Samsung LE32B530 - 'digital TV ready'

zagmund

Guys, I'm hoping you can clear something up for me please . . . ever since I realised that a 'HD ready' TV actually meant that it couldn't do 1920*1080 (and so wasn't going to do what most people think is HD) I've never trusted the phrase 'ready' in marketing terms.

Powercity have a Samsung which they say is 'Irish Digital TV ready'. Does this mean what it claims, or is this another marketing speak way to get people to buy something that won't work properly ?

I live right beside RTE in Donnybrook and in clear sight of 3Rock, so I should be able to pick up the trial signals, isn't that right ?

Cherers,

z

watty

TEST,
not Trial.
Very different.

Until the service is launched (we don't know when, neither does RTE), you may or may not have anything watchable.

If the TV has DVB-t tuner, MPEG4 decoder with H.264 and MHEG5, then maybe.

There are a few other bits of Software to do with Service IDs that have to be correctly implemented too.

Please note that no STB's (set top boxes) or iDTV's (Integrated Digital Televisions) have been approved for the Irish market as yet. When approved STB's or iDTV's are available in the Irish market, information will be provided on this website.

http://rtenl.ie/dtt.htm

Detail Specification for Irish DTT (PDF)
Absolute Minimum Specification for Irish DTT (PDF)
The minimum is probably a bad idea.

Personally I regard HDTVs as Monitors and think a dual tuner set-box with HDD PVR makes more sense. VHS and DVD recorders are history.

Under no circumstances should the test transmissions be considered an operational service.

Currently there are no approved STBs or iDTVs available for the Irish market. Approved equipment will be available in advance of the launch of the service.
Please note that the vast majority of UK "Freeview" boxes and iDTVs will not work on the Irish DTT service when it is launched.

Test transmissions will operate for varying durations and are subject to regular variations and prolonged interruptions. The test transmissions will cease in the majority of areas once testing is complete.

zagmund

Thanks for the info. The website and the links off it are an exercise in fluffology - "There is a test, but don't you go relying on it. It will be permanent in the future, but we dont know when. Things are happening but we can't tell you what. You will need new equipment but we're not going to tell you what it is yet."

What about this - "In August 2006, The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources commenced a trial of Digital Terrestrial Television. This trial concluded on 31 July 2008." - from here - http://www.digitaltelevision.ie/DTT+Trial/

z

glineli

zagmund wrote: »

Guys, I'm hoping you can clear something up for me please . . . ever since I realised that a 'HD ready' TV actually meant that it couldn't do 1920*1080 (and so wasn't going to do what most people think is HD) I've never trusted the phrase 'ready' in marketing terms.

Powercity have a Samsung which they say is 'Irish Digital TV ready'. Does this mean what it claims, or is this another marketing speak way to get people to buy something that won't work properly ?

I live right beside RTE in Donnybrook and in clear sight of 3Rock, so I should be able to pick up the trial signals, isn't that right ?

Cherers,

z

Yes this tv will be able to pick up DTT if it ever happens. I bought one myself a few weeks ago in DID and i was able to get the DTT test cards from Maghera until the signal strength dropped recently.

watty

zagmund wrote: »

What about this - "In August 2006, The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources commenced a trial of Digital Terrestrial Television. This trial concluded on 31 July 2008." - from here - http://www.digitaltelevision.ie/DTT+Trial/

z

That was not a test of Technology. It was Political fluff. It was two sites and it is finished a year ago.

zagmund

Well now . . . I bought the TV, plugged it in, plugged in the crappiest pair of rabbits ears available, pushed the plug and play button and it tuned everything in no problemo. There were 9 digital channels (including 4 radio and a test card) and the usual 4 analog. Mind you TV3 is showing a blank screen, but I gather this is to be expected some of the time.

Just like that and I'm in the digital age, bedad.

I now realise from reading more of this forum that the whole Irish DTT scene appears to be a shambles of standard Irish proportions, so I'll just have to see how long my digital world lasts.

z

adamirer77

I had a samsung 530 too. I have a sky dish that's installed but we dont use anymore (NTL) out back. I see the Samsung is idtv but there's nothing in the manual about it. Was it easy to tune in? Currently its neve rhad tv tuned it, merely used in a spare room for PS3!

zagmund

Yep, easy to tune. Just stick an arial on the back (I'm very near Three Rock so I didn't need a big arial) and go into the setup menu. It's the same as tuning a TV in the old days - it just scans through all the digital channels, finds ones it gets a good signal on and assigns a channel number to it.

Very easy to do.

z

adamirer77

well I tried plugging the ariel lead from the sky dish (unused) set up at the house into the samsung, but no luck getting the idtv to find any digital channels in the tunning scans, never mind BBC HD (for the footie!).

pizzahead77

adamirer77 wrote: »

well I tried plugging the ariel lead from the sky dish (unused) set up at the house into the samsung, but no luck getting the idtv to find any digital channels in the tunning scans, never mind BBC HD (for the footie!).

That won't work as the TV doesn't have a Satellite tuner built in. You need to plug in a terrestrial TV aerial and then tune.