Digital TV - what a joke

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.

ntl

Originally Posted by Jabba

ntl....

....costs a fortune

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

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

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by wyrdness

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

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?????

Originally Posted by Bellerophon

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

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.

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.

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