Kitz Forum
Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: tickmike on March 08, 2008, 12:50:37 AM
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Do you use a 'Digital TV Set Top Box.' If so have you noticed missing words at the start of say the news ?.
Eg1. This is ... six o clock news ("the" is missing).
Eg2. Good evening this is .... midlands today ("east" missing).
I have noticed it it the first few seconds of the programs.
Is it our sets or has anyone else noticed it.? :'(
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If it's anything like Virgin Media digi box's, it happens all the time, sometimes for up-to 30 seconds at a time.
It also happened on one account for the last 2 minutes of a film, (film just froze, again).
No apology's, no nothing.
Maybe for such a small amount of time you do not notice it freezing.
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I forgot to say the picture is ok, I have not seen it freeze.
Just the missing odd words.
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It's not uncommon for that to happen with digital TV, although I would normally expect the video to stutter as well. It happens on my media centre PC when live viewing, but it doesn't happen with recordings. I've tended to assume that it's something to do with initial buffering.
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We have a freeview box(goodmans) and yesterday the picture on certain channels went from widescreen to 4:3 format.I find the whole thing very tempremental.
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I had a Panasonic set top box and had no great problems with it (though it did occasiobnally take it into it's head to reboot and start channel searching at unexpected moments just after you had switched on). I've just bought and installed a Humax 9200TB PVR (http://www.martindawes.net/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=PVR9200B&cid=digital_set_top_boxes&pcidl=&language=en-GB) which is a set top box with twin tuners and all the record, pause live tv, etc facilities that the Skybox has (without the need for big monthly subscriptions!). I'm amazed by what it will do and how well it works.
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Has anyone got or used one of those digi boxes with the card slot for satanta sports/topup tv.Just wondered if there any good.
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Can anyone particularly recommend a decent freeview box?... I'm going to have to get one... as soon as our 30 year old communal aerial system is upgraded. I have no access to cable here, and I'm darned if I'm going to pay the council £135 for planning permission to erect a Sky dish.
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I have read many good reports above the Humax ones(see Jazz,s link above).They are quite expensive though.Have a search on
www.pricerunner.com.
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http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=221276&doy=8m3
Put your own hard drive in and its a recorder - simple enough to do although you don't have to. We've got a pretty dodgy signal - especially on the ITV multiplexes - but this seems to cope much better than other boxes we've tried. Dual tuner so you can watch one channel and record another.
I got one of these last year and it just works, which surprised me enormously as I think I got it in a sale and paid £40 for it. It doesn't have the greatest menuing system (especially on record/playback side of things) but I haven't discovered any major "gotchas". If you have any old IDE hard drives lying about then its a very cheap way of buying a DVR.
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Tickmike
I think your missing sound points to a marginal signal from your aerial although it is strange that it is not accompanied by picture breakup or freezing. Because of the way that digital TV is decoded in your STB and the various forms of error correction employed, if the signal drops for any reason to a value near the threshold for your particular STB/chipset, the error correction can't cope and we get sound breakup/losses and/or picture funnies. One of the blessings of the digital era! I speak as an (very) old analogue TV transmitter man.
Tony
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Can anyone particularly recommend a decent freeview box?... I'm going to have to get one...
Floydy,
Only the best at Garstang Towers.
We have one from Asda for the manager's living room tv and a top of the range Aldi one for her bedroom tv.
Nothing wrong with either of them and both under twenty quid each.
dave
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I bought one of the under £20 ones from Asda for my bedroom... works fine.
I quite like how it has another stand so you put it on its side... which is a good space saver.
Its actually smaller than my router.
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Hmmm, I'm not really near to Asda... but I gather that boxes around the £20-30 mark should be just fine?
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Would think so.
There's so many cheap boxes that work very well nowadays, I wouldn't expect to pay more than £20-25 tops for one.
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I'll bear that in mind for when the aerial system gets updated. :)
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With regards to the Goodman's/Bush I brought last week for £35, the only thing I can think of that hiked up the price was the fact that it also had,
1 off Scart lead
2 off Scart sockets
1 off HDMI socket (no cable)
The 2 Scart sockets are almost a necessity if you want to record to a VCR or watch direct from the digi box.
HDMI if you have a HDMI connection on your TV (similar to what a scart connection does only better, for better quality pictures).
I think one of the most important things to look out for and that is that it is a "Dual Tuner"
so that you can record one digital program whilst viewing another.
With a single tuner, you can only record what you are watching,
or record from the digi box and then watch an "Terrestrial" analogue picture at the same time.
A dual tuner box is really going to be a must in the future when analogue is not around.
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Tickmike
I think your missing sound points to a marginal signal from your aerial although it is strange that it is not accompanied by picture breakup or freezing. Because of the way that digital TV is decoded in your STB and the various forms of error correction employed, if the signal drops for any reason to a value near the threshold for your particular STB/chipset, the error correction can't cope and we get sound breakup/losses and/or picture funnies. One of the blessings of the digital era! I speak as an (very) old analogue TV transmitter man.
Tony
Hi Tony,
My theory is it's not the box or the aerial at all, My theory is it's something to due with the switching over from one region to another .
We mainly notice it as I said when the BBC six o clock news is on, then they switch over to east midlands today at 6.30 pm. ( It does happen at other times).
It does not happen in the program, it's just at the start of some live programs. odd !.
If you have two sets , one running analogue and the other digital on the same program you will have a 10 sec delay on the digital one.
Our first box cost £100, our second cost £20 and I have seen some at £11 :'(
re,"I speak as an (very) old analogue TV transmitter man." What 405 lines - 'H' aerials era ;).
When I was very young, I remember my father building 405 line TV's with only BBC on them, Then he made an extra part for one of them, it was a tuner so he could tune into the New ATV TV programs.
I remember seeing the 'Test' transmissions for the new station with all the innards of the TV spread across the dinning table.
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Michael
I am as old as that! I too built a convertor for the new ITV when it opened in London in September 1955. Guess how old that makes me feel? And I had already spent 3 years in the RAF. Never mind, computers will keep me young.
Your explanation of your sound only being clipped at the start of a programme form a new source could certainly point to a late switch. It's probably all done remotely by signals in the interframe period and the digital processing delay could still be involved. But it could also just be finger trouble. There's a lot more of that in TV production than there was in my day. Harumph and pshaw and similar dated exclamations of disbelief.
Tony