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JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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So I may have mentioned in other threads that I've moved house...

There's no Virgin cable here. I could get Sky TV but I don't actually watch a lot of TV so figured we'd try Freeview. Plugged in the big telly downstairs and it all works great except several channels are missing (all BBCs, Dave). Obviously all the shopping channels are there :) So are ITV, C4 etc.

Plugged a different telly in upstairs and it can get BBC HD but weirdly not SD. Retuned both sets. Google says my aerial might be too weak to get BBC - presumably a different connection/shorter cable run and upstairs I can *just* get it.

Questions:
  1. Is an aerial booster likely to help?
  2. What's the best thing to buy to record Freeview? I can plug a thumbdrive in the big telly but it will only record "current" channel. PVRs look cheapish but is there a box that could do more? (I'm not sure what else I want/exists but if I'm spending money on free TV I'd like to know what options are).
  3. Next to the coax socket on the wall is a screw thread socket (looks like a Sky thing) labelled "TV". There's a Sky dish in the other corner of the room so it's not that. Any ideas what this might be? There's a similar one next to it labelled "Radio".
 
If you`ve got a Sky Dish on the wall have a look at Manhattan Freesat Recorder, Google it.
 
Personally I would consider freesat over freeview as I am not convinced there is enough bandwidth on an aerial for HD broadcasts.
If the signal is clean a booster might help otherwise it will just increase the artifacts within the signal.
As you already have a dish a freesat box with the ability to record are not that expensive, you can pick up a Humax HDR-1100S for around £180 and if you have two feeds from the dishes LNB you can record one channel while watching another or record two channels at the same time.
 
We view/record/play via a Humax box and get SD and HD - we put in a small signal booster as we were experiencing a few signal drop-outs initially but that no longer happens ... great service for the money :D
 
gramps said:
We view/record/play via a Humax box and get SD and HD - we put in a small signal booster as we were experiencing a few signal drop-outs initially but that no longer happens ... great service for the money :D
Click to expand...

Is it true 1080p as I know a few people who work in the TV broadcast sector who say differently.
I certainly can't see them sending UHD down an aerial but then they still don't have that for freeview.
 
troutfisher said:
As far as channel availability it seems you are covered by the Dover transmitter https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Dover so you should be picking up everything.
The link suggests doing a fresh install, not a retune.
Click to expand...

Thank you! Somehow that worked. I now have BBC1. HD is listed but doesn't work but SD looks pretty nice - the telly does a decent job of upscaling Tennis from Queens so I suspect it will be good enough for Gentleman Jack :)
 
OK, I spoke too soon. Half an hour before GJ I lost all BBC channels on both tellies :( iPlayer to the rescue!

Further investigation shows that 4G interferes with TV - see my broadband thread, I'm living off 4G atm.... So it looks like I need to fit a booster and 4G filter in the loft.

I also still have the mysterious satellite socket. Is there an easy way without buying a decoder to see if the socket is live? If it is, I may just skip aerial and go Freesat.
 
Does it have to be live TV? If you find you aren't watching much live TV you could save yourself the TV license fee and go 100% digital. I've got an AppleTV along with subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV (they do cheap 6 month packages). On top of that you can do catch up on everything except the BBC (you now need a TV license to watch any BBC content - amazing how the rules have changed over time!)
 
Phil Maddocks said:
..........On top of that you can do catch up on everything except the BBC (you now need a TV license to watch any BBC content - amazing how the rules have changed over time!)
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We'll seeing as the content on the BBC is mostly produced by money raised by the tv licence then I'm l thinking having a tv licence is only fair.
 
jakeblu said:
We'll seeing as the content on the BBC is mostly produced by money raised by the tv licence then I'm l thinking having a tv licence is only fair.
Click to expand...

I meant in terms of how they've consistently moved the goal posts...

first it was you don't need a license to watch live TV on something that is self powered...
Then mobile phones took off and it was "can't watch live TV at all without one..."
People moved to on demand - "now you need a TV license to watch BBC content"

I never said it wasn't fair, but they have consistently changed the rules to suit them rather than adjust their funding model.

A question I have is if I am watching live TV from ITV, Channel 4...Sky Sports etc...via the internet on a Firestick, Apple TV, Roku...but not watching the BBC...what am I actually paying the TV license for?? It isn't for BBC content...it isn't for infrastructure to deliver the TV services (that would be the internet provider I am already paying money to)....
 
Phil Maddocks said:
I meant in terms of how they've consistently moved the goal posts...

first it was you don't need a license to watch live TV on something that is self powered...
Then mobile phones took off and it was "can't watch live TV at all without one..."
People moved to on demand - "now you need a TV license to watch BBC content"

I never said it wasn't fair, but they have consistently changed the rules to suit them rather than adjust their funding model.

A question I have is if I am watching live TV from ITV, Channel 4...Sky Sports etc...via the internet on a Firestick, Apple TV, Roku...but not watching the BBC...what am I actually paying the TV license for?? It isn't for BBC content...it isn't for infrastructure to deliver the TV services (that would be the internet provider I am already paying money to)....
Click to expand...
Watch any US made program on a BBC tv channel and you will see how many ad breaks they have. IMNSVHO that is what your itv programs would look like if there was no competition with ad-free BBC ;).
 
Phil Maddocks said:
I meant in terms of how they've consistently moved the goal posts...

first it was you don't need a license to watch live TV on something that is self powered...
Then mobile phones took off and it was "can't watch live TV at all without one..."
People moved to on demand - "now you need a TV license to watch BBC content"

I never said it wasn't fair, but they have consistently changed the rules to suit them rather than adjust their funding model.

A question I have is if I am watching live TV from ITV, Channel 4...Sky Sports etc...via the internet on a Firestick, Apple TV, Roku...but not watching the BBC...what am I actually paying the TV license for?? It isn't for BBC content...it isn't for infrastructure to deliver the TV services (that would be the internet provider I am already paying money to)....
Click to expand...
Technically the licence is for you to receive a signal to watch or record TV, they just happen to use the money to fund the BBC. You can guarantee that if they commercialised the BBC and made it self funding, then you'll still have a licence to pay, albeit cheaper.
 
JonathanRyan said:
in the loft.

I also still have the mysterious satellite socket. Is there an easy way without buying a decoder to see if the socket is live? If it is, I may just skip aerial and go Freesat.
Click to expand...

Do you have a Sky Box you could plug in? Or access to one to test with?

Even without a sky card the sky box will still give plenty of free channels (with a number of them in HD).

https://ukfree.tv/channels/all/Sky
 
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stryvya said:
?? you got a Satellite Socket, but do you have a Dish?
Click to expand...

Yes. There's a Sky dish on the side of the house. It's not clear if it's connected to the socket or not.

Phil Maddocks said:
Does it have to be live TV? If you find you aren't watching much live TV you could save yourself the TV license fee and go 100% digital. I've got an AppleTV along with subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime and NOW TV (they do cheap 6 month packages). On top of that you can do catch up on everything except the BBC (you now need a TV license to watch any BBC content - amazing how the rules have changed over time!)
Click to expand...

TBH I mostly watch the BBC. And rather unfashionably I believe it's worth paying for :)

garryknight said:
Do you know about iPlayer Live? If not, Google "iPlayer BBC1 live", etc.
Click to expand...

I kind of do (I watched it for the first time on Sunday) but I'm on a limited broadband package (with no chance of changing). 100GB / month for everything.

Dave1 said:
Do you have a Sky Box you could plug in? Or access to one to test with?

Even without a sky card the sky box will still give plenty of free channels (with a number of them in HD).

https://ukfree.tv/channels/all/Sky
Click to expand...

No. Of course I could buy one and send it back but I wondered if there were an easier way. People I know with them don't like unplugging them :D
 
JonathanRyan said:
No. Of course I could buy one and send it back but I wondered if there were an easier way. People I know with them don't like unplugging them :D
Click to expand...

A SkyHD box (with a remote) should cost you £5-£10 secondhand these days, there’s a shedload of them available secondhand on places like Gumtree (and presumably eBay) now that Sky are pushing so many people onto Q on renewals.
 
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