Setting up a new TV

[paulm]

Have had a frustrating evening tonight trying to set up our nice new Samsung lcd telly in the kitchen/dining room.

The old telly has been relegated to one of the girl's bedrooms to replace theirs which blew up unfortunately :roll: so gave a good excuse to get a nice new one to watch while making dinner or whatever !

The old one was connected to the sky dish via a freesat (not freeview) box and worked fine. The terrestial arial signal is poor hence I tried the freesat route and was quite happy with it.

So I just plugged the scart cable from the freesat box into the back of the new telly and switched on, but the auto plug and play routines don't seem to find any channels when going through the auto search/setup routines.

I've rerun these routines several times selecting different combo's of options eg air or cable, terrestial or digital channels etc but nothing seems to make a difference.

Have given up for the evening and taking solace in a large glass of malt for my efforts :wink: and will try again tomorrow, but any help or suggestions greatly appreciated !

Cheers, Paul

 

[wizer]

I take it you double checked the cabling and that the box was properly powered on? Can you plug a dvd player in to see if it will pick that up?

 

[LeeElms]

Given your signal source is the Freesat box, the TV doesn't need to tune any channels; you just need it to be taking it's input from the SCART connection that connects to the Freesat box.

 

[wizer]

Given your signal source is the Freesat box, the TV doesn't need to tune any channels; you just need it to be taking it's input from the SCART connection that connects to the Freesat box.

Indeed it'll be either AV1 or Ext1 or something like that.

 

[paulm]

Cabling and box seem fine, perhaps you're right and I need to look for a different signal source option :-k

Will give it a go again tomorrow night when I'm a bit less tired and a bit more sober maybe....... :lol:

Thanks guys.

Cheers, Paul

 

[TrimTheKing]

That's the problem, your TV tuner will look to take its tuning from the aerial, if you don't have one plugged in you won't get anything.

I have a Samsung plasma and on the control there is a button that says 'source' above it and the icon on the button is a TV (well, a square shape with rounded corners) with an arrow pointing from outside the TV into the middle.

Push this button until you get a picture, and make sure your freesat box is turned on.

 

[OPJ]

I had similar problems when I bought a Freeview box for my small TV last year. By plugging the aerial directly in to the back of the Freeview box (not the TV) and then making sure the SCART was running in to the TV, everything was fine.I appreciate that your situation is slightly different but, hopefully you get the drift... :wink:

 

[paulm]

Made some progress last night based on the advice above and managed to get the freesat intro screen up on the tv by changing the input selection option.

The freesat box doesn't seem to pick up any channels though even after retuning for what seems ages. It was powered off at the socket switch for a couple of weeks while I sorted out a new tv so I'm guessing all the settings it previously had were wiped ? Will check the sky dish connection this evening and see if I can dig out the freesat box instructions, as the problem now seems to be with that rather than the tv, so narrowing it down at least !

Cheers, Paul

 

[paulm]

Didn't get time to work on this anymore last night unfortunately, but the problem seems to be that the freesat screen comes up on the telly okay but says the freesat box is receiving no signal, so will need to work on that.

Will first try switching back the old telly just to make doubly sure it's not to do with the new one, and then it's down to checking the cable connections properly at the dish and the box, and perhaps trying a new scart lead too.

Should hopefully get time tonight or certainly over the weekend.

Cheers, Paul

 

[xy mosian]

Scart connections are notorious for being poor. A quick 'waggle' may be all that is required, of course holding the thing in the working waggle position could be tricky.

xy

 

[flying haggis]

Scart connections are notorious for being poor. A quick 'waggle' may be all that is required, of course holding the thing in the working waggle position could be tricky.

xy

locking scart connectors do tend to 'do what it says on the tin' and dont come undone and when you do need to part them it takes quite a pull. I know, it is what I use. available here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SCART-CABLE-1-5m- ... 7C294%3A50

 

[RogerS]

Scart connections are notorious for being poor. A quick 'waggle' may be all that is required, of course holding the thing in the working waggle position could be tricky.

xy

and for not having all the pins connected!

 

[paulm]

Appears to be a problem with the freesat box.

I remade the connections at both ends of the cable from dish to box, switched to a different terminal on the dish, swopped the scart cable and also switched back to the old telly with no result.

The freesat screen comes up on the tv but the auto retune doesn't seem to progress and it says zero signal.

Will have to pick up a new box and see how that goes......

Cheers, Paul

 

[chris_d]

Could still be the dish - has it been knocked or wind blown recently? Possibly worth checking it for correct elevation at the very least. You say that you connected the FS-box at the dish end (thus eliminating the long cable run as a potential problem) so perhaps you could repeat that test but wiggle the dish instead and see if the signal strength varies at all. Most FS-boxes have a menu dialog that displays the received RF power and signal lock status.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Does the new TV not have a built in tuner paul? Or is it not good enough because off the signal quality?

 

[paulm]

The dish serves the sky+ box in the lounge as well, and that is fine.

The reason I got the freesat box originally was because the terrestial signal was very poor and I wanted to get around that by going digital. Couldn't figure how to do that utilising the sky+ without having to pay lots more money to Mr Murdoch, but may have missed a different way ?

The new telly does, I think, have a freeview tuner built in, and if I'm correct in thinking that (I'll check in the morning), I wouldn't mind dropping the freesat if I could use the inbuilt freeview instead, but does freeview work from the dish direct into the tv ? The tv has a normal ariel socket rather than an F type on the satellite cable, so a bit confused really !!!

Cheers, Paul

 

[LeeElms]

For Freeview, you will need a connection to a conventional (digital compatible) television aerial. Can't use the dish.

 

[chris_d]

The reason I got the freesat box originally was because the terrestial signal was very poor and I wanted to get around that by going digital. Couldn't figure how to do that utilising the sky+ without having to pay lots more money to Mr Murdoch, but may have missed a different way ?

...does freeview work from the dish direct into the tv ?

Reading between the lines, I assume that when you say terrestrial, you mean analogue terrestrial. Hence, I believe your concept of 'going digital' seems to be unaware that there are digital terrestrial broadcasts that can usually be received with your existing analogue aerial. So no, you wouldn't connect the digital tuner of your new TV to the sky dish but to your existing analogue aerial instead - simples (in the style of Aiden/Tiddles).

HTH,
C

 

[wizer]

The new telly does, I think, have a freeview tuner built in, and if I'm correct in thinking that (I'll check in the morning), I wouldn't mind dropping the freesat if I could use the inbuilt freeview instead, but does freeview work from the dish direct into the tv ? The tv has a normal ariel socket rather than an F type on the satellite cable, so a bit confused really !!!

Paul Terrestrial Digital Freeview works through your normal aerial on the roof or in the loft. If you have it built in to the TV then you just need to plug the aerial in and let it scan for channels.

However, if you were having signal problems with normal analogue terrestrial then it won't improve with freeview.

 

[chris_d]

However, if you were having signal problems with normal analogue terrestrial then it won't improve with freeview.

That is not strictly true wizer, provided that the digital receiver has a got a solid baseband lock then the forward error correction (FEC) built into the DVB-T modulation scheme will help a lot in comparision to analogue reception (no FEC). However, I agree that until the analogue spectrum is turned off then the digital broadcast signals are not at their maximum strength. Furthermore, a dedicated DVB-T aerial may help further.