Alba STB Questions

[Roger Mills]

This is my first skirmish with Freeview since, technically, I live in a non-freeview area.

I've inherited an Alba STB2NS from my son, since he has no signal at all in the flat where he lives - in Cambridge.

Despite Freeview not being 'available' where I live (just outside Warwick, a long way from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter, on the wrong side of Hatton Hill) I can actually get quite a reasonable signal, and can get all the channels except those on Mux D. [And that's with a standard Group-B aerial rather than a wide-band jobby].

I have a couple a questions which I hope that owners of the same model of STB may be able to answer. At the moment I have it connected to a single TV - using a Scart cable - and also have a co-ax cable from the RF loop-through socket to the TV's aerial socket.

If, with the STB running, I select a normal terrestrial channel on the TV, I get a picture divided into 4 with a big black cross in the middle - plus all the symptoms of vertical hold not working. If I put the STB on standby, the terrestrial channels are ok. Is this normal, or is something wrong with it? I had assumed that the signal coming out of the loop-though socket *should* be ok, even with the STB in use - because you may want to record a digital channel whilst watching a terrestrial channel. Am I missing something?

I haven't yet tried to record a digital channel, or even to connect a VCR to the second Scart socket. But I note that the remote control has a button labelled DTV/VCR. The only explanation in the manual says "used to switch between digital TV and video". What does this actually do? Currently, when I press it, the STB goes onto standby (allowing terrestrial channels to be viewed). If I had a VCR connected, would it stay in the 'run' state (green light) when this button was pressed - but allow terrestrial channels to be viewed? How would I select the channel to be recorded? [The manual says SFA about recording from the second scart!]

TIA.

[mike]

"Roger Mills" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You don't tell us anything about your telly; is it a portable? Has it only got one scart?

It sounds to me as if the STB, when powered, is grabbing the set via scart switching - DVD players are a bugger for this, and other devices can do it too, specially on rather crude one-scart televisions, and you're seeing one progamme's syncs and another one's video. I've had this with a Sony 14" portable and a Goodmans GDB4 STB.

For this type of setup, yes, what you're seeing is quite often normal.

IIRC it can be corrected, if disabling scart switching is not available on the either telly or STB menu, by snipping a wire in the scart lead.

As I may be wrong, and in any case I don't know your particular units, I think you should repost on

uk.tech.digital-tv

HTH

mike

[mike]

mike wrote in news:Xns97C5EEC021C80mikeringbtinternetco@130.133.1.4:

Oh dear, for anyone who is even more confused than me, I didn't notice when replying on uk.d-i-y that this was crossposted to here.

(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

mike

[Roger Mills]

The TV with which I'm currently experimenting is indeed a Grundig multi-standard portable with only one scart.

You may well be right. The Grundig manual does refer to voltage switching on Pin 8 of the scart. So what I'm seeing when trying to select a terrestrial channel is probably actally a scrambled version of the digital channel to which the STB is set.

Is it likely to be different if I connect it instead to my main TV - which has 2 scarts?

As noted in your second post, I already have!

[Chris Bacon]

Why? It's quite correct and appropriate in the circumstances.

[John]

Don't know much about TV hook ups but I have always found this site usefull.

[Roger Mills]

Thanks - rather clever diagrams!

And thanks to everyone else who has replied.

[mike]

Chris Bacon wrote in news:446ad672$ [e-mail]:

Like I said, I get confused.

I sashayed happily to tech-tv, where I also keep a tankard, and found my reply to this post in me face.

I guess it's ok for blokes with brains as big as all outdoors, but if I fancy asking more than one group at a time, I can cut and paste the post with no trouble, and not get conniptions trying to work out who's answering what where.

mike

[Chris Bacon]

That's called "multi-posting", and is a Great Big Sin. You now need to wash your mouse out in a pail of hot soapy water.

[Roger Mills]

As the originator of this thread, I cross-posted it to these particular groups because uk.tech.digital-tv seemed like the right place but, as a frequent visitor to uk.d-i-y, I know that there are also a lot of knowledgeable people about all things technical there.

The alternative to cross-posting - posting a separate copy to each group - would cause even more confusion because different people would reply to each copy but some people would see *both* threads. By cross-posting, there's only *one* thread, which is visible in *both* NGs.

[Mark Carver]

Except my regular newsclient, Thunderbird won't let me cross post across different hierarchies, such as these two groups, so I've had to post this via Outlook Express.

BTW Roger, there's a reply from me, posted at 08:05 17/5 only in tech.digital with some questions.

[Dom Robinson]

Seconded. I've bookmarked it as that's a rather smart site.

[Roger Mills]

Yes, thanks. I did see it earlier - but didn't know the answers until I had a chance to have another play with it.

I have now answered the questions, and posed another one!

[Chris Bacon]

Express.

Odd. I use Thunderbird, in the main, too. No problems.

[Owain]

And if the newsreader is nice, messages you've read in one group also appear read in the other. I haven't worked out how to get Thunderbird to be nice in this way.

different hierarchies,

My Thunderbird does that, I'm sure.

Owain

[mike]

"Roger Mills" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Agreed- see my retort to Weatherlawyer on d-i-y

My personal preference is to start in one group, usually here, and hope if I don't get an answer I'll get a referral.

But the thread in digital-tv is totally different, starting with a re:, and my answer, but not your question most of the posts are not there in my newsreader, (Xnews - set to stop multiple xposts, but allows 3)

Goole groups is totally different, having everything, a confusing mixture of your posts, responses, and me whining to myself.

So I _still_ don't like xposts.... but I don't stubbornly top post ;-)

mike

[Roger Mills]

Must be a quirk of your newsreader! In my newsreader (Outlook Express + the Quotefix addon) the thread has 18 messages in uk.tech.digital-tv, starting with my original question. Sixteen of them - again starting with my original question - appear in uk.d-i-y. The two which don't appear are the result of someone explicitly removing uk.d-i-y from the newsgroup list before replying, and then someone else (me as it happens!) replying to that.

[Roger Mills]

Perhaps I should also have pointed out that, in order to see a whole thread, your newsreader needs to be set to "Display all messages" rather than to "Hide read or ignored messages" - or whatever the precise options are in your particular newsreader. Otherwise, if you read a cross-posted message in one NG, it won't show up in the other NG because it will be hidden on account of already having been read.

But that's the beauty of it! You'll see *new* messages in whichever NG you enter first after they've been posted - and it doesn't matter in which NG you reply - your reply will appear in both.

[Roger Mills]

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. I think that, encrypted in there somewhere, is an assertion that feeding RGB rather than CVBS from the STB to the TV results in a better picture because the signal undergoes slightly less conversion processes along the way, even though it isn't transmitted digitally as RGB. Is that a fair summary?

[Mark Carver]

Spot on, using the RGB output, significantly reduces the amount of processing, and therefore impairment that the signal will suffer.