Sony HXD870 and NTL Digital

JimiMac

I have recently got an LCD tv, NTL digital and the Sony recorder.
Would really appreciate some help with the set-up.

Being new to HDMI I am a bit confused. Does it replace scart cables or are they still required (between TV and recorder)?
I have had to use the analogue tune-up. During the tune-up you can see the various channels come up but when it's finished you are only left with approx 14 channels. The next program button only seems to go as far as 20 and then reverts to 1.

Also the NTL remote is now defunct. Cannot change channels etc or select menu or guide etc.

aaf

On your Sony box, you can also dedicate one of the free channels to your NTL box. For example, number 20 on my Sony 870 is the NTL box. If I want to record anything from NTL box, I setup the timer to record from channel 20 and make sure that the NTL box is left on the channel that I want to record. Not the greatest solution but it works. Downside is you can't change NTL channel while it's recording but you can if you're recording one of the analogue channels on the Sony.

HDMI should be connected from Sony box to TV. You can use scart from NTL box to Sony so Sony can pick up channels. HDMI is high definition and is needed in order for you to see your standard dvd's at an upscaled resolution on your HDMI TV. Hope this helps.

JimiMac

aaf wrote: »

On your Sony box, you can also dedicate one of the free channels to your NTL box. For example, number 20 on my Sony 870 is the NTL box. If I want to record anything from NTL box, I setup the timer to record from channel 20 and make sure that the NTL box is left on the channel that I want to record. Not the greatest solution but it works. Downside is you can't change NTL channel while it's recording but you can if you're recording one of the analogue channels on the Sony.

HDMI should be connected from Sony box to TV. You can use scart from NTL box to Sony so Sony can pick up channels. HDMI is high definition and is needed in order for you to see your standard dvd's at an upscaled resolution on your HDMI TV. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply aaf,
I've been struggling trying to get all of the channels that are available on the NTL box.
If you switch on the tv (input source) button on the remote you can toggle the screen between say AV, HDMI1, HDMI2 etc.
When I played around a bit with recording to HDD I noticed that it records from the last channel that was watched on the HDMI1 screen, regardless of what you were actually watching at the time.
So I have used the manual tune to try to get the stations. However I am probably only getting about one quarter of channels (available on the NTL box). For instance I can get BBC 1+ 2, but not BBC 3+4. I can get E4 but not E4+1. It's not that I want all of the channels but I would like to know what is wrong? I am pretty sure the cables and menus selections are correct because if I switch off the Sony I can access all of the channels on the NTL box even though it is connected through the Sony. When I advance through the channels a lot of them come up black as if there is supposed to be something there?
I will try your solution but is this a last resort for you? or does anybody know another way of setting up the channels?

aaf

You'll only be able to get the NTL analogue channels on your Sony box and then, as I suggested, dedicate a channel on your Sony box for the NTL box, which receives all of your digital channels. Understand?

John R

There is nothing wrong with your DVD recorder, you are trying to get it to do something it is not designed for.


You need to connect your NTL digital box to the LINE1 Scart input on the SONY by scart cable.

To record press the INPUT button on the Sony remote so that Line1 is displayed.

You should also have the NTL Digital box seperately connected to the TV.

You can only record the NTL Digital channel that the NTL box is tuned to, you cannot record one digital channel and watch another. It can record any ntl analogue channel seperately though, you have already tuned these in.

If you bought the HXD-870 in the belief that it could seperately tune in NTL Digital channels you were eithe mistaken or misled. It can only tune in non-encrypted Terestrial analogue. It is really only for the UK market as there is only a skeleton test Terestrial analogue service in Ireland at the moment.

No commercial product can legally record a seperate ntl digital channel than the box outputs as the channels are encrypted. The only way you can do this is to get the PVR box from ntl which costs €5 extra per month.

JimiMac

John R wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with your DVD recorder, you are trying to get it to do something it is not designed for.


You need to connect your NTL digital box to the LINE1 Scart input on the SONY by scart cable.

To record press the INPUT button on the Sony remote so that Line1 is displayed.

You should also have the NTL Digital box seperately connected to the TV.

You can only record the NTL Digital channel that the NTL box is tuned to, you cannot record one digital channel and watch another. It can record any ntl analogue channel seperately though, you have already tuned these in.

If you bought the HXD-870 in the belief that it could seperately tune in NTL Digital channels you were eithe mistaken or misled. It can only tune in non-encrypted Terestrial analogue. It is really only for the UK market as there is only a skeleton test Terestrial analogue service in Ireland at the moment.

No commercial product can legally record a seperate ntl digital channel than the box outputs as the channels are encrypted. The only way you can do this is to get the PVR box from ntl which costs €5 extra per month.

I was told that I could record a digital channel and watch an analogue channel at the same time. I am not interested in recording analogue.
However when I am recording a digital channel I cannot use the Sony remote to change to an analogue channel. It says service not available at the moment or something similar. Also when you play back the recording there are slight pauses related to the times when I attempted to change the channel.

John R

JimiMac wrote: »

I was told that I could record a digital channel and watch an analogue channel at the same time. I am not interested in recording analogue.
However when I am recording a digital channel I cannot use the Sony remote to change to an analogue channel. It says service not available at the moment or something similar. Also when you play back the recording there are slight pauses related to the times when I attempted to change the channel.

You need to use the TV remote to watch an analogue channel through the TV tuner. The DVD recorder can only process one input at a time although it will play previously recorded programmes or pause/replay the current recording.

banchang

aaf wrote: »

On your Sony box, you can also dedicate one of the free channels to your NTL box. For example, number 20 on my Sony 870 is the NTL box. .

How do you get the NTL box to be channel 20 on the Sony ? I have done a manual scan & all the analogue channels have been picked up (numbers 1-18 I think), but I dont know how to do what you say ?

Also, with the NTL box, I dont know how to setup the Host Channel for Guide+. On the Guide+ setup screen, it asks

'Has he External Receiver 1 has changed to Programme Number 12 ?'

I can't see if this has changed (I think) as there is no number readout on the NTL Digital Pace set top box. If I answer 'No' it scans again & asks if the External Receiver has changed to Programme Number 101 etc.

All help gratefully received

aaf

You can manually sort the channels so I just decided to put the NTL digibox channels on channel 20 on the Sony box. It's been months since I set this up. Haven't setup guide+ so can't help you there. We just programme in times and dates for now.