Martin963

@ Ian S   I'm doing this in a hurry,  so risk the odd betise here.   However,  if you are recording/viewing Astra 2 you won't have a problem,  because all the transmissions are in digital format and the SECAM problem doesn't arise.  If you are using a fully wired SCART and have made the appropriate menu selections,  your TV will be getting RGB (ie separate red green and blue) when connected to your TV direct.  If you go via the VCR the signals from the DIGITAL sat receiver will be PAL composite and therefore comparible with your TV.   The problems arise with ANALOGUE sat receivers when pointed at Atlantic Bird 3 and o/p'ing a SECAM signal.   You could try adjusting the menu on the VCR while using an analogue sat signal from AB3.   I suspect that the changes merely optimise the recording parameters on the VCR for the different colour signals but stand to be corrected.   I think someone else on the forum had got a VCR to do the conversion - let us know if you have any luck. If I've missed your point please post again - but having wasted an hour and a half at the vet trying to get the paperwork right to import a French cat to the UK for the first time (the vet forgot to sign one vital box and then went out on his rounds) I'm probably not at my brightest as I'm now checking the pets section for things we might not have thought of (we've moved English cats back and forth but not a French one......)

I have used a SECAM/PAL converter (it was about £90 from Letropaks) and frankly it wasn't that wonderful.   Rather garish colours,  and a lot of added noise.   It also stopped teletext working.   But I concede it was better than black and white.   Some of our UK sets refused to work with it though..... For the same money you can get a cheap TV in a French supermarket (bought in France it is guaranteed to be SECAM capable);  some sets sold in the UK do now do SECAM but trying to find out whether they do or not in the average UK electronics retailer is likely to involve you having to explain to them the whole theory of colour TV - or am I being a bit cynical here.... Just a straw in the wind - it is reported in a French satellite magazine that there is a chance (only a chance) that Atlantic Bird 3 may carry the six French national channels in digital in the near future (in order to feed signals to the fledgling Digital Terrestrial network);  no-one knows whether this service will be scrambled or not,  or whether it will conform to the DVB standard.   Probably not worth relying on but it's a thought.

If you point the dish at Astra 1 or Hotbird there are a number of analogue channels from various countries that broadcast colour in PAL.   These will be fine on a PAL TV set connected up with a Scart lead.   But if you point your dish at Atlantic Bird 3 (from where the six French national channels are broadcast) you will only get a black and white picture because the colour coding on these channels is SECAM. It doesn't make any difference where you buy the analogue satellite receiver,  it's where you point the dish that makes the difference! An analogue satellite receiver does NOT output RGB (the separate colour signals).  So one is relying on composite video,  and if the TV can't recognise SECAM then you will get a picture,  but only in black and white.

Ron has answered your point, but perhaps it’s worth expanding a bit: In the days of black and white and lack of direct AV (baseband) connections to TV’s, various systems were (and still are) used to modulate the signals onto VHF and (subsequently) UHF carriers for transmission on the conventional terrestrial TV networks. Most of Europe used systems B & G, whilst the UK used system I on UHF. These systems differed really only as to the offset used to place the sound carrier in relation to the vision carrier, and meant that a German TV could produce pictures in the UK, but with only a loud buzzing for sound..... France used system L which differs in more fundamental ways to the other European systems (although still with 625 lines). This means that a French TV would not work at all in the UK, and vice versa, mainly because the synchronisation pulses were unrecognisable to the opposite country’s TV sets. Then along came colour and yet more choices. As far as Europe is concerned, the French and the former east-bloc chose SECAM, and everyone else chose PAL. PAL has some minor advantages, particularly for colour reception in fringe areas, but again unfortunately for many years a PAL set did not recognise SECAM, and vice versa. In the last fifteen years or so, and realising that SECAM was never going to be adopted by the rest of the world, the French decided that all new sets sold in France should offer PAL compatibility along with SECAM. However, this concession in practice is only useful as far as the SCART/AV/baseband inputs on a TV are concerned, because unless the TV is also TRULY multi-system, a French TV will still not work in the UK because although it recognises PAL it is still totally stumped by system I. But it does somewhat simplify things for us Brits in France because at least a French TV becomes compatible with things like UK SKY boxes via the SCART connections. Because PAL was already the dominant system, there was no need for sets retailed in the UK to be SECAM compatible, although in the last few years more and more are compatible – it’s now an easy task to engineer colour compatibility, something that was not the case 25 years ago. But here is a problem: TV sets carted over to France from the UK are very often not SECAM compatible, so won’t work in colour with a French VCR, or a French analogue satellite receiver used for French analogue satellite transmissions, even when connected via SCART. However, as Ron says, a French TV will work with ANY European ancillary box provided you use the AV/SCART inputs. As far as AV is concerned one can forget about the discussion about systems outlined above because there is no modulation of carriers – the signal transfer is performed at baseband. And because a French TV (unless it came out of the Ark) is PAL and SECAM compatible, it will work with a SKY box, a UK VCR etc provided you hook up via SCART. The problem arises if the French TV does not work with system I and you try to do the hook-up using aerial fly leads. Then you run into the systems problems. And by the same token a UK TV will not pick up French terrestrial TV unless it can cope with system L, and VERY FEW will. So if you buy a TV or a plasma or any of these other fancy things in the UK, and want to take it to France and watch French TV via an aerial, you need to check a) that both systems I and L are covered, and b) that it is SECAM compatible If you KNOW you will only want to use UK ancillary boxes then a UK TV is fine in France, Sorry to bang on about this but given the expense of these things it pays to do a bit of research..

But check the French tuner the Paulrlinux mentions to ensure it really outputs genuine RGB and not just composite video. This is vital. As I said previously, a French analogue satellite receiver - even with Scart sockets all over its rear - only outputs the same colour signal as comes down from the satellite - ie SECAM when on Atlantic Bird 3 for French TV. This sort of analogue receiver does not have RGB generators, and by the same token a tuner for French terrestrial TV needs to be chosen incredibly carefully to ensure that it does output RGB (which I should explain obviates the SECAM/PAL problem). I rather doubt that any but the most specialist tuners would output RGB from a terrestrial signal - after all the UHF (or VHF) signal has been transmitted as composite with all the deficiencies that entails (deficiencies that apply to PAL as well as SECAM) so a tuner is not going to achieve anything technically by regenerating RGB, (unless of course the screen only accepts RGB and won't look at composite) Far easier to buy the whole thing in France. Honestly!!

Hi La Manche - thanks for the further elaboration. If you need the French channels then really it is pretty dangerous to buy in the UK unless you can have a look at the specification of the equipment. I'm still not sure whether the screen you are getting comes with a tuner or not, but either way the things to look for are : Systems I and L should be included in the specification. France uses system L, and if you can pick up Fremont Point as well you need system I for British TV. It sounds as if the set you have seen - being PAL only - will not work with system L; some PAL sets work with systems B and G (the system in use in Germany, Italy etc) but B and G are fairly similar to the UK's system I. System L has a number of more complex differences to the others and is often therefore the one system that is not covered by so-called multistandard sets. I doubt you will be out of pocket by waiting for a good deal in France in a few months time.

To amplify what Anton has said: SECAM to PAL transcoders at £79.99 are VERY unlikely to produce high quality images (I know, I've got one), so having an expensive TV to watch the pics on by that route is a waste of money. Secondly, a PAL only set will NOT work with analogue French TV via satellite without a converter, even via RGB - the analogue satellite box will output SECAM when pointed at the analogue French TV satellite, so a converter would be needed. (No prob if you subscribe to TPS which is digital, but why pay to watch something you've already paid for in your redevance anyway). PLEASE do not buy the set in the UK, however good the deal (and it probably won't look so good in 6 months time). WAIT 'til you get to France, prices have fallen, you can take it back locally if it goes wrong, and it is guaranteed to work on SECAM and system L (assuming it has a tuner of course).

This isn't quite correct Nick; the sat receiver won't be ouputting PAL if it's looking at the analogue sat channels on 5 deg west. Analogue satellite receivers (apart from very expensive professional ones used by the broadcasters) output the same type of colour signal as that that they are receiving. So if you point the dish at AB 3 and tune in the French analogue channels you'll get a SECAM signal on the composite video pin of the scart output. If you swing round to Astra 1 and tune in the German channels you'll get PAL. So a UK TV set which does not respond to SECAM (and all but the most up to date don't) will indeed display the French analogue satellite signals in black and white. RGB gets round the problem by separating the colours into their component primaries (as you correctly surmise) but it is unlikely that the analogue sat receiver in question can be switched to RGB.

You only need to do a limited rescan. Specifically you need to find the add transponder (channels) menu and input the following details: Freq 10773 MHz (or 10.773 GHz) Polarisation Horizontal Symbol Rate 22000 kB/s (22 MB/s) FEC 5/6 Depending on the time of day you should find you have added BBC 3 and 4 or CBBC and CBeebies - they may well crop up at the very highest numbers on your channel list. As has been correctly stated above, the same transport stream is used for the childrens' channels and BBC 3 & 4 - on a Sky Digibox they are assigned separate EPG positions but in reality they are the same "channels".

I refer to my posting above, for no other reason than the summary page of topics shows this thread as unreplied to - which it wasn't as I replied some days ago - so by posting again I thought I'd kick some *** into the server, or whatever you technical people call it!

In a word, no! The only place where you can find a videoguard decoder is in a Murdoch box. Murdoch has always refused to "commercialise" the videoguard system, unlike all the other scrambling systems where you can either buy a box with an embedded card reader made by an independent producer and retailed by an independent outlet, or obtain a CAM (conditional access module) with the necessary and relevant software and stick it in the common interface slot; in both cases all you then need is the necessary card from the broadcaster and off you go. Murdoch has been very clever here - all the other scrambling systems in common use have been hacked at some point - but because Uncle Ru has retained control over the sale of boxes and has normally paired cards to boxes as well he's managed to remain unhacked. That and the fact that Videoguard is apparently very well engineered. So either you need to wait (and hope) that more channels go FTA or you need to obtain a Sky box and a card. This monopoly of Murdoch's (the satellite gatekeeper syndrome) was one of the reasons the BBC cut loose and went FTA. Good for them!

A lot depends if you are buying in the UK or France and I'm not sure from your post which it is, although I'm guessing France. If you ARE in the UK, then there is a risk that the set will not respond to SECAM colour signals at all (either on the aerial socket or the SCART socket) and it may well not even respond to the French terrestrial transmission system (which is called system L). Howver, if you are buying in France, then the SCART socket will be PAL/SECAM compatible and the aerial socket will respond to system L and SECAM colour. If you do not intend to bring the set to the UK, then you can plug your British-based equipment in via the SCART socket regardless of other specs; as far as SCART is concerned there is no problem with the TV systems (B, G, L) as it becomes irrelevant. The only thing that matters here is that a French TV SCART will be PAL/SECAM compatible, a UK one MAY well only be PAL compatible. The point about the mention of systems B and G (Germany and many other countries) concerns off air reception via the aerial socket. The UK uses system I with PAL colour and not all sets that respond to B & G and L can be switched to I - we have a Toshiba and it won't do system I. We can however use the SCART sockets for British equipment and the aerial socket for French TV so there is no real problem. Persuade the sales staff (assuming you aren't in a virtual showroom!!) to dig out the mode d'emploi and check the specifications at the back.

How right you are. We watch the TF1 news programmes (13.00 and 20.00) most days - including in England via satellite - partly to keep up our linguistic skills. Certainly one quickly realises that the idea of editorial impartiality is foreign - to this channel at any rate. I actually heard their financial editor say (last week) that the coming devaluation of the $ was a specific weapon (he used the word "arme") in the economic war "guerre economique" targeted "ciblé" against Europe specifically. I would have thought the devaluation of the dollar has more to do with economic (mis)management in the states, and it doesn't seem to occur to the French that the dollar will go down against a lot of other world currencies apart from the €. It's not the first time I've heard this idea aired on French radio or TV. For all it's faults the BBC is a shining example in comparison to this sort of sloppy editorial policy. Having said that, Le journal de la une (TF1) at 13.00 is the best tourist guide to hidden France I've come across, with its support of all matters related to "la patrimoine". Really excellent stuff. When I asked a French friend about it, she said that the French liked their news bulletins to be all about French traditions and places of interest rather than world affairs. Hm.......

@ annabell As Will has said, you have a Sky Digibox (and what is now effectively a free-to-view card), so you have no problems. The aim of my original post however was to alert those people (and there are a lot) who have non-Sky equipment overseas, these folk having taken advantage of the BBC's decision last year to abandon the encryption of their satellite services, which means any digital satellite box is now capable of BBC reception with the appropriate dish. This was a courageous decision by the BBC that a few other operators (such as ITV) would do well - in my opinion at any rate - to follow, (although there are a few who grumble that the license fee payer is now subsidising overseas free viewing). ITV3 appear now to be bucking the trend to shelter within a Sky subscription, and many people can only hope that the rest of ITV might eventually follow their example (in the process saving a huge amount of money currently paid to Sky for the rights to use Videoguard). Like you we have 2 Sky boxes, (one subscription, one FTV) so are unaffected, but several friends are now benefiting from ITV 3 on their ordinary equipment. Complicated isn't it..!

I haven’t seen it reported here to date, so for those of you WITHOUT Sky digiboxes but access to the BBC via satellite – this is for you. ITV 3 started on 1st November, and in spite of initial assurances that it would NOT be on satellite, it is. AND it is at the moment free to air. I make no recommendation or otherwise as to the content, although unlike ITV 2 it is aimed at an audience aged 35 + I believe. You will need to do a manual search with the following parameters: Freq 10906 MHz, Vertical polarisation, symbol rate 22000 FEC 5/6 There are various rumours that maybe ITV itself will go free to air too in the future, but it’s a case of seeing is believing I suspect. After all, we've heard that one before.

Hello I am just looking at the catorama website at a kit which combines both analogique and numerique but I dont understand how it works? This is the text that is included on the product: .....''Kit satellite numérique et analogique 3 têtes *****. Composé de: 1 parabole 80 cm métal avec 3 têtes universelles 0,6 dB, 1 commutateur DiSEqC 2 entrées / 1 sortie, 2 cordons péritels, 1 terminal numérique FTA 3000 canaux (2000 TV et 1000 radios), OSD en 7 langues, EPG (guide des programmes), 2 listes favorites, 2 sorties péritels, 1 sortie audio/vidéo en RCA, DiSEqC 1,0-1,2 et Usuals. 1 démodulateur analogique 450 canaux, OSD en 2 langues, 2 prises péritels, DiSEqC 1,0.'' Is this to enable you to receive the french national channels plus the free to view channels through the same TV ( multi standard)and the one dish ?   I guess so - the French nationals (SECAM colour) on the analogue box and anything free to air digital on the other box. It was mentioned earlier in the posting by 'Martinwatkins' about aligning the LNB's carefully to the different satellites - is that what we would need to do to enable us to get some of the uk channels through the numerique box and also get the main french ones through the analogique box? One 'head' in one satellite direction and another going the other way? Is this quite difficult to actually do?   It's not as easy as setting up a dish with a centred single LNB.  I expect the instructions would be adequate,  and in some cases the dish comes with a rail or supports for the LNB's set up with pre-marked positions.  But I suspect it would still be very fiddly! Once it is done, when switching from say a french tv programme to a uk one with the above kit would it still involve unplugging bits from the back of the TV/and or boxes and switching things over?   Generally you can daisy chain the satellite receivers to eachother and thence from one of them to the TV.  If it all works OK switching on a receiver gives it priority to the TV screen.    But it can do very unexpected things!   You can also buy a SCART switcher box for about €20. Sorry to be so dim on this but I too have no experience of satellite until now so am trying my best to understand what is available and to see if it is actally worth having (or not as the case may be!)   You're not dim,  it's very complicated. I also saw a kit for the analogique box/dish with universal head which was adaptable to receive programs from a numerique box ( sold separately) which was a lot cheaper than the above package . Would it ultimately achieve the same thing if it was used with a dish with 2 universal heads?   Yes,  the tete universal is suitable for both analogue and digital transmissions,  the universal merely refers to the bands of frequencies it covers,  (technically the local osciallator frequencies used).   If you went for the one dish solution you need to check VERY carefully that the dish concerned covers a sufficient arc-width to include Astra 2 at 28 degrees east for the BBC through to 5 deg west for Atlantic Bird 3 for the French analogues.   The one I saw advertised in TeleSatellite magazine (monthly) only covered (from memory) 28 D east,  19 D east,  13 D east, and 5 D east (Astra 1A, ex 19 deg E).   In other words it wouldn't be suitable as it wouldn't stretch past 5 deg east through to 5 deg west.  SO BE VERY CAREFUL,  I just have my doubts that Castorama are going to be selling such a complex bit of kit (given the likely lengthy phone calls from customers trying to set it up!!) Enlightenment welcomed! Sorry it's taken a while to reply,  please ask again if it isn't clear (but you may defeat me at that point) Natalie

Like everything,  installation looks daunting when it's your first time,  then after several (installations,  not drinks!) it's easy.  If you have some DIY experience it's worth getting the dish,  digital receiver , cable & plugs and a wall bracket from a DIY outlet (often no more than €80 in total) and having a go, using the signal meter display on the TV.   I find the hardest bit drilling through the rocks that seem to be contained in most domestic walls round here in order to mount the bracket!   To give you an idea of how easy it gets,  at my parents-in-law (in Oxfordshire) we have a dish attached to a breeze-block on the ground.  By leaning out of a window and leaving the nuts and bolts only finger-tight,  I can swing the dish from Hotbird to Astra 1 to Astra 2 in a matter of seconds.   I often use flowers in the adjacent beds to "mark" the right direction for each satellite,  and tweak the tilt a bit to match - problem is my mother in law moves the flowers round when we're not there and I have to re-learn!).  But the point is it's not difficult and if you are without the BBC it's worth a morning spent experimenting.

Arte/La 5 is often transmitted at lower power than the 3 main channels on UHF,  hence your poorer picture.   En bref - the BBC transmissions are digital only so that is the sort of receiver you want, although Arte is available also in analogue.  Unfortunately the BBC transmit from Astra 2 at 28 deg east and Arte transmit from a different satellite - Astra 1 from 19 deg east.  So either you need a fancy single dish set up complete with 2 carefully aligned LNB's , one for each position,  along with some sort of switcher, or you need to put up 2 dishes, again either with automatic Diseq type switching or swap the feed to the receiver "by hand". There is no trouble continuing to watch terrestrial TV with a satellite set up included.  Unless it's a very old TV the satellite receiver makes use of the SCART socket on the back - a 21 pin affair. The full range of French TV terrestrial channels are monopolised on satellite by TPS - and unfortunately the main ones are scrambled, requiring a subscription.  It seems sensible therefore - unless you want to pay again for something that is already funder by the redevance - to go on watching the likes of TF1 via your terrestrial aerial.   Canalsatellite carries the terrestrials except TF1 and M6 but again a subscription is required. This is a brief resumé of the situation,  please ask again for more detailed points.

LAST EDITED ON 31-May-04 AT 06:08 PM (BST) The BBC digital transmissions emanate from 28 degrees east; the French analogue ones from 5 degrees west. The angular separation is simply too great for one dish to cope with (unless it's one of those fancy ones with a rail on which one can hang up to 8 LNB's - but they're rare and expensive). TV5 and France 5/Arte are still on Hotbird analogue at 13 degrees east as far as I know, but even this separation is too great for all but the largest dishes. So two dishes required - sorry.

It may be worth trying a better aerial, however it may have been that the settled anticyclonic weather this week gave you a "duct" from a French TV Tx that would not normally exist. Suggest that you try the same experiment several more times before investing too much. Certainly some people are able to enjoy fairly stable reception of French TV on the south coast, but UHF signals are normally confined to 40 miles for reliable reception, and the satellite route is probably going to be as cheap and far more reliable than UHF reception. If you have any idea what channel numbers you were receiving the signals on I can try and identify which station it was. The relevant range is 21 - 68.

LAST EDITED ON 22-May-04 AT 09:01 AM (BST) It's more likely that one card has gone to sleep or never been properly activated, although this seems less likely given that you suggest C4 is present on the problem card,. What puzzles me is your saying that they were "registered" in Dordogne or Charente. Sky (or the Solus issuers, effectively Sky) require a UK mainland address. This address determines the BBC abd ITV region that appears on 101/103. Could you enlighten us as to how you get them registered in France please. Do you have the same missing ITV/C5 problem when you swap the cards around between boxes, and do you get the same problem when you swap the boxes between dishes?

No, only the currently valid cards have the yellow house. What you have is a series 1 card, which would have been de-activated some time in late 2003.

I think that you are confusing Freeview (the UHF terrestrial digital TV service, confined to the UK by technical factors) with free-to-view cards which are used to view ITV etc via Sky satellite digiboxes. The package you refer to will only be available via a UHF aerial in the UK. ie NOT via satellite. It'll be interesting to see how this new subscription service goes though, given that at first only the old ONDIGITAL receivers will be able to decode the signals (with the appropriate card) and also given that an awful lot of "Freeview" receivers have been sold, which as their name suggests contain no unscrambling technology (thought to be SECA 2 for this new service)

LAST EDITED ON 04-Feb-04 AT 09:33 AM (GMT) The VITAL thing if you want to watch terrestrial analogue TV in France directly on this TV is that it is system L with SECAM. SECAM itself is a colour system, it has NOTHING to do with the black and white technical parameters. Only when these are correctly set will you get any sort of picture, the colour system is supplementary to all this. France uses system L which is about as "contrary" to all the other European systems as it is possible to be. The sound modulation with L is AM not FM, its offset from the video carrier is different, and most importantly the polarity of the video signal is the opposite to everyone else (ie + ve in France). The chances are (although I am not familiar with the set) that this TV will accept SECAM fine through its SCART sockets but may well NOT accept system L signals via its aerial input. You can get round this by buying a French VCR and using that as your UHF tuner, linking it to the TV by SCART. But if the TV doesn't accept system L you will not even get a black and white picture if you connect it direct to an aerial in France Be very careful, most so called multi standard sets are INCOMPATIBLE with the French L system.

LAST EDITED ON 19-Dec-03 AT 08:23 PM (GMT) Well it's NOT to do with your being in France. That's for sure. Have you (I'm sure you have) checked the settings (in the settings menu, ie Services --> option 4 --> option 3) for subtitles? It probably isn't that as you're still getting some, but worth checking. I suspect that Sky are having some trouble at the moment with software versions; we have 2 Pace boxes (in the UK of course!) and for the last 2 weeks they have nearly always been on the Sky Welcome channel each morning. In addition there have been several occasions where they have refused to switch on without being completely de-powered first. This is often a sign that Sky are tinkering with unsatisfactory software - it's just possible your settings have become altered - stranger things have happened. Incidentally subtitles are working here!