Unbelievable (Avoid UK market AV gear?)

mjsmyth

I was in a certain Australian Electrical and Furniture store in Naas yesterday and they had a display full of 320Gb DTT PVR's. They were priced around about 250euro. The only problem??? They were Freeview PVR's! Yeah sure you could connect up a VCR to them and use it to record that way (or at least i presume you could!), but seriously, this is just stupid and has to stop! Nowhere was there a sign to say "Ehhhh... jaysus you might want to hold off there unless you are one of the few in the Republic who can receive the UK Freeview signal..."

They also had a Samsung Series 4 450 42" Plasma TV I was interested in. What made it even more interesting was that on the stickers attached to it and the promo video running on it, which clearly said "TNT HD". Now as we all know, TNT HD is the HD part French DTT which is Mpeg4 based.

I asked the salesman about the TNT HD sticker, he replied that it was only for the UK market and did not apply here....

I don't know about you, but if you are going to be flashing these images and running promo videos, the least they could do is know a little bit about the item they are selling.

I am all for the consumer educating themselves about goods they may purchase, but this type of behaviour is ridiculous.

mj

watty

I doubt they will record Analogue at all.

Mike 1972

A clueless sales person ? MYGAWD next thing someone will be telling us they know of a corrupt politician........

GerardKeating

mjsmyth wrote: »

I was in a certain Australian Electrical and Furniture store in Naas yesterday and they had a display full of 320Gb DTT PVR's. They were priced around about 250euro. The only problem??? They were Freeview PVR's! Yeah sure you could connect up a VCR to them and use it to record that way (or at least i presume you could!), but seriously, this is just stupid and has to stop! Nowhere was there a sign to say "Ehhhh... jaysus you might want to hold off there unless you are one of the few in the Republic who can receive the UK Freeview signal..."

They also had a Samsung Series 4 450 42" Plasma TV I was interested in. What made it even more interesting was that on the stickers attached to it and the promo video running on it, which clearly said "TNT HD". Now as we all know, TNT HD is the HD part French DTT which is Mpeg4 based.

I asked the salesman about the TNT HD sticker, he replied that it was only for the UK market and did not apply here....

I don't know about you, but if you are going to be flashing these images and running promo videos, the least they could do is know a little bit about the item they are selling.

I am all for the consumer educating themselves about goods they may purchase, but this type of behaviour is ridiculous.

mj

I have the same experience with DID, guy thought UK freeview would work here and the french TNT-HD would not..

MPEG2

A large UK retailer in Maynooth have had a nice pile of FreeView PVRs in stock for a few months now. I wonder if they have sold any?

It realy is a case of nobody knows and nobody cares. When DTT does ultimately happen, every house in the country will have MPEG2 decoder equipment and they will wonder why their TV won't work with the new system. It's a scandal that incompatible equipment has been allowed to be sold for so long after the standard was set.

watty

WE are in Europe, you see. UK isn't.

Luton Airport has a big sign welcoming visitors from the EU.

JHMEG

MPEG2 wrote: »

A large UK retailer in Maynooth have had a nice pile of FreeView PVRs in stock for a few months now. I wonder if they have sold any?

It realy is a case of nobody knows and nobody cares. When DTT does ultimately happen, every house in the country will have MPEG2 decoder equipment and they will wonder why their TV won't work with the new system. It's a scandal that incompatible equipment has been allowed to be sold for so long after the standard was set.

Tesco?

The DTT system here is becoming a fiasco. Most LCD/plasma TVs can do MPEG2, but no, the BCI knows better.

I emailed them and asked why not use the same as the Brits. MPEG4 allows more channels to be carried. We only have 4. The Brits have 40...

mjsmyth

The Mpeg2 v Mpeg4 debate has raged for ages and has been covered in these forums many times.

The only people who are to blame for deluge of Mpeg2 compatible TV's are the makers themselves and the retailers.

Just because the UK went down the road of Mepg2, does not mean we should. Indeed, the UK is ramping up to change over to Mpeg4.

Ireland is not alone in choosing Mpeg4 for their DTT. France, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine all have selected Mpeg4 as their standard.

Should we just have chosen Mpeg2 because we share a common language with the UK? As I said, makers and retailers are to blame for the situation we are in. They saw a way of making money off the back of this knowing full well that the tuners would not work in Ireland. They never even bothered to take off the UK Freeview stickers from the sets! Now that the sets are out there, they can sell set top boxes so people can receive DTT.

mj

watty

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