The Big Analogue switchoff

[JazzBones]

On 30th March 2011 it was the big analogue TV switch off in the Anglia region, living in North Buckinghamshire, in the good old U of K, and with my roof top aerial pointing at the Sandy Heath transmitter I had to set about retuning three TVs scattered around the house, one PVR (the worse bugger to retune) and a DVD Freeview recorder/player. Having done all that the Digital UK information booklet informs me that I have to go through all this again on 13 April 2001 for Stage 2.:stalks: I have better things to do with my time rather than pig fruiting around with TV sets and ancillaries. However, there is a plus point to all this. Somewhere, along the process, the picture looks clearer (I always had good viewing from the time spent in getting quality scarts, HDMIs, TCI block, mains leads etc, just like I would do with the Audio system). So folks and folkesses, the end game is worth it but the farting around with various handsets has to be endured :( All this so close to my time spent with the Census form, makes me want to go and sniff Isopropanol :whistle:

Jazz

[Reid Malenfant]

The picture should be better as they have significantly upped the transmission power of all the digital channels, it was about 1/4 of the ERP previous to the analogue switch off ;)

[lurcher]

The picture should be better as they have significantly upped the transmission power of all the digital channels, it was about 1/4 of the ERP previous to the analogue switch off ;)

Why should it matter if it was digital? :-)

[Stratmangler]

:popcorn:

[Reid Malenfant]

Why should it matter if it was digital? :-)
Have you ever looked at a freeview box that shows the signal quality?

Obviously not :eyebrows: A stronger signal will obviously give a better picture if it was not so good previously.

I really shouldn't need to explain things further than that ;)

[lurcher]

Obviously not A stronger signal will obviously give a better picture if it was not so good previously.

is that for a value of "Obviously" that tends towards zero?

[Reid Malenfant]

:scratch: :confused:

[JazzBones]

The picture should be better as they have significantly upped the transmission power of all the digital channels, it was about 1/4 of the ERP previous to the analogue switch off ;)

Mark, thanks for clarification as to why my picture has improved further. I expect others will experience the same when it is their turn for the 'switch over'. Worth the retuning hassle :lol:

On my Main TV I have provision for a Freesat input, question is it worth going for an external sat dish with attendant cabling? Idle gossip says that Freesat is not better than Freeview and with the improved picture I'm now getting after switchover is it worth having the additional option of Freesat?

By the way I can fully endorse Mark Grant's HDMI 1080 interconnect which is well made, well packaged, sold at £22.00 inc post for a 2M length to AoS members. Your looking at three figure sums on the likes of RA's pricing but I'm more than happy with Mark's offering. Will be looking into his other interconnects and mains cabling.

Jazz/Ron

[Reid Malenfant]

I wouldn't bother with Freesat, it won't be long before Freeview HD is rolled out if it hasn't already in certain areas :)

[JazzBones]

I wouldn't bother with Freesat, it won't be long before Freeview HD is rolled out if it hasn't already in certain areas :)

Thanks for the advice Mark :)

[jantheman]

Here in sunny Devon (you read that right) we went over last year. My ae is pointed at Caradon Hill and gives out a massive amount of power requiring the use of an attenuator to prevent herringboning. Not all good news though, while there is plenty of power on some mux's, others would ideally require the attenuator to be removed....but thats just not going to happen. With the attenuator in place signal strength, depending on mux's, varies between about 80 down to 40....(scale of 100)
We have had to retune at least 4 times, maybe more but my menory isnt what it was... neither is the telly's as it keeps losing channels........:lol:
Actually, thats not strictly correct as Freeview keeps moving things around, deleting some and adding others, requiring a retune to keep up to date.

[JazzBones]

Here in sunny Devon (you read that right) we went over last year. My ae is pointed at Caradon Hill and gives out a massive amount of power requiring the use of an attenuator to prevent herringboning. Not all good news though, while there is plenty of power on some mux's, others would ideally require the attenuator to be removed....but thats just not going to happen. With the attenuator in place signal strength, depending on mux's, varies between about 80 down to 40....(scale of 100)
We have had to retune at least 4 times, maybe more but my menory isnt what it was... neither is the telly's as it keeps losing channels........:lol:
Actually, thats not strictly correct as Freeview keeps moving things around, deleting some and adding others, requiring a retune to keep up to date.

Hells bells Ray, I hope I don't have the same probs! I wonder if the signal is somewhat diluted if one has a loft aerial :scratch:?

In September I will have to retune my mother-in-law's TV. She's just got the hang of and mastered Freeview, watchs DVDs but fails to do a recording inspite of us writing down instructions. This is a woman who at 91 years young has her own laptop PC (I have forbidden her to join Aos ) and two mobile phones and thrashes me on the crossword puzzle and the speed of sending a text message! Oh, and shes out three nights a week with her mates.... anyone got a ma in law like me :)?

Jazz

[Reid Malenfant]

I wonder if the signal is somewhat diluted if one has a loft aerial :scratch:?
Any TV aerial (unless you are really close to the transmitter) should be line of sight with the transmitter. IE well up above the house roof to get as strong a signal as possible, if in the loft it'll be attenuated somewhat by the roof & also because it's low down ;)

These just don't get used any more :rolleyes:

41274128

[jantheman]

Hells bells Ray, I hope I don't have the same probs!
<cough!>
I wouldnt exactly call it a problem, a pain in the @$$, yes, just something you and everyone going over to digital will have to get used to.
Sorry about that....have one on me...:cool:

[WAD62]

I wouldn't bother with Freesat, it won't be long before Freeview HD is rolled out if it hasn't already in certain areas :)

We've had HD freeview in Coventry since the last world cup... :)

[Reid Malenfant]

We've had HD freeview in Coventry since the last world cup... :)
This is what i was getting at ;) Tbh i really don't have a clue what's available here right now. I could pick freeview up from 3 seperate transmitters (if i swung an aerial round), Waltham on the Wolds (which is a "central" TV transmitter & where the aerials are mostly pointing), Sandy Heath (Anglia) & Belmont (Yorkshire).

I'm on the fringe of each area you see ;)

What they are transmitting i just don't know, it's been nearly a year since i watched any TV at all :)

[greenhomeelectronics]

We can't get freeview here so i went with freesat HD. It's not got many channels worth watching but it is excellent quality. The entire system (box, cables, dish, quad LNB) cost 150 squid on a diy basis. A satellite strength meter is an extra tenner.
Now a word of warning - some satellite finders have lies in the instruction book, they are printed for the European market and tell you to look for the wrong satellite. This can waste a lot of your time, it can then start raining long after you had hoped to finish the job, you can get wet and very cross. See if you can guess how I know this......

[Reid Malenfant]

Now a word of warning - some satellite finders have lies in the instruction book, they are printed for the European market and tell you to look for the wrong satellite. This can waste a lot of your time, it can then start raining long after you had hoped to finish the job, you can get wet and very cross. See if you can guess how I know this......
:lolsign: Sorry, i gotta laugh :eyebrows: I have rigged enough aerials to know it isn't fun at the best of times ;)

Funny but i simply wouldn't do it these days, it'd scare me half to death :eek:

[Ali Tait]

Guess I'm lucky- my missus works for Sky, so we get the full monty free, and box office half price. Also free phone and internet. Quite a saving!

[dave2010]

I wouldn't bother with Freesat, it won't be long before Freeview HD is rolled out if it hasn't already in certain areas :)Perhaps not if you've not got HD or digital already. We've had Freesat for a few years now - since I figured out how to wire a new LNB to the aerial dish which had been left by the previous owners, and fed into the back of a Humax Foxsat box.

Occasionally we notice that the channels are different from Freeview, and some of the services are different - e.g the Red button features during Formula One races are different in Freesat compared with Freeview.

I'd say that Freesat is worth it if you're going to have to wait a year for Freeview, but it must be marginal. I'm not rushing to buy a Freeview HD PVR just yet.

Another factor is the file size for HD videos. Quite often we record in SD to save space, though if we watch live (or slightly delayed) then we prefer to watch the HD version. Often we really don't notice much difference. I know there is a difference, but unless you're really keen on high quality video, SD interpolated up to 1920 x 1080 is often good enough. I believe it does depend on the quality of the equipment used though. Also, the broadcasters do vary the quality - so for during the daytime TV programmes, particularly on some channels such as ITV, Channel 4 etc., the quality may be poor, whereas programmes such as David Attenborough's nature series are often put out in moderately high quality even using SD. This can be checked by monitoring the file sizes for stored programmes. "Rubbish" programmes may only use about 1 Gbyte/hour, whereas good to very good programmes are around 3Gbyte/hour. Very fine detail should always be better with HD, but a lot of SD programmes are very watchable.

Lastly, the box manufacturers usually manage to make it hard to move HD files to external storage, whereas SD files may be copied quite easily. I used to think it was due to DRM, but often it's simply due to the 4Gbyte file limit using Windows disk systems. If you can format a hard drive using EXT3 format (Linux/Unix) then some PVRs will allow you to transfer HD files across - it you spend long enough on it.

[Beobloke]

We bought a Freeview box when we moved to our current house, which is out in the countryside and in a valley.

With a roof mounted 18 element aerial the Freeview was OK initially, although prone to interference from passing car/motorbike ignitions, however, five years on it has deteriorated to the point where BBC1 and BBC2 can no longer be picked up, and Channel 5 plus a host of the other channels are unwatchable as they continually stutter and break up. Consequently we've moved to Freesat.

And as for the good old analogue signal, which our local transmitter is still sending out? All four main stations are slightly grainy but perfectly watchable. So much for progress....... :steam:

[colinB]

When i got my hd freeview bravia a few months ago i was very happy to find ch4 hd. I dont get Ch4 with my indoor but with the new tv i was recieving HD channels which look great.
Few nights ago i started getting interfernce from buses so i retuned. Now the HD channels are gone.
Seeing as my aerial is basically a piece of wire , im considering buying a Log Periodic and trying that indoors. I dont have a problem paying a geeer £150 to get up on the roof but i rent and have no idea how long ill be here.