All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
susan0209: Many thanks for the confirmation that these settings worked OK for you.
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D Montgomery: Have you carried out a signal strength / quality test on your box using the undermentioned procedure? this only being mentioned in case you are not aquaint with this test.
Sky HD box - signal checking.
1:- Press "Services" on your Sky remote control and you will see the main menu with "Options" highlighted.
2:- Highlight the Settings menu using the right arrow button and press select.
3:- Use the left / right arrows to scroll to "Signal" and then press select.
4:- The grey bars displayed will show you the strength of the signal on your Sky HD box.
Both the strength & quality indicated "has" to be around 60% or more to produce a reliable picture as anything much under this points to the dish being slightly out of alignment, something that can cause intermittent glitching problems etc.
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D Montgomery: Well yes, but rebooting the box doesn't make any difference to any possible deficiency that might exist in the signal strength / quality received, because should it exist then that kind of thing can cause various odd problems to occur apart from what was mentioned.
The other point to note being, that Sky standard boxes do not necessarily use the same tuners as are fitted in + HD boxes and this can result one box appearing as being perfectly OK with a signal whilst the other box suffers from picture glitching etc.
Still if its OK just now then that's all that matters.
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Jegpad: All that's really required is for you to purchase a Freeview HD box and this is connected into your TV using an HDMI lead between the HDMI sockets on both devices (use HDMI1 on TV) you then connect the aerial directly into the Freeview HD boxes aerial input socket.
What you are in effect doing is simply using your TV as a monitor to display the output from the Freeview HD box, and although most people with boxes connected this way just use the box for all Freeview reception and do not really use the TV's tuner, should you wish to use it then you will have to connect a coax cable jumper lead between the Freeview HD boxes "aerial out" socket and the TV's aerial socket.
By the way, when you switch the Freeview HD box on the TV should automatically switch over to it, if it doesn't then select HDMI1 input on the TV's input selector menu.
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Jegpad: Just in addition to that said, if you were thinking long term then this would be your opportunity to purchase a twin tuner Freeview HD PVR (personal video recorder) rather than just a Freeview HD receiver, as a PVR would enable you to view one programme whilst recording another or alternatively record two different programmes at the same time, both these options including HD.
There are quite a variety of HD boxes for both purposes around and with quite large price differences between them as far as PVR's are concerned, and the link below is to one of the better ranges as far as reliability and reception performance is concerned.
Humax HDR-FOXT2-G Freeview HD twin tuner 500GB PVR (Grade A) - HUMAX UK Direct Sales Website
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heather: Your location is not terribly far away from the Craigkelly transmitter which is located across the water near to Burntisland and so its assumed that you are receiving your signal from there? the only reason for saying this being that I noticed another aerial pointing towards Blackhill.
However if you are using Craigkelly then the signal should be excellent, this even to the extent that some people near to your area had to fit attenuators to their equipment after Craigkelly had switched to high power as they were suffering from picture break up etc, one of the symptoms of an excessive signal level albeit that this also applies to a weak one, one of the misleading aspects of digital reception.
Have you carried out a signal strength check on your TV? although its the quality indication that's more important, although if your problem was connected to this trying a test with a set top aerial would reveal if the signal was particularly strong as you would get a reasonably good picture whilst using it.
Just to confirm that you are receiving from Craigkelly carry out your signal strength test on BBC and note the channel number that's seen associated with the strength / quality indications, because if its Craigkelly it should be Ch27 whereas from Blackhill it would be Ch46. You could also try the test on ITV3, Craigkelly being Ch42 and Blackhill Ch41. Giving an update on results.
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Viv Gunton: I have to say that I fully agree that its not worth the expense and sheer inconvenience to do something that isn't really guaranteed to work as there is always a strong element of hit and miss about these things, as experiments of this type are really more in the domain of an able bodied enthusiast with some technical knowledge that doesn't mind spending a few hours trying an aerial out in various positions, because it can be a time consuming exercise!
I will also agree with a comment you made in an earlier posting re: > but I still consider this to be a shortcoming of digital TV < because it is, as should the level of fluctuations in signal that you are experiencing and which is causing the problem be of the same magnitude on an analogue signal, then the only effect it would have on it would be for the viewer to witness variable levels (sometimes rapidly) of a grainy picture being seen, and with this on occasions being accompanied by either an element of ghosting in the background of the picture or peculiar variations in its colour but at no time would it disappear, the problem with digital signals being that the "quality" of the signal is actually more important than the strength and any "wide" fluctuations in this has serious effects on reception, this not really applying to analogue reception which is far in a way more tolerant to signal problems.
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George Hindley: Yes, but this requires the use of two DIP2 Satellite / aerial combiners, the second one operating in reverse.
Have a look at the link as this company can supply all thats required for the job.
Skylink amplified splitters, Loft Boxes
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Dave Timm: If that was the result of the test then unfortunately that points to the tuners memory retaining IC having failed, as once a Freeview receiver has scanned and stored channels nothing should be able to remove them except another rescan without the aerial connected or alternatively a factory reset, as both these operations will completely wipe the tuners memory the instant they are activated.
Only a replacement tuner would cure this problem.
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Saturday 5 January 2013 7:46PM
Jon Norris: Or in addition to the link supplied by Briantist you could just provide the brand / model number of the TV in question and its specifications can be checked out, should of course they be available as it depends entirely on the brand of the set.