Is my Australian TV compatible with Saorview?

mac_daddy

Hi all

Can someone clarify if my Australian Samsung TV is compatible with the Saorview requirements.

The TV model is "Series 8 40inch (LA40M81BDX)".

The colour system is PAL B/G, DVB-T.

Many thanks

lawhec

Looking at Samsung's Australian site didn't give too many clues, but some searches indicate that the DVB-T tuner can do MPEG4-AVC with one such model being sold on TradeMe so if it's being used in New Zealand without too many problems then it should at least be OK for watching TV programmes on Saorview. Not sure if it includes MHEG. One thing to remember if automatically tuning is to set the country to Ireland or some European country but not Australia - the reason for this is that DVB-T broadcasts in Australia use a 7MHz wide channel on UHF whereas in Ireland and the rest of Europe it's 8MHz - 7MHz or 8 MHz can be selected on a manual tune according to it's manual.

No idea if it'll work with full compatibility for Saorview (unlikely given the model in question is aimed at the Asia-Pacific market) but if nothing shows up on tuning the TV in or something you regard as essential is not there, the worst that may need to be done will be to buy a Saorview set-top box and connect it to a HDMI socket.

mac_daddy

Many thanks for the prompt reply lawhec. My current residence does not have a terrestrial aerial connection for me to test this out as my apartment block is locked down with UPC. However I am moving in the next few weeks, hence the reason for the query coming about. I will take your advice onboard and hopefully things work.

I don't suppose you would know more on how to change the country before performing an automatic install? I managed to find a timezone menu option in the TV but this was only limited to the Australian states.

watty

Should be no sound on Analogue if they really mean B/G.

Austrialia and NZ do use MHEG5

MHEG5 is a mandatory part of the minimum Specification for Saorview, the Irish DTT system.

Who else uses MHEG-5?

UK Freeview and Freesat, TVB Hong Kong, Australia, Germany (TechniSat), India – Digicable (cable pay-TV operator), New Zealand (Program Guide/EPG instead of DVB), and South Africa. Possible deployment in Turkey and Malaysia.
via http://www.impala.org/deployments

http://www.saortv.info/about/mheg5/

If the TV is "officially" Australia compatible it should mostly work for Saorview (including HD) and Freeview (no Freeview HD at all), possibly including Interactive.

It's possible it doesn't have a country option. However it may work with manually entered frequency even it fails on scan due to 7MHz channel hopping rather than 8MHz.

winston_1

It is extremely unlikely your Australian TV will work without a Saorview box. Australia uses DVB-T MPEG 2 with 7MHz bandwidth for SD and HD. Most likely you can't change the bandwidth so it will scan and find nothing. Even if you could change the bandwidth MPEG 2 would mean sound but no pictures.

On analogue Australia used B/G so you will get pictures and no sound.

Don't forget to change the mains plug. Don't use an adapter.