Digital TV - what a joke

[Ed]

I bought a digital TV (it's a Toshiba 20") to go with my new office. Purely to keep clients' kids entertained, y'understand!!

Well there was no aerial, so I bought an indoor thing (£30) - it didn't work. So eventually after doing a Statue of Liberty pose I got the damn thing to work, but the TV was practically on the ceiling.

So got my friendly aerial engineer out to put an aerial on the roof (landlord says OK) and friendly aerial engineer says that the signal in Shrews town centre is too weak as there's no direct line to The Wrekin. So the only choice is to instal a Sky dish with Sky Max. Oh great.

So the flatscreen TV is coming home and I'll replace it with a non digi thing and a Skybox.

And the government is going to switch off the analogue system over the next few years - so if you're in a town centre where reception is poor you have no choice but to go satellite.

[Picks up phone to stockbroker to buy shares in Sky]

[arenalife]

Oh yeah, huge sections of the population are completely screwed if they don't live in the flatlands. No chance of digital in the valleys, you gotta stump for a sky system. Not extortionate per se but a cost nevertheless. I think it should be subsidised to some extent by the licence fee I believe.

[Red ones]

Freesat?

[Ed]

Freesat?

Wossat?

[DarrenSV650S]

Freesat?

Wossat?
Get sky installed then you can get the minimum package: bbc1, bbc2, itv, 4 and 5 plus loads of other crappy channels like u get on freeview. Costs you flip all :P

[kwak zzr]

you have to pay a sky contract for 12months tho :?
i had a freeview aerial put up £70 and its still rubbish so i got sky anyway.

[jenni]

you have to pay a sky contract for 12months tho :?
i had a freeview aerial put up £70 and its still rubbish so i got sky anyway.

...unless you pay the full installation fee i think...loads of money tho

surely the government is gonna have to improve things soon. i'm lucky and get pretty good signal. i have freeview running off a powered booster aereal in my attic

[kwak zzr]

trouble is with sky they have got you trapped :?

[mysteryjimbo]

And the government is going to switch off the analogue system over the next few years - so if you're in a town centre where reception is poor you have no choice but to go satellite.

[Picks up phone to stockbroker to buy shares in Sky]

Once all of the analogue signals are turned off the digital channels will improve with greater power to the signal, different wave bands and more use of bandwidth.

Essentially a power boost so everyone can receive it.

I dont know the percentages, but just to pose an example. The current 5 terrestrial channels use 85% of the tv bandwidth while the 85 or so digital ones use 15%.

[wyrdness]

I can probably get you a good deal on Sky at the moment :D

But if you just want a bit of TV to 'entertain' waiting clients, Freesat might be worth looking it:
http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/

[Baph]

FreeToAir and a range of handy equipment.

At home, my setup is that the TV is plugged into a HD-convertor, then into a satellite recv (note: not a Sky box). This then has 2 cables running up to my dish, which has a Dual LNB on it. The dish is mounted to the wall utilising a motor, and this is what one of the cables is for.

The box is programmed to feed a given voltage down one cable, either positive or negative, in order to move the motor, which in turn moves the dish to point at a different satellite.

There's numerous satellites up there, and that results in me having a few thousand channels, without worrying about encryption running on the likes of Sky. I also get all the channels in HD (almost) quality, which is nice :)

[timwilky]

I can see 3/4 of the the Winter Hill mast from my house about 4 miles away. So in theory I should have as strong a signal as possible. It is a joke. We tried freeview and it kept locking up (red blob appears or page freezes for 10 seconds). Whilst I have cable TV I object strongly to the enforced expense of replacing the 5 tvs that are not in the lounge. Simply because the government wants to force people off analogue TV.

Even if I was to replace these sets (3 in bedrooms, one in my office and a small LCD in the kitchen) they won't work properly with terrestrial digital So I have to rent 5 additional set top boxes off my cable instead.

Not only is it the expense, there is also the aesthetics. Where do I put a set top box in my kitchen to connect to my wall mounted LCD TV etc.

[Jabba]

ntl :thumbsup:

[mysteryjimbo]

ntl.... :thumbsup: ....costs a fortune

Least it did when i last had tv. Broadband only now, phone through it

[Ed]

I like the freesat idea. Depends if the landlord will let us have a tasteful Sky dish on the roof.

[Mariner]

I can see 3/4 of the the Winter Hill mast from my house about 4 miles away. So in theory I should have as strong a signal as possible. It is a joke. We tried freeview and it kept locking up (red blob appears or page freezes for 10 seconds). Whilst I have cable TV I object strongly to the enforced expense of replacing the 5 tvs that are not in the lounge. Simply because the government wants to force people off analogue TV.

Even if I was to replace these sets (3 in bedrooms, one in my office and a small LCD in the kitchen) they won't work properly with terrestrial digital So I have to rent 5 additional set top boxes off my cable instead.

Not only is it the expense, there is also the aesthetics. Where do I put a set top box in my kitchen to connect to my wall mounted LCD TV etc.

The Winter Hill transmitter had a lot of work done on it about 6 weeks ago, so you should be able to get a full strength signal now. I live less than 5 miles from the mast and we've had problems with the analogue signal for 25 years, we had to pay a small fortune for an upgraded aeriel and booster just to get the 3 (as it was in the good old days) analogue channels.
Digital couldn't come soon enough as far as I was concerned.

[tinpants]

I can probably get you a good deal on Sky at the moment :D

But if you just want a bit of TV to 'entertain' waiting clients, Freesat might be worth looking it:
http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/


Hmmm. Really? My current deal runs out in January. Anything you can fix up for me????? :D

[wyrdness]

I can probably get you a good deal on Sky at the moment :D

But if you just want a bit of TV to 'entertain' waiting clients, Freesat might be worth looking it:
http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/


Hmmm. Really? My current deal runs out in January. Anything you can fix up for me????? :D

Only for new customers, not existing ones, I'm afraid. Sometimes Sky customer service are willing to negotiate, so it might be worth giving them a ring.

[Warren]

gotta agree, digital TV is crap, found this out when i bought a TV card for my pc, and a high boost DVT antenna,
didnt work, even though i live in a high signal area.
so had to go the whole option of putting a big boy on my roof,

still takes ages to change channel though, and all the extra channels are crappy shopping channels, or quiz channels.

[Steve H]

mmm, call me cynical, but - Sky = Murdoch . Government = New Labour.
You do the math!
:wink:

[tinpants]

Ok. You're cynical. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


















I think you could have a point though.