menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Archive (2002-)

 

 

Click to see updates

All posts by Chris.SE

Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

C
Film 4 +1
Saturday 7 December 2019 6:39PM

js:

Ha, ha they'll have given up with me a long time ago, they'll be too busy listening to next door's Alexa having found nothing interesting when they discovered my SSID, for a p-take, incorporated letters from a certain organisation to the ENE of Gloucester ;)

link to this comment
GB flag

David Light:

To be precise BBC Engineering has reported - From 2:55pm to 11:25pm on 7th Dec 2019 Off the air due to a fault.
If you did happen to retune whilst you had no signal, it will have cleared memory of your correct tuning and you will need to retune again now (when) the signal is back.

link to this comment
GB flag
C
Film 4 +1
Sunday 8 December 2019 8:55PM

Not one neighbour has ever said a thing :o
This telly can't watch, the remote might be listening though - they'd have heard some ripe comments about that lot in the HoC!

link to this comment
GB flag
C
Film 4 +1
Monday 9 December 2019 2:27AM

js: I've never really thought about or investigated it. I hope StevensOnln1 will fill in our gaps in knowledge. I'd guess that it's bound to be a "personal" stream once you've selected Watch from start, and the same with any "Catchup" or "On Demand" programme selected, and likewise rewind on Youtube, but initially iPlayer is "told" which channel is wanted and it will know from the schedule what the programme is, similarly Youtube is "told/knows" which stream you are watching. I have had some "interesting" occurrences when programmes have not started at the scheduled time.

However, I didn't think you could go back 4hrs on iPlayer, I seemed to recall an incident on the news channel where I couldn't get back to where I wanted, but never went to find out why. Just looked at the "Help" and it says 2hrs. It also mentions "Schedules can and do change, so sometimes it may be slightly off" !!
Other things I've found, Watch from Start doesn't work on BBC News HD or BBC4 HD, fine on BBC1&2 HD.
The other great thing about iPlayer if you have a compatible "device" is watching the (limited) UHD stuff.
Yes, it is an LG "Magic" remote - never activated the mic, but that doesn't mean it ain't listening like Alexa etc !!


link to this comment
GB flag
C
Film 4 +1
Monday 9 December 2019 6:55PM

StevensOnln1:

Ah great, thanks for that clarification. And I suppose I should have guessed as much bearing in mind one has to login with one's BBC account! I shall clearly have to spend some time at a future point, mugging up on all this.

link to this comment
GB flag
C
Film 4 +1
Tuesday 10 December 2019 2:52AM

js: In my brief search yesterday I came across rss Whilst that blog is specific to the trials and delivery of UHD, it does explain how iPlayer delivery is done. If you stop and think about it, every bit of internet "browsing" is an individual stream, so this is nothing unusual. The clever bit is the way the streaming is done with these CDNs.
I have to agree with StevensOnln1 about the convenience of being able to watch a/any programme at a time of one's choosing. Over the last three or four years, I've probably used all of the well known streaming or catchup services at one time or another - in some instances only making use of a free trial period, and that's only really become possible since we've had a decent Internet connection (FTTC). Bog standard ADSL is not especially conducive to these things (never mind the usage limitations at the time!) although we did use it from time to time.

Whilst I'm not especially happy about what seems to be a "push" towards "normal" viewing using streaming services, (I will always strongly argue for mainstream terrestrial services), I am all for such things being available to give a means of greater choice / options of what to view and when. These days I find too many programmes that I would like to watch being scheduled at the same time - the so called "competition" between the broadcasters - which IMHO doesn't actually benefit the majority of viewers as a lot of people will actually miss some of the programmes never being able to watch on catch up for one reason or another.

I also believe that if it weren't for the iPlayer development over the last decade, our broadband connections would not have improved as much as they have in the last few years. Investment by BT (and others) had been somewhat "tardy" in the past, and it's only because of demand for better services to cope with things such as streaming (& gaming), never mind the business need, that the investment has actually been made.


link to this comment
GB flag

David Landers:

As indicated immediately above the comment box, and in the post before yours (and many others around these boards), a full postcode is needed to see what the Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker is showing for predicted reception at your location. It is possible that reception of one (or more) multiplex(es) can be poorer than others. This can be very often due to interference by other transmitter signals and might vary with weather conditions, or lower transmitter power on some.

As you've had some engineers attend recently, the presumption would be that your installation is ok.
It's not possible to advise on the best possible solutions to your problem without that prediction information and some further information about channels you aren't getting.
See Channel listings | Freeview you'll note that both Blaze and Horror are on the SDN multiplex. Are you getting any of the other channels on the SDN multiplex or are they definitely all missing?


link to this comment
GB flag
C
LONDON LIVE
Tuesday 10 December 2019 12:07PM

Nicholas Anderson:

Whilst ideally that should be the case, it's a commercial decision by the individual broadcaster as to how/where their channels are broadcast. It might be worth noting that quite a few "local" stations are not huge profit making operations, quite the reverse, a number have gone out of business and been taken over in recent times and broadcast less hours of locally made content than they ambitiously attempted to do at start-up.

link to this comment
GB flag

Clive Thompson:

Whilst you've posted on the Analogue (FM) page rather than the Kingsbridge (Devon, England) DAB transmitter | free and easy page, it's not showing any problems with DAB transmissions, nor are the BBC reporting any problems.
There are 2 DAB multiplexes broadcast from the Kingsbridge transmitter -
The BBC National DAB on mux 12B, 225.648MHz and
A local Plymouth one on mux 12D, 229.072MHz
BBC Radio Devon is transmitted on 12D, not the BBC National mux on 12B

Your main signals for BBC National stations on FM will come from the North Hessary Tor transmitter (which has engineering work at present with "slightly reduced power" according to the BBC) -
BBC Radio 1 97.7MHz, BBC Radio 2 88.1MHz, BBC Radio 3 90.3MHz, BBC Radio 4 92.5MHz.

Whereas you have two choices for BBC Radio Devon -
North Hessary Tor 103.4MHz or Beacon Hill on 104.3MHz

You should have good reception from all those transmitters, but a full postcode would be needed to see what the BBC are predicting for your precise location. For DAB (and FM to a slightly lesser degree), if you are using an internal aerial, try moving the radio or aerial to a different position. Thick walls, metal objects (fridges, boilers etc) and some other objects can make a big difference to quality of reception.

link to this comment
GB flag
C
It is everything is working fine | Knowledge base
Wednesday 11 December 2019 12:35PM

Bob:

As MikeP says you should get very good reception from Mendip. But also note signals from Wenvoe (Wales) are very strong and depending on your TV's tuning section, you may need to manually tune rather than automatically if you TV does not ask which region (West) you want to watch.

link to this comment
GB flag