telly in France, is it all digital?

bigblackdog

hi , since moving here i have been using my samsung tv , 15" , finally unpacked the 32" sony , and fitted it to the wall , but scanned for channels and cant pick nothing up , is it something to do with it not being compatable? i know when watching the samsung one of the channels is scrambled which makes me think it must be digital , the sony is about 5 years old i guess but still a flat screen ,so not ancient , would have thought it would be fine anyone know? thanks

Hammyman

You won't pick up French analogue channels on a British TV simply because in France they use SECAM whereas we use PAL. Also, they still use a lot of VHF if I remember. You'd be best buying a set top box.

bigblackdog

they have to be awkward dont they ............

ok so if i was to buy a set top box then plug in the arial and the tv , would it then work? do you think , thanks
also i notice there are tw0 aerial points where the tv goes in the lounge and two aerials up on the chimney stack , the aerials look almost new still shiny , whats the reasoning there do you think ? only one aerial socket gave me pics on my samsung and neither on my sony

Hammyman

Hmmm......
TBH, the answer in regards to the STB is that I don't know. It "should" work connected via HDMI etc but I'd ask a retailer or any fellow ex-pats in the area.

Inactive

Your best bet would be to get a second hand Sky Receiver and install a suitable sized dish.


You will get quite a few non scrambled UK channels.


You will only ever get French channels via a TV Aerial.

Pokerlad

Hammyman wrote: »

You won't pick up French analogue channels on a British TV simply because in France they use SECAM whereas we use PAL. Also, they still use a lot of VHF if I remember. You'd be best buying a set top box.

Im afraid its nothing to do with the secam standards as opposed to our pal. All that relates to is how the picture is displayed on the screen and most tv's built in the last 10 years can display pal, ntsc and secam.

The problem lies in the digital terestrial standards and that we use a different standard to a lot of europe. As the tv was for the uk market it will be built to uk standards. Therefore a set top box should solve this problem.

rapido

. .

kentgirlinfrance

Hi Bigblackdog
Not being the technical one in the family this may or may not make sense, but I know that when we moved here we had a HUGE aerial on one of the chimneys (cos we live in a river valley) with a signal booster and we still got a really poor and erratic signal. I know that you can find out where your nearest TV transmitter is located (if you are interested I'll get the OH to give me the details) - we did this and realigned the aerial. This gave a better reception but it was still not good enough to watch comfortably with the exception of TF2. We have now got two dishes and two digiboxes - an aftermarket UK setup for free to air UK TV and a French box as part of our phone/internet/tv package. Our area is not yet totally digital but the easy option does seem to be to get set top box.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

The French digital system, TNT, is broadly compatible with Freeview systems in the UK. Doing a service scan on a Freeview receiver should bring up channels if you have a signal.

Whilst digital signals are generally more robust and can cope with problems better than analogue, a receiver still needs an adequate signal to build up a picture out of the signal. From what you have said about the huge aerial and booster, it sounds that the problem is too little signal is reaching the TV.

Loads of shops sell satellite services for French TV which comes with a viewing card that gets free-to-view channels for two years at a time (similar to the Sky free-to-view card here). That is another option, satellite is generally the way to go in rural France where terrestrial coverage is patchy.

bigblackdog

after 3 months an ex pat i spoke to suggested i go to the menu and select France as the country rather than u.k
telly works fine now ....doh