Watching Freeview TV

[News]

We have not watched TV since our local transmitter went digital earlier this year. Wifey thinks perhaps we should install a Freeview box just is case there is anything worth watching over Christmas. A repeat of Dad's Army, perhaps.

Looking on eBay, there are millions of 'em. Is it just a case of spend a tenner on a box, connect the incoming coax cable to the box, then a scart lead from the box to the TV, job done? Presumably, even though some boxes have two scart sockets, they all have a socket for the incoming traditional coax lead? Our TV is not old, but only has two sockets on the back - one coax, and one scart.

The DVD player would connect, via scart, to the second scart socket on the back of the Freeview box?

Thanks!

[Ian Jackson]

In message , News writes

Yup.

They all have to have an aerial RF input connector (otherwise you couldn't connect an aerial!). The second connector is a loop-through output, which feeds the incoming RF aerial signal through to the TV aerial input. Of course, as you're probably never going to use the TV again on analogue, you can dispense with this connection, and simply connect the SCART lead.

One SCART is usually enough. Old TV sets didn't have SCART, and you had to ensure that your set-top box was one of those which had a built-in modulator. You can still get them, but they are more expensive than the cheap type you intend to get. You don't need one.

That's the idea. One SCART will be marked 'TV' (and connects to the TV), and the other will be 'VCR' (or these days, maybe 'DVD', 'AUX' etc). The idea is that when you play a video tape or a DVD, the set-top box automatically senses the DVD video signal, and switches it through to its SCART 'TV' output - so you see the DVD video, and not the TV programme. Also, from the VCR SCART, it PUTS OUT a video signal TO the VCR/DVD machine, so it can be recorded.

[Andy Burns]

The cheap ones do work, but the firmware tends to reflect the price, generally the on-screen displays and programme guides are more rough and ready, remotes and boxes look a bit tacky/plasticky, but if you haven't watched TV for months, perhaps not much of an issue for you?

Yep, select AV1 on TV, box should autotune, which channels you get depends on your location, which transmitter your aerial points to, and the type of aerial. Either suck it and see, or poke your address into this webpage (do tick the trade box for more detail) if you see green blocks for everthing you should be fine.

thing you might find is you receive your lon local regional variaton, and other more distant ones (for local news) some boxes handle this better than others.

yes.

Assume from the lack of an HDMI socket that the set isn't "HD Ready", if it *is*, you might as well spend £20-30 and get the benefit.

That's right.

[Paul - xxx]

Yes .. ;)

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes.

Beware that many cheaper STBs are rubbish when it comes to user menus..and you need those to find the programs you want.

My wife and I now spend more time watching TV on te computer - we both have freeview dongles plugged into them to receive the TV signals.

This is probably the cheapest way to see what is actually ON digital telly, before you spend money on a a box.

I swore by Sony set top boxes BUT the modern trend is to not have a good standalone set top box - they all come with recorders at the quality end, it seems.

And I am not sure some of the budget stuff is worth having. Others may know better.

[Mike Clarke]

As others have said, it should be a just a case of hook it up and go.

But the digital signals in some areas use frequency bands outside the range used by the older analogue broadcasts in which case you *might* need to replace your aerial to receive all the available channels.

If you're getting a cheapo box then there's not much to loose if you just go for it.

[tim....]

As an example of crappy software

The B&B that I stayed in last week had a box that: when you displayed the EPG to see what was on the other channels changed the broadcast channel as you scrolled down the list.

(No I didn't check the make)

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Talk about leaving things late...

Most boxes have an aerial in and out so the TV etc has also an aerial feed. Some also provide a modulated output - so your TV can be tuned into it, rather as VHS etc recorders once were.

Probably not. The purpose of the extra SCART is to feed a VHS etc recorder so you can record from the FreeView box.

[Peter Parry]

Not necessarily, in the analogue era all TV channels on any transmitter were put together into one of 5 groups (A, B, C/D, E and K) . Your existing aerial will probably be specific to one of these groups.

In the switch to digital some transmitters changed frequency group and in some cases they now transmit on more than one group of frequencies. It is therefore possible that when you try to use a Freeview box you will get a poor signal and/or missing channels. In this case replacing your existing aerial with a wideband (group W) aerial may be required.

[Andy Burns]

For the last decade or so while we've had low power digital running alongside high power analogue, there were many areas of the country where the digital couldn't use the same group as the analogue, this did require a wideband aerial in those areas.

Now as analogue is switched off area by area, the digital channels are being moved back into the frequency groups of the grouped aerials, in some areas, there are one or two of the multiplexes that carry "less interesting" channels that still require a wideband aerial, but AFAIK the main BBC/ITV/C4/C5 channels will all be back within the original aerial bands, so if analogue reception was fine before, so will digital now.

I'd try without changing aerial first, report problems to uk.tech.digital-tv (or here!)

[Davey]

My Toshiba does that. It's most annoying.

[Newshound]

If the budget will stretch, get a "reputable" box with a recorder, like a Humax. Then, you never have to sit through adverts again. At the start of the program, hit the record button then go and do something useful for half an hour, and come back to it, watching from the beginning and fast forwarding through the adverts.

Or rubbish, for that matter, as long as you set it to record any "That might be interesting" stuff at the beginning of the week. Humax menus are OK. As others have said, you might or might not need a better aeriel.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Andy Burns writes

Indeed. But this question can be answered if the OP tells us which transmitter he is on at the moment - or at where he lives.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If it was a bit marginal before its likely to be more marginal now. Also multipath is a bastard on digital.

But mostly the existing set-up works and I say if it works well enough leave it.

[News]

In message , Peter Parry writes

Oh joy ...

Would there per chance be a web site that we tell me in advance? I'm in Aberdeenshire.

[News]

In message , Ian Jackson writes

No idea which transmitter, I'm afraid, but I'm in Aberdeenshire, about

40 miles due west of Aberdeen. Oh, and it is snowing quite heavily outside.

[News]

In message , Newshound writes

That is an excellent plan, and exactly what I did when VHS recorders became the norm. This explains why I have boxes and boxes of VHS tapes which have never been watched, and probably never will be :-)

[Peter Johnson]

Oh dear. Dad's Army is on on Saturday evenings. The very first episode was broadcast yesterday.

[Andy Burns]

Barring any more clues, I shall pretend you're the school in Logie Coldstone, the only choice of transmitter seems to be Durris,

show promising signal levels, but Java Jive's terrain profile shows a local hill at that location is slap bang in the way, so for better prediction, use your actual postcode.

aerial required a group A, which would have been what you required for analogue BBC1/2/ITV/C4. A clue to your aerial might be obtained by knowing how your analogue Ch5 reception was? it used to be miles out of band for a group A aerial, or whether you didn't get Ch5 at all.

[fred]

In article , News writes

There are a couple but this is my fave, been using it for ages and gives you all you need to know:

pop in your postcode and away you go, move on from Local to Distant to DX to get more transmitters to chose from and don't worry about the exe in the server link, the script is executed on the server. If in doubt google for Wolfbane and you'll see plenty of praise and no reported risks.

It'll give you transmitters, channels used, vert or horiz aerial and aerial group. Some say it's pessimistic on signal and so recommends an overly large aerial but I like it.