Advice & Suggestions B&B TV system

watty

Sully said I could post his PM

Sully wrote:

Hey,
Only getting to reply to this now. Plenty of excellent information there I can work with to get the house ready. Few questions for you, if I may:

1) The government are bringing in DTT (aka freeview in the UK) - digital via aerial. Will the exisiting aerial need replacing, to use this service? No setboxes required - just the aerial fed throughout and digital compatible TVs?

2) The alternative to DTT is FTA or Freesat (which uses FTA). So, it seems that Freesat is a better solution. Offers more channels then DTT and FTA, fancy interface, good reception, offers UK channels, also has more radio channels. Does it also contain the four Irish channels? Does it require a new type of TV?

3) I need one dish which can be modified to feed every setbox, if Freesat. So, I need a setbox for each room in the house, correct?

Thanks again.

watty wrote:

Sully wrote:

Hey watty,
This whole talk about Digital and Analogue has me confused. So I was hoping you could clear up a few things for me, or point me in the direction of a good site that explains things

Actually Boards is a good site!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=55
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=56
Set up by boardsies http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-custom_home.php

The Analogue so called Deflectors were illegal.
The Government illegally legalised them and they were supposed to last only to 2001 when Irish DTT (Digital via aerial) was supposed to start!

Irish DTT real tests for a real service started in 2008. The service is two parts:
1) A PSB Mux. Basically about 8 to 10 free channels which includes the existing four Analogue channels, Oireachtas TV which has existed for years but not connected to anything, A possible RTE 24 New, an Irish Film channel and maybe a 2nd TV3 channel and 3rd RTE channel.
2) A Pay TV operator with 3 Multiplexes.

No Free UK TV .

A DTT MUX (Digital Terrestrial Multiplex) is received via aerial and takes the the same TV space as one Analogue channel. It's just very fast serial data, so the number possible channels depends on quality, MPEG2 or MPEG4 and if Standard or HDTV. The UK DTT is older so uses MPEG2. All newer DTT services (About 20 countries) use MPEG4 as you can have nearly x3 the number of channels per Mux. Ireland uses MPEG4. This means UK digital TVs mostly don't work and no UK DTT (Freeview) setboxes work here for Irish Digital.

In the UK they have had DTT (Digital via aerial direct into TV set or via set box) for over 10 years. So now they are turning off the Analogue. There are about 30 Channels on UK DTT, also called Freeview. When they turn off Analogue they are able to turn up the DTT power, sometimes to x10. This means people that are on border or coast that got poor Analogue direct but DTT was too weak now can get UK DTT. Either direct into a TV with a DTT tuner or via a Set box.

All MPEG4 setboxes/TVs (20 newer countries) of course work with obsolete MPEG2 DTT as used in Netherlands (no analogue some while ago) and Germany. France has a mix. They use MPEG2 for basic TV and PMPEG4 for Terrestrial PayTV & HD (TNT service).

UK digital via Aerial = Freeview, is about 30 channels.
UK Satellite (via dish) FREE Tv (no Sky subscription) is called Freesat. There were Free channels before Freesat launched.

Freesat and Sky and UK FTA (Free to Air) use 6 beams on 4 satellites, 3 at 28.2E and 1 at 28.5E (close enough they all seem in same place). It's all the same signals.
There are nearly 300 or more FTA (free channels) that can be received on a Sky box, generic FTA box or a UK Freesat Box. All of these can be receive pretty much from Gibraltar (one Satellite needs a big dish) to Iceland and from Mayo to Munich, with the dish size about 45cm in London and 65cm in Ireland.
You only need Sky for the 600 approx pay TV Channels
The Freesat box has Sky style complete listings for the week and interactive text etc for the Freesat channels (about 130?), the other free channels have to be added manually.
A Generic FTA satellite box has NO comprehensive UK listing, unless used for Austrian/German TV etc.

Some Newer TVs do DTT (freeview) or Satellite (Freesat).
Set boxes are either for DTT, Satellite or both.
Setboxes can have dual or quad tuners and Hard disks to record.
Only some TVs and some non-Freeview will do Irish DTT (but will do UK also).

An aerial can easily be split to feed any number of Digital TVs or DTT Setboxes.

A dish normally feeds one setbox, or 4 if it has a Quad LNB, or two PVRs (Dual tuner Satellite recorders). But there are ways to feed any number of satellite setboxes from one dish. It's cheap.

The deflector operation in Limerick died years ago. People either have
FTA Satellite (no sub). Manual tuning.
Freesat or Sat4free (same channels) All automatic free UK TV.with Guide
Sky box out of sub (does more UK channels on Guide without a card!)
+ Aerial for the Irish channels are they are not free on satellite and never will be.

Or
sky or UPC pay TV (Irish channels, some free UK and Pay TV).

There has been DTT "test" signals over most of Ireland for 6 months now.
DTT Irish TV is Widescreen.

Advantages of Freeview or Freesat over Deflector
20 to 42 decent TV channels
10 to 20 decent Radio
Perfect quality
Nothing to pay
PVR & full program guide option like Sky+ or SkyHD
Interactive Text
Stereo (few deflectors have Stereo)
More reliable

Advantages of Satellite over Freeview DTT (aerial)
Works all of Ireland, not just coast/boarder
About twice as many good TV channels
Many more good radio channels
Choose ANY BBC or ITV region at anytime
No mast. dish can even be near ground level

watty

Irish TV
Not free on Satellite, only on Sat via Sky Sub.
DTT may not launch till 2010 Q4. A good outdoor aerial shoulf give perfect analogue and work later for Digital.

Most Digital TVs are for UK market and as such don't work with the 15 to 20 newer DTT countries inc Ireland.

You can get TVs with Sat Tuner. Think of TVs as Monitors. You'd only want "all in one" in a portable, thus a large screen is better and more future proof as a Monitor on a PVR set box. Run 2 coax needed for a Satellite PVR.

You --CAN-- get TVs with DTT (Irish Compatible) or Satellite built in. But best to use a setbox for Satellite.

There are some "combo" setboxes that do Irish DTT and Sat.

The Analogue will be working for a good few years yet for Irish TV as the DTT service doesn't even start till next year. Most "DTT"/Digital sets on the Market don't work on the newer Irish system (yet).

So best to use existing TVs. Unless your buying a good HD set, the existing CRTs give better picture and are also less easily damaged than LCD sets.

For more than 8 Satellite Setboxes you use a Quad or Quattro LNB (4 connections instead of 8 on Octo) and feed one or two or more Multiswitches (16 outlets per Multiswitch).