Internal TV aerial - no longer an signal

JohnDinton

I've just checked, and ONdigital started 16 years ago, which I guess is quite an age for a television. Even so I did have some boxes which kept going until the move to 64QAM meant the boxes stopped working. What does seem to me unnecessary is the way HD has been implemented. SD Freeview boxes include a decoder for the HD encoding (H.264). In Spain HD channels are just like SD channels but with the H.264 encoding so they can be received on existing set-top boxes or televisions with a built-in decoder. In the UK there is a new standard which packages the HD channels differently so a new set-top box is needed. The new standard is slightly more efficient, but the number of HD channels you can have on Freeview is severely limited anyway, so I don't think it's reasonable to make people incur the extra expense.

[Deleted User]

fatpiggy wrote: »

If you buy a branded TV or other white goods, you are basically paying for the brand (and doing their advertising for them).

If you truly believe that a £2000 TV set contains the "same parts" as a £300 set of the same brand then I think you are sadly deluded. Certainly there are some parts common to all TVs (and the two TVs might both last the same amount of time), but the difference in performance, features and general quality of the dearer set will be marked.

As for the loaves of bread; that's hardly electronic technology!

By the way, why didn't you purchase your "money saving rules" TV from the dealer you know?

fatpiggy

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

If you truly believe that a £2000 TV set contains the "same parts" as a £300 set of the same brand then I think you are sadly deluded. Certainly there are some parts common to all TVs (and the two TVs might both last the same amount of time), but the difference in performance, features and general quality of the dearer set will be marked.

As for the loaves of bread; that's hardly electronic technology!

By the way, why didn't you purchase your "money saving rules" TV from the dealer you know?

If you are happy to spend £2000 on a TV then you are the one who is deluded :rotfl:
I still have my old B&W TV in the garage which I paid £15 for in 1990 when it was already very second hand. Works perfectly and a very good picture. But I have got used to colour now.
My money saving rules for this one were buy via Topcashback, using up my Tesco vouchers while they are on double value so a 22 inch LED set cost me £60. As for my dealer connection, he is a friend of my car mechanic so I would have had to ring him, and set up a chain of contact. A bit long winded for a TV.

I have replaced the faulty set and everything is working fine now - on the internal aerial. Signal strength varies a bit but since I don't spend a whole lot of time watching TV anyway, and certainly not from my bed, it doesn't matter all that much.

almillar

SD Freeview boxes include a decoder for the HD encoding (H.264)

Eh? Let's stick to the UK, because it differs from country to country. Freeview SD was and is MPEG. Freeview HD is H.264. If you're suggesting that a Freeview box from 2003 is capable of decoding H/264, you're wrong. Computers had trouble doing that at the time!
Other countries (Republic of Ireland for example) have launched digital terrestrial later, and have been able to use H.264 for the SD AND HD channels, which probably means cheaper boxes, as well as more bandwidth being available since H.264 is more efficient, but because the UK was so early with Freeview, we're stuck with the old MPEG standard for SD. See also DAB vs DAB+

[Deleted User]

fatpiggy wrote: »

If you are happy to spend £2000 on a TV then you are the one who is deluded :rotfl:

Our debate (such as it was) was about your earlier assertion that the component parts in cheap tellies are the same as in dearer sets. I never once said I had (or was prepared) to spend £2000 on a TV set.

fatpiggy

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Our debate (such as it was) was about your earlier assertion that the component parts in cheap tellies are the same as in dearer sets. I never once said I had (or was prepared) to spend £2000 on a TV set.

I didn't actually come on here for a debate - just for advice and I solved the problem for myself anyway.