Advice please for Satellite reception on Sony Bravia TV

vidapura

Hi,

Before I start I better say I'm not very well up on Satellite TV really. So if people could explain a few basics I'd appreciate it.

We inherited an existing, rusty but functional, satellite dish install on the wall of the house when we bought it a coupla years ago.

I've no idea what satellite it is pointing at, could be Astra I dunno.. Maybe someone could tell me how to find out..

There's a saorview aerial too. Also working.

i bought a Sony Bravia tv with built in tuners for saorview and satellite. I managed to get the TV tuned for Saorview (digital), Freesat (Freeview UK), and general Satellite.. (it breaks em up into different categories)

And its been working for a coupla years.. but not exactly perfectly...

The EPG works grand for the Saorview, I can set up recordings for a few days in advance. With Freesat or Satellite I have very patchy EPG .. sometimes it works other times its blank.. and I can't schedule recordings.. only record what we are watching... And sometimes channels seem to just disappear...

In the last couple of days all the kids channels on satellite have stopped working... CBBC, POP, Tiny Pop etc.. and thats causing consternation among the kids... which means hassle for Me.😣

The TV also sports a wifi connection.. but seems to lose it regularly.. so again, kids going mad.. cos YouTube kids stops working...

I'm wondering if there is an issue with this TV, with the Dish .. or what..

Do I need to go get a dedicated satellite box? Are the tuners in the Sony just rubbish ?

The picture on the bravia is brilliant tho.. I will say that...

The Cush

What's the model no.?

Is it setup as Freesat or FTA satellite?

vidapura

sony kd-55xh9005Bu

Its setup as both.

vidapura

Ahh haa... the Pop channels etc have actually been pulled from satellite... ferdeluvva...

https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/surprise-removal-of-nine-freesat-channels/

https://www.gbnews.com/tech/freesat-tv-satellite-9-channels

So, there's only the EPG problem with satellite so...

I think Satellite is going into decline.. I hear Sky is even moving away from it...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/sky-cut-1000-jobs-customers-32007886

Jeez, time is moving on and technology changing...

deezell

The well known Sony Bravia Freesat EPG problem has resolved itself it seems. The 7 day EPG, which at best would load once after a retune and expire in 7 days, is now updating daily. This may be due to a firmware update recently, August 2024, or it may be a change in the EPG provision on the EBU standardised satellite transponder, which was controlled and encrypted by Sky. A sign of Sky leaving Satellite perhaps. The 7 day EPG to free to Air sets and receivers required the off standard Freesat tuning option, which many manufacturers, Sony included, struggled to implement reliably, what with Freesat licensing and regional restriction. Freesat tuning was often not available if you configured your TV to location 'Ireland', only being available if you selected UK with a random UK postcode. This would then make Saorview tuning a mess, as the set attempted to impose Freeview EPG on Irish channels. I've been chasing this issue for years on Sony Community, AV forums and others. I had to cold start my set after a power failure recently to establish lost WiFi, and the EPG slowly began populate and stay populated for the first time ever.

steinbock123

Deezell - not having a pop, but I’m like the OP, I’m not well up on satellite dishes/tv/tuning etc. , and your reply, although no doubt correct and comprehensive, is just gobbledegook to the likes of me.
I have a similar set up to the OP.
My ITV just disappeared recently, gone from button 3 on the remote, but now I see it’s on button 150.
Also my ability to record in advance seems to have gone, I can only record what’s actually on
now, if I set the timer in advance, it seems to set as before, but when the time comes to record , it just un-sets itself and you have to record it manually.
Can anyone explain (in simple terms) how I can fix this, (particularly the recording problem).??

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716781#Comment_122716781

So the Freesat EPG is populating correctly.

Not clear from your post does Freesat work with the TV location set to Ireland (with Saorview) or is it still FTA?

vidapura

Ahh Brilliant!

Big thanks @deezell !! You inspired me to have a look at the settings and realise that the auto-update was turned off…

I had only 'now and next' on the EPG for freesat.. pain in the butt.. but now that I've done that update I seem to be getting all day at least.. I'll check again later to see can I plan a recording a coupla days in advance.

Funny enough tho.. on my Bravia I can set two locations… I've always had the 'digital' channels (ie: saorview) set to Irish.. and the freesat separately set to a uk postcode… So I always got grand EPG for irish stuff.. just crappy enough EPG for uk stuff…

Anyway, now I have the best of both worlds.. great stuff, thanks again.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716947#Comment_122716947

In general, Freesat tuning would only appear as a choice on a TV when it's region was set to UK, otherwise you can only scan the satellite for all channels in an unordered list and with only now/next EPG. There are some set top tuners which can provide ordered EPG using online lists.

I've two TVs with built in satellite tuners. The first I owned is a 2017 Samsung Qled, set originally to UK region to provide Freesat sorted tuning with 7 day epg. It worked perfectly. However, tuning Saorview was a nightmare as the TV treated it as UK Freeview, totally messed up EPG. After some harsh words from SWMBO, I reset region to Ireland, perfect Saorview and an unsorted satellite tune with now next. Then a strange think happened, following a Samsung software update, the Freesat Tuner choice reappeared, and I've both since then. The downside with that set is the tuners live in alternate universes. It takes eleven button presses to go from RTE1 to BBC1. there's no joint favourites. Since 2017, Samsung broke the web browser, to block the video in websites with streaming such as webcams, and web versions of say VM player. The set had RTE player as an App, but RTE broke that with an upgrade and claimed it's Samsung's fault for not revising their player software.

My Sony Android set, Dec. 2020, should have been perfect, but the Freesat Tuner simply wouldn't update the EPG. This set needed to be in UK the get the Freesat Tuner to show, but there was a trick posted (on boards) that allowed the Ireland region tuning steps to be backtracked after tuning Saorview, to the region setting itself, change to UK and then skip terrestrial tuning and go to Freesat. This way the set retained its Saorview settings while Freesat now displayed as a choice.

The flawed Freesat EPG was the biggest problem with these Sonys, they only got the Freesat in 2021 models, then a software update loaded it onto 2020 and 2019 models. It has updated improperly on random sets, here and in the UK, with no solution from Sony. It seems to be working now. Hope some of this info helps. There was another active TV thread which I used to post to, I can't quite remember which one, but it was concerned with Sony EPG issues. Maybe the Astra satellite will vanish in the future, maybe it will survive without SKY. Technology ploughs its own furrow, time has taught me that since the Valve radio days of my childhood.

c2r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122718291#Comment_122718291

I've just had a random sony update for the first time in a few years which seems to include some fundamental changes to the home screen and UI.

I've currently got it set to Ireland region with Saorview channels and general satellite manually tuned. What's the trick to making it have Freesat as a choice for satellite with Saorview on the DTT - as obviously this would be living the dream as it would mean an end to needing to manually scan for channels on satellite…

vidapura

Well, dunno what Bravia you have.. but on mine you go to Setup .. then Channels & Inputs. Then Auto Tune.. it shows me three options then.. digital, freesat, satellite….

I pick freesat and give it the postcode (random london address) and away it goes.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122731928#Comment_122731928

I assume you have an XH series set, which got the Freesat Upgrade around mid 2020. In order to change the set country you have to reset it, which is a pain what with password for WiFi, Apps etc. The bodge was first posted here;

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117061611#Comment_117061611

by @byte , and the trick is, when doing the set's first ever tune, your'e asked for the country. Select Ireland, the select the Digital (terrestrial) Tuner to scan. When its done, don't move to the satellite tuner, but hit the back button on the remote, (or on the screen? can't remember), until you are back to country selection. Change that to UK, and proceed forward. Now you should have the Freesat tuner as well as the Digital, Cable and Satellite. Skip to the freesat and tune it, its very fast as it doesn't blind scan, but draws down a tuning list from the Astra Freesat transponder channel. You can move forward at this stage, or do the long slow blind scan on the Satellite tuner, this stays as a seperate choice on the EPG. When you finish, your Digital EPG should be Saorview sorted, Your Freeview will be UK sorted, and Satellite may be an unsorted mess, but once in the last three years when the Freesat EPG was populating, albeit for only a week, the Satellite group also sorted, just like Freesat but with all the extra non Freesat channels. Give that a try. Be patient about the 7 Day EPG. I was hesitant to do anything to lose it, Just today I done a Teeny automatic rescan of just the Freesat 'tuner', in order to change postcode to Northern Ireland, as Mmy BBC1 was 'BBC One C LN' or something, and was the only channel witout 7 day EPG. Im waiting now for it to populate as 7 day, not now/next. A weird side effect that occured befor has happend again, whereby the unsorted Satellite tunin liste appears to be getting the 7 day list. That would be just my luck, to break it again after waiting 3 years for proper Freesat EPG.

c2r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122733900#Comment_122733900

Cheers, I'll take a look - I'm not quite sure on the model number, but will investigate further.

Grey123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716781#Comment_122716781

No such luck for me and I have had the same problem. I got eirTV and largely forgot about the issue. I didn't do a TV reset just a retune of Freesat.

It used load for me at times and just not update and at other times not loads at all. I think I did get it to load new days a few times but never lasted a week.

Yours still working?

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122747335#Comment_122747335

Yes, though I messed it up a bit when I done a retune in order to select a different region for Freesat. After the tune, Freesat was a hodge podge of now/next, but general satellite was now receiving epg data for a full day to several days and beyond, an effect that had occurred some years before, when 7 day epg transferred to general sat, lasting for the usual week. I realised how little I'd ever used the general sat tuning, populated as it is with obscure religious and shopping channels, so I decided to disable it.

In order to try and mimic the circumstances when my Freesat first worked properly, with the egg not just populating once for 7 days, but updating daily to seven days, I done the following.

I disabled both satellite tuners, leaving only Digital, with RTE etc.

I turned off wifi.

I cold started the TV by power removal, initiating a full Android reboot.

I repeated this using a long press of the remote Power button, which offers a hot restart option.

I let the set run for a time, then turned on wifi

I went to chanels/auto tuning, enabled the Freesat Tuner, configured to my satellite setup, a single cable to the primary tuner input (the Sony KD-XH9005 has two sat tuner inputs). I entered a random Northern Ireland partial postcode (BT36), and scanned.

When the scan completed, in under a minute, I hit next, then exited back to TV.

I checked the freesat EPG, selecting the Freesat Info channel 999 briefly, and moving up and down the list. After a short time channels began to populate their EPG beyond now/next and a single day.

I use the HD genre list, which heads up with RTE1 and 2, followed by the UK HD channels. It populates to the 7 days. I turned it on just there now, it was populated to late Monday the 28th, which was the 7th day from when I last powered off. After a few channel changes and pressing of the the Blue button, (+ 1 day), the EPG went to Tuesday 29th 12.00 pm, a full 7 days plus from now. That'll do nicely for me.

What model code is your TV. In channel settings there are toggles for update of the channels, one for digital and one for satellite, and another toggle for standby/ network update. I'm never sure if this is related to tuningl information only or also program information.

Midnight next Tueday 29th.

Grey123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122747546#Comment_122747546

Tried that without the Wi-Fi bit and didn’t even get now / next.

Staplor

I think I got a notification a while back to say they were stopping the EPG. My TV is about 12 years old though.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122749374#Comment_122749374

Is your TV showing a Freesat Tuner? Have you a lot of Apps loaded? I suspected that my TV struggled with memory due to too many Apps, games for the grandkids. It had no space for extra games, I figured it might struggle to load and save the EPG info, fairly big files. It might also help to have a hard disk/ USB stick plugged in, I think it can lever this for memory, but there's no real information on this.

Perhaps the firmware update was very set specific. There's quite a difference in the XH8196 and the XH9005, so if your set is not a 9005, the update might me just on a narrow range of sets. Who knows, they never engaged in the multiple posts I made to their support and forums. One user on the UK AV forums actually had a set replaced twice, and still he had the problem, others didn't, so it must have been a quirk in Freesat, something local in the TV, some app. Many blamed the Youview app, which could have been true. All I know is that I'm posting about this since the set received its Freesat software update in 2021, as Sony retrofit rolled out Freesat, back to 2018 sets I think. It was bound to have issues. The sat setup requires you to know if you've only one or two sat feeds, if you're using any kind of distribution system, Diseqc switching or different satellites with motorised movement. Plenty of scope for problems. The default of one feed, No to everything else was the safest bet. I'll see what firmware is on my set and post.

Grey123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122749720#Comment_122749720

I have a KD 55X81J. Bought in 2021 with Freesat. Built in freesat was definitely a selling point. There’s a good few apps on there tbf.

At the end of the day being in Ireland we are trying to do something that it wasn’t designed for.

I got a manhattan box and just used that before getting another Apple box with eir as I was using that in the other room.