TV Set up for Chambre D'hote

[Babbles]

We have a sky box and TV (bought in France) already which we will use, we would like to have TV's in the suites but am a bit unsure of where to buy them, we would like to be able to offer both French TV and English (the sort that's available on freeview?) I am assuming that we will have to have 2 different dishes, if I bought TV's in the UK with built in freeview would I be able to get any French TV (again I assume you have to plug in the French dish) or would I be better buying TV's in France with that built in french freeview (not sure what the French system is called) and freeview boxes from the UK. Another point to mention is I have a Costco card for the UK and the TV'S are very good value[8-)]

[Tim]

Wow Miss Babs - so many questions!

Ok, where to start - firstly Freeview is the name of the system used in the UK for digital TV from your TV aerial. The French equilavent is TNT. So, a Freeview equipped set bought in the UK should be able to receive French TNT, providing you have TNT coverage in your area. Try this website http://www.tnt-gratuite.fr/

If you do have good TNT coverage you will then not need a second satellite dish - just a decent TV aerial and distribution system to feed the signal to all your sets.

I think you have confused Freeview with freesat. To get UK TV, as you already know with your Skybox, you need satellite. Currently, if you have a dish for UK TV then it's likely that you have a single LNB on your dish. The LNB is the unit that is mounted on the arm of the dish with the cable coming out of it. If you want to supply UK TV to more places, you will need to replace the LNB for either a twin, quad or more unit. A cable will have to be fed into each room and a digi box will also be required to supply each set.

So, I've made a start in answering your questions - I hope I've been of some help and, perhaps, made things a little clearer. If not, please come back with more questions and I'll try to do better.

Regards - Tim

[Babbles]

Thanks Tim that has made it clearer, but being a bit dumb when it comes to TV's,  here's another question, so if we put a quad or more thing (we will need them for 6 extra TV'S) and plugged in TV's with built in freeview do we still need digi boxes (I think this is the bit I'm muddling up, freeview and digi boxes are not the same thing?) I'm really in danger of showing just how ignorant I am when it comes to Techie stuff but do we need to have a bigger dish for more TV's ? we will be near Pezenas in the Herault if that makes a difference and left the dish on the last house so will have to buy one anyway.[geek]

[Tim]

No problem. OK, remember Freeview is Digital TV through the TV aerial for the UK. If you buy a Freeview equipped set in the UK and bring it to France, it should work on the French version of Freeview called TNT. I say should because the digital TV standard used by France and the UK is broadly the same - my UK bought Sony Freeview TV works ok.

So, to sum up Freeview. If you are in an area covered by the French digital transmitters (TNT) you will need a TV aerial with a feed system to send the signal to all the TV sets. This will be the system for French TV.

UK TV will have to be satellite - so at the moment you may have one feed from your dish to your Sky box - you will need to increase the number of outputs from your dish to enable you to send a satellite signal to each of the TVs on your property. Now, you will either need a satellite digi box for each extra set, or there are some sets available in the UK that have a built in satellite receiver, but they are not cheap at the moment as they are fairly recent to the market.

You should not need a bigger dish to feed the signal to more sets. The only issue may be that the heavier LNB makes the arm drop slightly, so you may need to make a small adjustment if that happens. I'm not sure of the best dish size for area but I would have thought an 80cm would be adequate - I'm sure someone on this forum who lives in your area will either confirm that or suggest the right size.

There is another type of receiver you can get from the UK for freesat - but I'm trying to keep things simple, but if you want to know more, please let me know.

Again, I hope this is of some help - regards - Tim

[Babbles]

A big thanks that has really cleared it up for me, I've just seen an add for Panasonic TV with built in free sat so might try and see if I can get them cheap at costco so fingers it's affordable!

[Deauville]

Hi Tim - we bought a Freview digital TV in the UK and it worked fine there but it doesn't tune in to any of the French TNT channels. I thought that digital was standard across Europe but I'm wondering if the Pal/Secam difference still exists (or maybe my campervan omnimax aeriel needs to go on a longer pole!)

On the dish size issue we have a 30cm (yes - thirty!) on our van and we have picked up freeview wherever we've been in France (we live in Dordogne and the last trip south was to the Carmargue and reception was perfect)

[Tim]

Ah, you made the same mistake - you have not picked up Freeview via your satellite dish - it's either Freesat from Sky if your using a Skybox and yellow house card, or just the free to air channels if your using an ordinary digi box - or finally freesat (small 'f') if you have one of the fairly new receivers available in the UK. Simple, isn't it?[blink]

As far as your TV is concerned - well, can I ask - how old is it? I say this because, some of the very early 'first generation' Freeview sets and boxes will not work in France - the technical spec. changed after a year or so. But if it's more recent than that, I would probably have to say that your TV aerial maybe pointing in the wrong direction for your digital TV transmitter - or perhaps your area is not yet covered by TNT.

The house I am in had two UHF antennas on the roof - neither of them got TNT although I was able to get analogue Secam signals reasonably well. When I looked at the TNT website ( I gave the link in an earlier post) I found that neither of my aerials were pointing at the nearest digitally equipped transmitter - so I had to do some aerial rigging to get it working. This is what you may have to do - look at the website for coverage.

Regards - Tim

[Babbles]

Just looked at the Panasonic with freesat, still very expensive cheapest I found was £899 , any thoughts about other brands making this type of TV? we only really want 32inch , do you think the price might drop in the near future, I'm hoping so!

[Tim]

Well Miss Babs, it's the same most things - you pay your money and take your choice - I agree, the sets you mentioned are expensive, but I'm sure at some stage other models will come to the market.

I like keeping things separate anyway (much to my wife's annoyance) because if the TV set packs up, you can go and get another and the same goes with the satellite receiver. If you buy a box with it all built in and it goes wrong, you lose everything. But that's just my preference.

Regards - Tim

[Babbles]

I know what you mean but we don't really want loads of wires showing and I don't know of anyway that it can be done with putting the tv on the wall, unless of course there is some majical gizzmo that tidies them all away [:D]