TNT??

[Lollie]

Hello,

 

Maybe its the wine,  maybe its the fact they are all watching footie, again!!!  and I have nothing to do,   but, we bought a new TV today with intergrated  TNT but I can only find the french channels we have always had.    I checked the webpage, suggested and yes La Baule does have coverage, but I still cant find the channels!   Help!

 

Lollie    footie widow Dept 44

[Martin963]

I haven't had time to check the coverage where you are,   but you might (personally) be on a relay for La Baule rather than the main transmitter (which will be the one actually providing the TNT) which I would guess be Nantes Haute Goulaine.    Very few relays have yet been equipped for digital.

If you're using a local relay your aerial will be optimised for the relay and will be relatively "deaf" to the TNT transmissions coming from the main station in the "wrong" direction.   

But basics first - have you done a scan with the new TV?    You've got it to find the analogue channels so maybe you have. But it's the first basic question while I look up the transmitter details.

[Lollie]

Hi

Hubby says, he plugged it in and turned it on!!!   We have Chaines 1-6 except Canal Plus of course!  If we are on a relay what should we do?

He has managed to sort out the digibox for uk TV naturally, I say sarcastically, cos its me who watches french TV!!

 

Lollie

 

[Martin963]

As you probably worked out,   for TNT you're covered by Haute Goulaine (Nantes) at > 50% and Vannes Moustoir'Ac at < 50%.

However,   as I thought there is a decent analogue relay for La Baule Escoublac at St Clair and if your aerial (I'm assuming you've got one on the roof) is pointing at that it will probably reject signals coming from either of the TNT sites.

If you can,  check which UHF channel numbers you're getting analogue TF1/Fr2/Fr3 on - if it's 40/43/46 then you're on the relay for La Baule and would need to adjust your aerial for TNT, (and maybe get an upgrade because there wouldn't be a relay for analogue at La Baule if the signal from the main stations was 100% reliable).    If you're getting the main stations on ch's on 23/26/29 then it's Nantes,  if on 50/53/56 then it's Vannes.    If the menus on your TV give MHz values then tell us what they are and we can convert them.

Sorry it's a bit complicated.

Laters:  try looking to see which way your aerial's pointing.    The end with a grill or several rods together is the back,   and the front end is the one where the rods get shorter and shorter, that's the end nearest the transmitter.   Nantes and Vannes should be easy to work out from a map (at least roughly) - I'm not sure where St Clair is but you're local so it should be easy to find out.

[Martin963]

If he just plugged it in and it found the five analogue UHF channels it suggests that it did an auto set up and was unable to pick up enough signal to register the TNT (generally they do the TNT channels first in my experience).  Normally it would have displayed a message along the lines of "no TNT channels found".  Did you keep an eye on it during set up?

Just one other thought (and I don't want to insult your intelligence here!) but are you certain you've got the TV "onto" its TNT part.    Most (all right,  many) have a button on the remote to hop from analogue to digital operation (and back again),  and if your analogue working channels are on presets 1 - 5 then I would suspect you should check whether it's possible to switch to the digital presets.  It just might have done a full scan and then defaulted to analogue rather than digital operation......(?)

[Lollie]

Sorry,  we are going to sound really thick now,  but how do we find the uhf chanels,  we press 1 for TF1   2 for F2 3 for F3 etc?  When we try for TNT it shows no signal found.

 

Lollie

[Lollie]

The strongest signal was on 23 26 29,   we can also pick up on the Vannes ones but not as good reception,

[Martin963]

I was afraid you'd ask that.  It depends on the TV and how its menus are structured; often by tuning in (say) TF1,then Menu -> setup -> manual install - then see what parameters are displayed on the screen.

But in this case I think it would be easier to inspect the aerial's direction tomorrow when it's light.

I'd also try and find out from the manual how to do a "digital channel scan" (you can do it after the original set up) just to check,  and watch the screen throughout to see what  is displayed.

But my hunch is that your aerial is pointing at St Clair and ignoring the TNT signals from elsewhere.   In which case either an aerial adjustment or wait until 2010/2011 latest for St Clair to be equipped for TNT (and my guess is it will be sooner as it's quite an important relay).

[Lollie]

Hi

Its daylght!!!   sunny and clear blue skies.     We are definitely pointing towards East towards  Nantes.  I found the button on the remote to switch from analogue,  here I can pick up M6, WP and NT1, from 14 TO 18 they are there but very pixely, if thats a description!, from 31 onwards it says scrambled signal,   where we cant find the others it says no signal found including TF1 FR2 etc, which we can pick up on analogue.  Any ideas?

Thank you for all your help last night, it made it a lot clearer eventually for us as to what we were looking for.

 

Lollie

 

[Cat]

Just a thought, but are you by any change using an extra-long aerial cable between your aerial jack and the TV?  Perhaps not the one that came with the TV?

We had similar problems with a TNT box, it worked fine using the short aerial cable that came with the box, but when we tried to use a longer one (and possibly it was not of the same quality) the box couldn't detect all the TNT channels, and most of those that it did find were very pixelated.

 

[Martin963]

Definitely a border line signal then,   I'm glad you've ascertained the tx source.

There are various things you can try.   Checking and keeping as short as possible any aerial connectors is good advice.

What's your analogue picture like?   Is it at all grainy?    The problem with digital is that a deteriorating signal doesn't deteriorate gracefully,   it pixellates below a certain level and then simply stops working altogether.   Even if it's only just below the working threshold.

You can try a signal amplifier;   I'd try a cheap one first because you can waste money on this with no results,   but sometimes it's a winner.    A "mast head" amplifier is the best,  this comes in two bits,  a box you install very near the aerial and a power supply which lives near the TV.    You need to cut the aerial cable twice to install so it's not a job for the fainthearted on a roof.     No guarantees that it will work.

The best but most expensive solution is to call in a contractor with local knowledge to upgrade your aerial but you'll pay at least €150 for that,   and for near enough the same money you could try the TNT par satellite solution from Canalsat (€120 for box and card,   one off payment for four years viewing).    You would need an Astra 1 dish for that.

Or wait until 2009/10/11 for the power increase at Haute Goulaine which will increase from the present TNT power of 28 - 38 kW up to 200 kW,   at which point your present aerial will almost certainly work.   (The powers used at present are lower to protect other analogue transmitters from interference,   this constraint is removed when the analogue networks are closed).

Incidentally,  the channels stored on higher presets are indeed scrambled.  It's just your luck if these are the ones that come romping in to the aerial!

[Lollie]

I dont believe it!!!!

My 15 year old has just walked in from school, picked up the remote, sat down on sofa, feet up, pressed a button to digital scan, we now have all the tnt channels!! He didnt know we had spent hours trying to sort this.

This is the button OH spent all night looking for!!!!

Many thanks for all your help Martin.

Next question ........   we want to buy a dvd player that records also,   do we buy Blue Ray, or HD, or do we hang on for a while??

 

Lollie

 

 

[Martin963]

Ah the joys of parenthood.     It is odd though that the first scan didn't find them though,   after all when you get it out from the box it knows "nothing" about local channels.

Glad it's burst into life though.    Now you've got 18 free channels of rubbish instead of five!

One of the high def DVD formats has just won the "war" but I can't remember which.   I suspect that the technology is still very expensive though compared to conventional DVD recorders,   and the discs will be more expensive too.    With so little HD material around on air (only a few channels even on sat) what would you record anyway?

TBH I'd get an ordinary recorder,   and if necessary a separate player for HD whatever if it isn't too expensive.

But it's not my expertise so someone with the latest gear can probably advise further!

[Pierre ZFP]

Toshiba has just thrown in the towel with HD so only Sony's Blu-Ray will be available going forward.  A good job too IMHO.

You can get a standard DVD recorder for peanuts now so it may be best to get one of those (with or without a built-in hard disc) then upgrade to Blu-Ray in a while when the prices have come down and the technology is more  mature.

Edited for spelling

[Tim]

As far as recorders are concerned, I'd agree with all that has been said already. I wouldn't bother right now with anything other than an ordinary recorder. If I may make a suggestion though, I've been asked several times now to help get friend's TV systems set up to record. In all the cases where the friend has thought they've got a good deal in buying a DVD recorder in France, they've ended up with one that is very dificult to set up in the way someone from the UK would like - i.e. being able to record from a Sky box, or similar. I've found three, so far, which work perfectly well in recording French terrestrial (analogue) TV, and also have the facility to plug in a Canal Plus decoder. The problem arises when hooking up a Sky (or similar) box as there does not seem to be a 'loop through' for lack of a better description, with the scart connections. After a lot of 'pfaffing' about I have managed to get them going - after a fashion, but not in the way I would find acceptable. It seems that the more well known machines - e.g. Sony etc will work very well - so just be aware when you buy.

I am aware, by the way, that this response does not read very well, and for that I apologise, but after sitting in front of this computer for 15 minutes I can't think of a better way to describe the issue. So, I suppose the bottom line is 'don't buy some cheap jobby' and you should be ok.

Tim

[Martin963]

Do you mean Timco that the DVD recorder doesn't pass through the Sky box (or whatever) signal to the TV when just in "idle mode",   ie if the Sky box is only plugged into the DVD recorder then you can't watch it on the TV because the recorder doesn't "source monitor"?

Were you referring to an analogue Canal + decoder (the sort that just re-arrange the random line sync shifts?

I'm not asking in order to shoot you down,   just clarifying my own understanding!

[Benjamin]

Interesting post on DVD recorders Timco.

We bought a Panasonic DMR-EH55/56 last year. I'm non technical and the operating instructions are difficult to follow.

Evntually, after a lot of playing around, I managed to get it to do timer recordings of stelite programs through the Pace digibox but what I didn't achieve was being able to use the Autoview facility on the Pace box to select the programs to record without having to use the timer facility on the DVD recorder.

The downside is that we cannot leave it to record programs from different satelite channels which, although it isn't a must have, would be nice nevertheless.

A bit like you today I've just read this through again and it looks a bit awkward so I hope you can follow what I'm getting at.

[Tim]

As I said Martin - I've had three of these 'things' that have nearly driven me nuts - if you counted the hours I spent playing with the first one and converted it into a reasonable 'hourly rate' the owner could have bought a decent machine.

What happens is exactly as you have described it - 'Source Monitor' is a much better way of putting it - should have thought of that.

The machines themselves look innocuous enough - never heard of the make of them ( all three were different)  but that's, maybe, not unusual these days.

They come equipped (deceptively perhaps) with two scart sockets which leads you to believe that there shouldn't be a problem getting it working. When rigged up in the normal way they fail to pass the picture through. The only way I could get one of them working was to 'bodge' a work around using the composite input. The second machine I was asked to look at was still in it's box - I took a  look at it and luckily after a quick check informed to the proud owner that they were on the road to misery and they were fortunate enough to get it exchanged for albeit a more expensive machine that I got working for them in five minutes flat. The third one had been purchased 18 months ago and the owner spent weeks trying to get it to work and failed. They asked me to have a quick look' - it was a very quick look and a couple of simple questions convinced me that this again, was one of those damn machines. Luckily this person had just treated themselves to a Sky + machine and wasn't bothered - so it's heading for the tip. Even when I told them that it would still work as a DVD player they said 'they'd had enough' - I said 'I didn't blame them'.[:@]

Tim

I've got one of them here - if you fancy wasting a couple of days - and I do mean wasting

[Tim]

I've got a couple of, as it turned out, multi-standard Sony DVD recorders - for the most part these machines work quite happily with the Sky box autoview system - which is nice - but occasionally they don't - which isn't. I've done a very little research and the times that it hasn't worked often seem to coincide with those that have Sky +  boxes having failed recordings - so there seems to be something in common - what I haven't found out yet.

I think that when the Freesat system is launched I'll be looking for a PVR. No confirmed date for that yet though. Still, I'm not in any hurry.

Tim

[Tim]

[quote user="Benjamin"]Interesting post on DVD recorders Timco.

We bought a Panasonic DMR-EH55/56 last year. I'm non technical and the operating instructions are difficult to follow.

Evntually, after a lot of playing around, I managed to get it to do timer recordings of stelite programs through the Pace digibox but what I didn't achieve was being able to use the Autoview facility on the Pace box to select the programs to record without having to use the timer facility on the DVD recorder.

The downside is that we cannot leave it to record programs from different satelite channels which, although it isn't a must have, would be nice nevertheless.

A bit like you today I've just read this through again and it looks a bit awkward so I hope you can follow what I'm getting at.



[/quote]

I've got a couple of, as it turned out, multi-standard Sony DVD recorders - for the most part these machines work quite happily with the Sky box autoview system - which is nice - but occasionally they don't - which isn't. I've done a very little research and the times that it hasn't worked often seem to coincide with those that have Sky +  boxes having failed recordings - so there seems to be something in common - what I haven't found out yet.

I think that when the Freesat system is launched I'll be looking for a PVR. No confirmed date for that yet though. Still, I'm not in any hurry.

Tim

 

edit - not sure what happened there - the quote didn't work, then when I re-did it I kinda got two - sorry chaps.

[Benjamin]

So you techy people also have problems with some of this kit.  [:D]

I'm at the stage now of being frightened to do any more to it in case I loose what I already have so I think I'll just leave it as it is for now.

Thanks for the reply.

[Martin963]

Thanks for the clarification Timco.    Thank goodness I haven't come across one of those machines.

I do find machines with no RF modulator a pain,   I know it's old fashioned but SO useful,   particularly if - like us - one pipes twelve different "channels" down one UHF cable for use in different rooms on different programmes.

I shall be stuffed when RF analogue goes - surmountable but increasingly only possible with legacy equipement.

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Timco"]

I've got a couple of, as it turned out, multi-standard Sony DVD recorders - for the most part these machines work quite happily with the Sky box autoview system - which is nice - but occasionally they don't - which isn't. I've done a very little research and the times that it hasn't worked often seem to coincide with those that have Sky +  boxes having failed recordings - so there seems to be something in common - what I haven't found out yet.

I think that when the Freesat system is launched I'll be looking for a PVR. No confirmed date for that yet though. Still, I'm not in any hurry.

Tim

[/quote]

Ah ! I wonder if this is the source of the random problem I have with multi recordings? My DVD player works fine and with its various inputs I can use it to record the o/p of the sky digibox, or the french digibox which we use as a dedicated R4 receiver, or to display the output of the TNT box on a PAL tv.

The problem occurs if I set it to record - as one continuous take - several sky prompts. It seems to be worse if they are on the same channel (like, for example, 3 consecutive episodes of 'Timeteam' Saturday morning a few weeks ago) Episode 1 records no problem, then the interminable adverts and promos, then when episode 2 starts, the picture goes to black and the soundtrack continues uninterrupted. Equally random is the likelihood of episode 3 having both sound and vision. I now wonder if it is something to do with Sky+ signal prompts? It's never a problem if watching live, only if recording.

p