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Sunray10
Regular Member


557 Posts
Posted -  02/01/2011  :  14:07
 Has anyone got digital television problems in the OGFB area. By problems I mean with the picture suddenly freezing for a few seconds, or even longer, then going back to normal but having moved on slightly. Also little blocks appearing in lines across the screen, or even one little block on its own. And not being able to receive certain channels in your area, whereas a few miles away that same channel can be received without any problem. By the way I have Freeview, but is the same thing happening on Sky and Virgin etc. I am told that signal strength is the main culprit. For instance in Whalley, I am told it is difficult to receive even some of the better known channels. Can anyone out there help with these tv problems, or do you suffer with the same problem ?


R.Spencer.
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Big Kev
Big


2650 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 14:45
I didn't think we had a (freeview) digital signal in Barlick yet. I've got Freesat and haven't noticed anything...

Edited by - Big Kev on 02/01/2011 14:46:26


Big Kev

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Gloria
Senior Member


3581 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 15:43
We used to have the same problem and we live near Chorley. Our screen used to freeze on a regular basis and pixilate (think that's the term---where it breaks up in little blocks). We got a new freeview + box which seemed to solve it for a while, then it started again. We have now got a new tv, and fingers crossed it hardly ever happens, maybe once every blue moon.
It got so as you couldn't watch a program fully, and was really frustrating. We got told all sorts of reasons--from --something blocking the signal path----we can see the Rivington mast,----to---our old aerial--we got new one, ---to----your aerial needs to be outside-----that made not a jot of difference. The age of our freeview box was given as one problem, even though it was only a couple of years old.
Nearly everyone I speak to seems to have a problem with it one way or another-----put it down to modern technology.


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Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob


3044 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 16:36
Kev's right.

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Sunray10
Regular Member


557 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 16:58
Thanks to each and all for those interesting comments. I didn't realise that Barlick hadn't yet gone digital. Could be something to do with coming under a Yorkshire transmitter perhaps ?


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wendyf
Senior Member


1439 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 17:04
We get a freeview signal from Pendle Forest with no problems, but we do have a fancy aerial.


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Sunray10
Regular Member


557 Posts
Posted - 02/01/2011 : 17:20
I understand that people living in Fence, Wheatley Lane and Sabden get a good digital picture from the Pendle Forest transmitter. Maybe we should all move there!


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 08:05
Only certain method in Barlick is to put up a dish and go to Freesat (Or some other provider of course if you want to pay per month)


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 09:33
We live on the flight path to the Airport, and I know when a plane is coming into land a good minute or so before it comes in to sight.
Because the TV picture breaks up for a few seconds !!!!



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Sunray10
Regular Member


557 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 11:15
I am reliably informed that trees and building can affect the signal on a digital television. Where I live we have a mill with mobile phone masts on the roof at either end. This could be the problem. Also, I noticed that during that recent icy spell of weather the freezing picture on the tele was much worse. All these things to be taken in to account.


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 11:28
Down here in the South-West we went digital early in 2010 and we bought an LG `HD-ready' 1080p digital TV in readiness. As the country goes digital I think there will be a lot of disappointed people because they've been led up the garden path by all the promotion hype. Most of them will be thinking that if they bought an HD ready TV they will be able to get High Definition TV channels but they might be surprised to learn that they have to pay extra for the access.

As for the picture freezing for a moment, I guess that is to do with the resolution or `refresh rate' (I'm no expert) of the TV set. Ours does it often although it is supposed to be a good quality TV. I suspect that the TV business world is making programmes in such a way now that we will all be fed up with this freezing and in desparation will pay for HD channels.

Digital TVs, like digital radios, are also slowwww to respond when you e.g. change channel. I get the impression too that digital TV and radio have more variation in sound level than their analog analogues. We have about 5 FM radios around the house and 1 digital radio and we know which we prefer!


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panbiker
Senior Member


2301 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 11:43
Digital dropout, which leads to the symptoms you are describing above can be caused by numerous problems.

It can just be a fault or blip in the transmission from the studio or a transient problem at the transmitter.In fact anything that could potentialy interrupt the data stream could cause the problem. Dodgy connection at the antenna if you use a terrestrial service or at the LNB (which is the business end) of a satellite dish). The signal processing or memory stages in the digital set top box could also be at fault. Most common causes are antenna / dish / signal problems.

Delivering a digital signal is actually more technically demanding than the previous analogue system. The advancement of processing circuitry in the main does make it look like a better service but it is still a line of sight system unless you are on a cable connection hence variations with the weather, trees and in some cases overflying aircraft. Most digital systems will show these symptoms to some degree from time to time, it is part and parcel of the mass produced equipment in use and does not nescesarily indicate a fault. If it is happening all the time you will need to get you equipment checked out by a competent engineer with the right test gear.

Edited by - panbiker on 03/01/2011 11:44:04


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 11:49
The aerial is everything on terrestial digital television, it ideally needs a better signal than an old analogue set.  The dropouts and pixellating are due to lack of digital bandwidth and digital bandwidth is largely a function of signal quality.  To make things worse, when some area's turned on their freeview signal it moved the band so an existing aeriel that gave a pristine analogue signal gave a borderline digital signal with the associated problems.  The best people to talk to are your local TV shop, theyl'll know the quirks of the particular area and be able to advise what you need. Different TV area's went/are going digital at different times, Yorkshire is one of the last to change over, Granada land just down the road was done last year.

Due to the channel overlap area's and the low status of the East Marton transmitter, we won't get the full complement of Freeview channels when it does arrive here.  Welcome to the sticks......... 


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 12:10
I should have mentioned that when we got our digital TV we also got a much better quality aerial.

I've said on OG elsewhere that my father (in this same village) had problems with his digital Freeview TV. On analogue he used to get BBC West from the Mendip transmitter as we do but since going digital he gets BBC South-West from the Exeter transmitter, even though the aerial is in the same place and pointing in the same direction. We found that BBC West is still available on his TV but it was on something like Channel number 807. He can access it by putting that number in with his remote. With the analogue TVs you used to be able to move the services around to whatever channel number you wanted. E.g. if the TV's automatic tuning set BBC1 on channel number 807 you could go into Setup and move it to channel number 1. The digital Freeview TVs (at least the ones we have seen) don't offer this facility which seems retrogade. Instead the nearest you can get is by using the `Favourites' function rather than channel numbers. Unfortunately, using Favourites is slow and the old way was much better.

Another problem we have found with Freeview TVs now (and also with PVRs and hard disk recorders) is that some of them (perhaps most of them) need to be kept on standby (and therefore using electricity) all the time otherwise they lose settings and don't get the EPG programme updates. We've always tried to avoid leaving such things on standby but it's getting to be impossible.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 03/01/2011 : 12:27
In an ideal world digital should be able to give a stable perfect picture with a less than perfect signal due to the inherant stability of digital systems, but (and its a BIG but) when they are doing their utmost to cram more channels into less bandwidth (and they are) the stabilty goes out of the window.  If they stuck with 5 channels with the same bandwidth  you'd be able to get a perfect stable picture in a weak signal area with a piece of damp string. But because you demand lots of channels (what they try to tell us anyway) full of utter tosh, its as it is.

 Not to mention the big rake in of cash when they flog off to the highest bidder the surplus bandwidth in the highly desirable UHF band......


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 04/01/2011 : 06:12
I'm no expert on TV reception. All I can say with certainty is that ditching terrestrial and going to a dish and full satellite reception cured all my problems in Barlick. When I first got it the only 'free' box (once you'd payed for it) was Skyview, as soon as Freesat came out I ditched that and went to Freesat HD. Never regretted it. Mind you, even full satellite digi has flaws. I notice many a time that a channel will lose lip synch and you have to change channels and then go back to regain joined up speaking and picture. Another occasional problem is that the sound drops out completely, solution is to physically pull the power plug out of the Freesat box, wait a few seconds and then shove it in again. That cures it, probably because it has to re-boot the connection I suppose. Whatever, it works.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
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