A bit confused

gebbel

My brother is about to move in to his house in the West of Ireland (Roscommon Mayo border). He has a freesat enabled TV, so is putting up a satellite dish to get BBC etc. He wants to know what he needs to do to get RTE etc. via a terrestrial aerial. I have been reading through the threads here but am still a bit confused.
The nearest transmitter to him would be Longford. Can anyone tell me what aerial he requires? Would it have to be mounted externally up high? I have read that some aerials can be put in the attic? Surely that might degrade the signal?
Finally is it DTT he needs to receive?

Many thanks.

coylemj

Cairn Hill would be the better option as it's all UHF today and will stay in the same ball park (Group for DTT so assuming it is the right choice (small possibility Truskmore could be better), tell your brother to put up a Group B UHF aerial. He can experiment with it the attic if he wants to but the best reception will be from the top of the house with no roof tiles/slates blocking the signal.

Give us the exact location and let us know which direction the local aerials are pointing.

gebbel

coylemj wrote: »

Cairn Hill would be the better option as it's all UHF today and will stay in the same ball park (Group for DTT so assuming it is the right choice (small possibility Truskmore could be better), tell your brother to put up a Group B UHF aerial. He can experiment with it the attic if he wants to but the best reception will be from the top of the house with no roof tiles/slates blocking the signal.

Give us the exact location and let us know which direction the local aerials are pointing.

Thanks.

His location is Castlerea in Co. Roscommon. He said the local aerials are pointing East or North East? I'm almost 100% sure they point towards Longford.

coylemj

In that case Cairn Hill is the way to go, tell him to put up a Group B UHF aerial with horizontal polarity pointing at 85 degrees true - East.

His 'Freesat enabled' TV will be able to decode the satellite signal and give him the UK channels. For the Irish channels he will need (today) a UHF tuner to pickup RTE1/RTE2/TV3/TG4 on channels 40/43/46/50 respectively. For digital (DTT) he will need an MPEG4 capable set top box (STB) tuned to pickup the RTE Mux on UHF channel 47 with other services to follow but also capable of being picked up by the same (Group aerial.

gebbel

coylemj wrote: »

In that case Cairn Hill is the way to go, tell him to put up a Group B UHF aerial with horizontal polarity pointing at 85 degrees true - East.

His 'Freesat enabled' TV will be able to decode the satellite signal and give him the UK channels. For the Irish channels he will need (today) a UHF tuner to pickup RTE1/RTE2/TV3/TG4 on channels 40/43/46/50 respectively. For digital (DTT) he will need an MPEG4 capable set top box (STB) tuned to pickup the RTE Mux on UHF channel 47 with other services to follow but also capable of being picked up by the same (Group aerial.

That's fantastic, thanks.

In terms of the MPEG4 STB, where can that be obtained and for how much? I presume his TV doesn't have an integrated MPEG4 tuner...it's a Panasonic TX-L37G10B?

craoltoir

http://www.powercity.ie/?par=10-12-32B450&pages=1&prod=32B450&brands=SAMSUNG

Powercity have a Samsung with MPEG4 tuner for €418.95. See their website. DID have MPEG4 Televisions as well.

John mac

craoltoir wrote: »

http://www.powercity.ie/?par=10-12-32B450&pages=1&prod=32B450&brands=SAMSUNG

Powercity have a Samsung with MPEG4 tuner for €418.95. See their website. DID have MPEG4 Televisions as well.

thats a tv not a stb!



here are some.



be aware that the dtt hasn't gone live officially yet.

coylemj

gebbel wrote: »

That's fantastic, thanks.

In terms of the MPEG4 STB, where can that be obtained and for how much? I presume his TV doesn't have an integrated MPEG4 tuner...it's a Panasonic TX-L37G10B?

It looks like he might be in business but it won't cost him a penny to try it out. The specs. for that model (http://tinyurl.com/ykr5kuh) don't specifically mention MPEG4 but it does say H.264 which I understand is MPEG4, he just needs to attach the aerial and do a scan, tell it you live in France (which is MPEG4) and see if it can find the DTT signal from Cairn Hill.

Worst case scenario is that he will be able to receive the existing analogue channels no problem so day one he will have all the Irish and UK channels.

If the Panasonic can't decode the Irish DTT signal, you can buy an MPEG2/MPEG4 STB in Currys or PC World up North for STG 19.99, see this forum next door and I'd advise you not to spend more than that in case there's a change to the standard used in Ireland when DTT officially goes live cause the UK have just announced plans to go DVB-T2 which can carry HD.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055700768

coylemj

I just checked the manual for that TV, it says 'UK Standard' on the front page and there's no mention of MPEG4 so I wouldn't be too optimistic.

STB

Thats Panasonic's second Freesat/DVB-T Combo range. And its also the one many disgruntled customers in the Republic bang on about as Panasonic took shortcuts with the firmware - specifically not defining ALL of the service types (AGAIN) in the NIT. In other words they didnt follow the DVB standard and still choose to hide behind a UK profile answer. How difficult is it to define 0x16.

The TV can do it but you will have to have scanned the frequencies before RTE made the change in the Service Type broadcast. Maxg had a solution in another thread I think.

In short, the TV can do it. Panasonic dont want it to though.

STB

See this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055673638

Ignore any reference to DVB-T2 in this thread as it is not relevant to the thread anway. The SD card flash might enable the DVB-T tuner for H264 transmissions.

gebbel

coylemj wrote: »

he just needs to attach the aerial and do a scan, tell it you live in France (which is MPEG4) and see if it can find the DTT signal from Cairn Hill.

Worst case scenario is that he will be able to receive the existing analogue channels no problem so day one he will have all the Irish and UK channels.

Just thinking about this...in terms of setting up the freesat part, the TV asks you where you are. I was told to input a Belfast postcode to get NI specific BBC channels. How can I then tell the TV I'm in France to sort the terrestrial bit!?
Cheers again.

maxg

You cannot choose a country. The B series for UK are fixed to the UK.
Only Panasonic UK could solve the problem with irish DTT.

cillo2000

I've just hooked up our UK bought panasonic TX-L37G10B to RTE's DTT after looking at this thread I tried it when we got the TV a month ago with no luck, I guess they were testing or doing maintenance on the local mast at the time!?!

The picture quality looks to be better than chorus which is now going to get the boot. Freesat+DTT = no chorus = 35 extra quid in my pocket.

The only problem is the TV won't allow for all the channels (freesat+DTT) to be combined into one channel list. I have to switch between DTT and Freesat depending on what channel I want (small price to pay I guess).

STB

cillo2000 wrote: »

I've just hooked up our UK bought panasonic TX-L37G10B to RTE's DTT after looking at this thread I tried it when we got the TV a month ago with no luck, I guess they were testing or doing maintenance on the local mast at the time!?!

The picture quality looks to be better than chorus which is now going to get the boot. Freesat+DTT = no chorus = 35 extra quid in my pocket.

The only problem is the TV won't allow for all the channels (freesat+DTT) to be combined into one channel list. I have to switch between DTT and Freesat depending on what channel I want (small price to pay I guess).

Yes it is a small price to pay - I have seen peoples reaction - especially when it is compared to NTL - and again when they are told which one is the free option. Once you have those DTT channels tuned in, add them to your favourites - so they wont be lost again on a rescan. Think you can turn off the network messages to rescan.

Gebbel - if your brother does the same the DTT tuner will work now.

gebbel

STB wrote: »

Yes it is a small price to pay - I have seen peoples reaction - especially when it is compared to NTL - and again when they are told which one is the free option. Once you have those DTT channels tuned in, add them to your favourites - so they wont be lost again on a rescan. Think you can turn off the network messages to rescan.

Gebbel - if your brother does the same the DTT tuner will work now.

That's great. He is moving in soon so I will report back.