Martin963

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!

LAST EDITED ON 19-Dec-03 AT 03:26 PM (GMT) With your present box you have exhausted the possibilities. The problem is that the three "main" terrestrial channels are only contained within digital satellite "packages" with scrambling (viz TPS for all three and France 5 and M6, and Canalsatellite for France 2 & 3). However, all three are available in analogue on Atlantic Bird 3 (5 degrees west) along with France 5/Arte, M6. To get these you need an analogue box (nice and cheap if you can find one) with dish set up on AB3. Howwever, for colour you need either a French SECAM TV, or a transcoder. A few (but only a few) British TV's decode SECAM colour. Transcoders are not without their problems. If all else fails, you can subscribe to TPS from a French address and bring the box back over to the UK and wire it up to your LNB pointing at Hotbird. It may become more compicated if you have Diseq switching. But the analogue route works and is subscription free (why pay TPS for the pleasure of watching something you have already paid for). If you need more info please post again.