A TV / Freeview related question.

magpieant

magpieant

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,043
Edit My Images
No
My dad has just asked me this .....

He has a Panosonic TV. Can't remember the model number 32LX .... possibly - relatively new, has built in Freeview tuner. Anyway, alongside that, he also has a freeview box - just a cheap Digihome box from Tesco. He does not have SKY / Virgin or any other cable / sat TV Services.

When he watches BBC 1 and 2 throught the telly (on DVB Mode rather than analogue), the signal is very choppy with lots of blocks and jitters appearing. However, it is fine through the Freeview box.

He's asked me why. I have no idea!

The only logical answer I could think of is that whatever is decoding the signal in the Freeview box is better at it than what's in the Panosonic TV. But then I'd expect the more expensive item (The TV) to have the better parts. Is this the case? And if so, why are only BBC 1 and 2 affected ?

As I always, I come here seeking knowledge - someone will know - please tell me. Very curious.

Cheers

Anth.
 
Hmm, Freeview what a nightmare.
I have 2 antennas and 2 boxes (plus the blown up ones).
Some boxes work better downstairs some work better upstairs, ITV4 is notable for me as I had to go upstairs to watch it which was very annoying for the BTCC.
A box that was great in the lounge was next to useless in the bedroom, although the bedroom should have a better signal!

Now I have Freesat in the lounge, do you think I can watch the red button F1 sessions on it? :bang:
 
Tell him to take the aerial downlead direct from the wall socket to the tv set and see if that is better. Use good quality cable, not those cheap thin ones as a clean signal is important.

A signal can be too weak or too strong for a tuner and sometimes a cheap nasty one will work better if the signal is too good (is the signal amplified?). Also don't assume that because it's a panny that it's going to be well made, those days are long gone for most makes so try the tv in a different room or different house if you need to to see if it's the set or the signal.
 
As mentioned it could be possibly a few things, maybe a faulty decoder on the TV :shrug: Just because its fairly new dont mean it aint faulty. Any reason why he cant just use the standalone box?
 
If your getting a choppy picture it could be due to aerial be out of alignment or just generally in a weak freeview area... a new aerial from maplins should do the job it did for me a paid a tenner and fitted myself and now all the channels are perfect.

Having said that the other issue with cheap freeview boxes are the tuners used and not the decoders... Some tuners are generally weak and may require a booster... your dads panny in built tuner should be fine and shouldnt have any problems if the aerial is fine whereas a £20 freebox from tesco for example may suffer from the judder etc.

See how you get on, if your not scared of going up a ladder just get a new aerial mate... loads of diy kits available... if you want to go one better get a satelite dish put up and get a freesat box, much better than freeview.
 
As mentioned above, make sure the aerial connection from the wall is going direct to the TV when comparing.
You may have it connected so the aerial cable comes from the wall, to the seperate FreeView box then form there on to the TV (daisy chained).This can degrade the signal on the last connection. In this case, the TV.

Once the final switch over to digital in 2012 is complete, the signal strengths will be increased/improved. At the moment, increasing/improving the signal strength interferes with the analogue signals.

I'm not happy with digital at the moment but once everything is digital then things should hopefully improve. Lets not hold our breath though..;)
 
Cheers folkies ...

The connection is indeed 'daisy chained'.

Also, it's not a major issue as he can just use the standalone box, just wondered what the reason could be!

As for rod hull ...

Cheers

Anth
 
Why is he using the standalone box at all if the TV has built in Freeview?

If it is just a cheap box chances are the signal it's passing through to the TV is pretty poor which is causing the issues.

I'd be inclined to just dump the box, unless he really prefers the interface or something in which case i'm not sure why it matters what the signal to the TV is doing anyway?
 
I've got a Freeview recorder, and if I let the box auto tune, it will not make the best job of it, if I tune manually however, I can choose the strongest signals.

I use an indoor aerial and a booster and get a pretty good signal. Occasionally I may have to move the aerial slightly, but the Freeview box has a page in the menu which helps me to align the aerial to get the most powerful signal, and also shows how the quality of the signal. The Freeview TVs/Boxes may have similar options.

As for the Freeview signals getting better after the Analogue switch off, I assumed the digital channels would get better, but seeing as they are planning on transmitting some HD channels, I'm not sure that will be the case. :shrug: there is only so much bandwidth, and the HD channels may take a lot of it.
 
You're not wrong, at the start the 'plan' was to use the whole TV spectrum to transmit digital, now they want to sell off a large part of it to mobile phone companies. In theory they should be able to increase the signal strength after switchover, once there are no analogue channels to interfere with which may help some in weak signal areas.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top