 3/4 HDMI's plus a scart (but not smart), and so your fine for a PVR, Blu-ray, sound system/soundbar and possible Apple Tv and the like.
Connect your Blu-ray up to the net and see if you get anything. A cheap modern blu-ray (preferably with wifi) will have the same smart functions as a modern TV - a relatively cheap way to make your TV smart and wified at the same time, plus you get bluray!
Go and ask a local installer what they think (they will know the Freeview reception in the area and tell you if its worth it). They can also quote for any installation. Satcure/ATV will be helpful (and you may want to do any job yourself), and if your near Aberdeen, the TV dept of a certain large store will give you unbiased advice.
Plan thinhs on a big bit of paper, and see what works for you. Good luck
(PE12QN)
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Dave Lindsay: To be fair, the original version of your first sentence not only made sense, but also a very good point! It also made me laugh...
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Cath: I suspect that its how the AV2 settings have been done, and I'm sure that someone much more knowledgeable than I will take you through it.
However, I suggest you make your life easy, and dont bother with the recorder being hooked up to Sky at all.
I assume you previously had a Sky box which you attached to the Panasonic combi to record to VHS/DVD (my sister in law does something very similar). However, the whole point of Sky plus/Sky HD plus is that you can record things on the hard-drive. The VHS/DVD is largely redundant in this role.
My advice would be to take the scart out of the Sky box and the Panasonic recorder, and simply connect the Panasonic via an HDMI (for the DVD upscaling, if nothing else) to the second HDMI imput on the back of the TV. You can now just use it as a VHS/DVD player.
If you have connected it up to an aerial, then thats even better, since you can record to DVD from Freeview, but for most of your viewing, you'll be using Sky HD.
Of course both the TV and the recorder are only Freeview equiped, but by connecting everything up in this fashion, you can use both Sky tuners to record two things at once (in HD), record something on DVD on the Panasonic from Freeview, and watch Freeview on another channel all at the same time.
If you want your (still very nice ) Panasonic TV to be smart, then this years blu-rays are very reasonably priced (£60), although I'd go for wifi ones, which are a little more expensive, just to make life easy for yourself.
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Cath: I thought you might want to take off stuff from the Sky box about a minute after I'd written the entry above! I'm sure someone could help you through it, although a quick search on the site should bring up something - its not an unusual question ('Connecting it all up'perhaps?)
You say you want to transfer programmes onto video/DVD - I'd suggest just using the DVD (much easier to transfer to a PC). Even better - buy the box-set if you can. Unless your using a CD-RAM disc on the recorder, you can't edit out all the adverts, etc. Make your life easy.
Buying another HDMI is a great idea, but dont spend too much - £5 or £50, they do the same thing. 7dayshop does decent ones for £2.49 or less (and you only need 1.3). Its always worth having a look at the back of your equipment to see what connections it has - often they are better than the ones we've got used to.
Finally - a 42" Panasonic five years ago should have a Freesat turner - if you have a spare LNB on your dish, you could use that as well!
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Trebinski: I couldn't tell the answer to the first question, but I am puzzled by the second.
The chances of both a dish and an aerial signal going wrong at the same time is pretty much nil (a satellite signal is almost always fine), so I suspect the answer lies in your setup.
You say you have 2 TV's and a PVR - one of which is Freesat. How are they hooked up? Freesat will obviously not share a connection with Freeview, so how is it that they have both gone off at the same time?
If you could include a postcode, someone might be able to answer the first question, and a quick discription of your equipment (make and model) and how its connected might help answering the second.
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M
My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+Friday 28 June 2013 7:44PM
Peterborough
Mike Halsall: Since your 1km (!) from the transmitter, I'd start with your signal strength - if its 100% then it needs to come right down - 75% is perfect but you can live with a bit higher.
Obviously bypass any boosters, etc, and then see if its OK - if not then there is a page about this on the site.
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Wednesday 19 June 2013 1:29PM
Peterborough
Roy: If you read the post directly above yours, it would say ' Over the next week Millburn Muir relay: TV (digital) Liable to interruption' due to engineering. I suspect that once this is completed, the reception will be much better. There are of course no 4G tests in your area.