This is my first skirmish with Freeview since, technically, I live in a
non-freeview area.

I've inherited an Alba STB2NS from my son, since he has no signal at all in
the flat where he lives - in Cambridge.

Despite Freeview not being 'available' where I live (just outside Warwick, a
long way from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter, on the wrong side of Hatton
Hill) I can actually get quite a reasonable signal, and can get all the
channels except those on Mux D. [And that's with a standard Group-B aerial
rather than a wide-band jobby].

I have a couple a questions which I hope that owners of the same model of
STB may be able to answer. At the moment I have it connected to a single
TV - using a Scart cable - and also have a co-ax cable from the RF
loop-through socket to the TV's aerial socket.

If, with the STB running, I select a normal terrestrial channel on the TV, I
get a picture divided into 4 with a big black cross in the middle - plus all
the symptoms of vertical hold not working. If I put the STB on standby, the
terrestrial channels are ok. Is this normal, or is something wrong with it?
I had assumed that the signal coming out of the loop-though socket *should*
be ok, even with the STB in use - because you may want to record a digital
channel whilst watching a terrestrial channel. Am I missing something?

I haven't yet tried to record a digital channel, or even to connect a VCR to
the second Scart socket. But I note that the remote control has a button
labelled DTV/VCR. The only explanation in the manual says "used to switch
between digital TV and video". What does this actually do? Currently, when I
press it, the STB goes onto standby (allowing terrestrial channels to be
viewed). If I had a VCR connected, would it stay in the 'run' state (green
light) when this button was pressed - but allow terrestrial channels to be
viewed? How would I select the channel to be recorded? [The manual says SFA
about recording from the second scart!]

TIA.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored..
Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks. PLEASE REPLY TO
NEWSGROUP!

"Roger Mills" wrote in
:


I have a couple a questions which I hope that owners of the same model
of STB may be able to answer. At the moment I have it connected to a
single TV - using a Scart cable - and also have a co-ax cable from the
RF loop-through socket to the TV's aerial socket.

If, with the STB running, I select a normal terrestrial channel on the
TV, I get a picture divided into 4 with a big black cross in the
middle - plus all the symptoms of vertical hold not working. If I put
the STB on standby, the terrestrial channels are ok. Is this normal,
or is something wrong with it? I had assumed that the signal coming
out of the loop-though socket *should* be ok, even with the STB in use
- because you may want to record a digital channel whilst watching a
terrestrial channel. Am I missing something?

You don't tell us anything about your telly; is it a portable? Has it only
got one scart?

It sounds to me as if the STB, when powered, is grabbing the set via scart
switching - DVD players are a bugger for this, and other devices can do it
too, specially on rather crude one-scart televisions, and you're seeing one
progamme's syncs and another one's video. I've had this with a Sony 14"
portable and a Goodmans GDB4 STB.

For this type of setup, yes, what you're seeing is quite often normal.

IIRC it can be corrected, if disabling scart switching is not available on
the either telly or STB menu, by snipping a wire in the scart lead.

As I may be wrong, and in any case I don't know your particular units, I
think you should repost on

uk.tech.digital-tv

HTH

mike

mike wrote in
. 1.4:


As I may be wrong, and in any case I don't know your particular units,
I think you should repost on

uk.tech.digital-tv

Oh dear, for anyone who is even more confused than me, I didn't notice when
replying on uk.d-i-y that this was crossposted to here.

(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

mike

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
mike wrote:


You don't tell us anything about your telly; is it a portable? Has it
only got one scart?

The TV with which I'm currently experimenting is indeed a Grundig
multi-standard portable with only one scart.

It sounds to me as if the STB, when powered, is grabbing the set via
scart switching - DVD players are a bugger for this, and other
devices can do it too, specially on rather crude one-scart
televisions, and you're seeing one progamme's syncs and another one's
video. I've had this with a Sony 14" portable and a Goodmans GDB4 STB.

You may well be right. The Grundig manual does refer to voltage switching on
Pin 8 of the scart. So what I'm seeing when trying to select a terrestrial
channel is probably actally a scrambled version of the digital channel to
which the STB is set.

For this type of setup, yes, what you're seeing is quite often normal.

IIRC it can be corrected, if disabling scart switching is not
available on the either telly or STB menu, by snipping a wire in the
scart lead.


Is it likely to be different if I connect it instead to my main TV - which
has 2 scarts?

As I may be wrong, and in any case I don't know your particular
units, I think you should repost on

uk.tech.digital-tv


As noted in your second post, I already have!
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

mike wrote:
mike wrote:
uk.tech.digital-tv
Oh dear, for anyone who is even more confused than me, I didn't notice when
replying on uk.d-i-y that this was crossposted to here.

(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

Why? It's quite correct and appropriate in the circumstances.

Don't know much about TV hook ups but I have always found this site usefull.

http://www.dtg.org.uk/consumer/connection_wizard.html

HTH

John

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
John wrote:

Don't know much about TV hook ups but I have always found this site
usefull.
http://www.dtg.org.uk/consumer/connection_wizard.html

HTH

John

Thanks - rather clever diagrams!

And thanks to everyone else who has replied.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Chris Bacon wrote in
:

Oh dear, for anyone who is even more confused than me, I didn't
notice when replying on uk.d-i-y that this was crossposted to here.

(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

Why? It's quite correct and appropriate in the circumstances.

Like I said, I get confused.

I sashayed happily to tech-tv, where I also keep a tankard, and found my
reply to this post in me face.

I guess it's ok for blokes with brains as big as all outdoors, but if I
fancy asking more than one group at a time, I can cut and paste the post
with no trouble, and not get conniptions trying to work out who's answering
what where.

mike

mike wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote:
(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

Why? It's quite correct and appropriate in the circumstances.

I guess it's ok for blokes with brains as big as all outdoors, but if I
fancy asking more than one group at a time, I can cut and paste the post
with no trouble, and not get conniptions trying to work out who's answering
what where.

That's called "multi-posting", and is a Great Big Sin. You now
need to wash your mouse out in a pail of hot soapy water.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
mike wrote:

Chris Bacon wrote in
:

Oh dear, for anyone who is even more confused than me, I didn't
notice when replying on uk.d-i-y that this was crossposted to here.

(I HATE crossposting, it catches me every time)

Why? It's quite correct and appropriate in the circumstances.

Like I said, I get confused.

I sashayed happily to tech-tv, where I also keep a tankard, and found
my reply to this post in me face.

I guess it's ok for blokes with brains as big as all outdoors, but if
I fancy asking more than one group at a time, I can cut and paste the
post with no trouble, and not get conniptions trying to work out
who's answering what where.

mike

As the originator of this thread, I cross-posted it to these particular
groups because uk.tech.digital-tv seemed like the right place but, as a
frequent visitor to uk.d-i-y, I know that there are also a lot of
knowledgeable people about all things technical there.

The alternative to cross-posting - posting a separate copy to each group -
would cause even more confusion because different people would reply to each
copy but some people would see *both* threads. By cross-posting, there's
only *one* thread, which is visible in *both* NGs.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Roger Mills wrote:
The alternative to cross-posting - posting a separate copy to each
group - would cause even more confusion because different people
would reply to each copy but some people would see *both* threads. By
cross-posting, there's only *one* thread, which is visible in *both*
NGs.

Except my regular newsclient, Thunderbird won't let me cross post across different hierarchies,
such as these two groups, so shock horror I've had to post this via Outlook Express.

BTW Roger, there's a reply from me, posted at 08:05 17/5 only in tech.digital with some questions.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

In article , says...
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
John wrote:

Don't know much about TV hook ups but I have always found this site
usefull.
http://www.dtg.org.uk/consumer/connection_wizard.html

HTH

John

Thanks - rather clever diagrams!

Seconded. I've bookmarked it as that's a rather smart site.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1096 DVDs, 324 games, 228 CDs, 108 cinema films, 34 concerts, videos & news
/* pursuit force (psp), the storys, wallace & gromit, broken flowers, 24 game

Join the DVDfever.co.uk forum - http://dvdfever.co.uk/phpbb2
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Mark Carver wrote:
my regular newsclient, Thunderbird won't let me cross post across different hierarchies,
such as these two groups, so shock horror I've had to post this via Outlook Express.

Odd. I use Thunderbird, in the main, too. No problems.

"Roger Mills" wrote in
:


As the originator of this thread, I cross-posted it to these
particular groups because uk.tech.digital-tv seemed like the right
place but, as a frequent visitor to uk.d-i-y, I know that there are
also a lot of knowledgeable people about all things technical there.

Agreed- see my retort to Weatherlawyer on d-i-y

The alternative to cross-posting - posting a separate copy to each
group - would cause even more confusion because different people would
reply to each copy but some people would see *both* threads.

My personal preference is to start in one group, usually here, and hope if
I don't get an answer I'll get a referral.

By cross-posting, there's only *one* thread, which is visible in *both*
NGs.

But the thread in digital-tv is totally different, starting with a , and
my answer, but not your question most of the posts are not there in my
newsreader, (Xnews - set to stop multiple xposts, but allows 3)

Goole groups is totally different, having everything, a confusing mixture
of your posts, responses, and me whining to myself.

So I _still_ don't like xposts.... but I don't stubbornly top post ;-)

mike

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
mike wrote:


But the thread in digital-tv is totally different, starting with a
, and my answer, but not your question most of the posts are not
there in my newsreader, (Xnews - set to stop multiple xposts, but
allows 3)

Must be a quirk of your newsreader! In my newsreader (Outlook Express + the
Quotefix addon) the thread has 18 messages in uk.tech.digital-tv, starting
with my original question. Sixteen of them - again starting with my original
question - appear in uk.d-i-y. The two which don't appear are the result of
someone explicitly removing uk.d-i-y from the newsgroup list before
replying, and then someone else (me as it happens!) replying to that.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Roger Mills wrote:

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
mike wrote:


But the thread in digital-tv is totally different, starting with a
, and my answer, but not your question most of the posts are not
there in my newsreader, (Xnews - set to stop multiple xposts, but
allows 3)

Must be a quirk of your newsreader! In my newsreader (Outlook Express
+ the Quotefix addon) the thread has 18 messages in
uk.tech.digital-tv, starting with my original question. Sixteen of
them - again starting with my original question - appear in uk.d-i-y.
The two which don't appear are the result of someone explicitly
removing uk.d-i-y from the newsgroup list before replying, and then
someone else (me as it happens!) replying to that.

Perhaps I should also have pointed out that, in order to see a whole thread,
your newsreader needs to be set to "Display all messages" rather than to
"Hide read or ignored messages" - or whatever the precise options are in
your particular newsreader. Otherwise, if you read a cross-posted message in
one NG, it won't show up in the other NG because it will be hidden on
account of already having been read.

But that's the beauty of it! You'll see *new* messages in whichever NG you
enter first after they've been posted - and it doesn't matter in which NG
you reply - your reply will appear in both.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Roger Mills wrote:

So that's it in a nut shell, as I say I've over simplified for
brevity, but that's why you should use RGB rather than CVBS :-)

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. I think that, encrypted in there
somewhere, is an assertion that feeding RGB rather than CVBS from the STB to
the TV results in a better picture because the signal undergoes slightly
less conversion processes along the way, even though it isn't transmitted
digitally as RGB. Is that a fair summary?

Spot on, using the RGB output, significantly reduces the amount of
processing, and therefore impairment that the signal will suffer.

"Roger Mills" wrote in
:


But the thread in digital-tv is totally different, starting with a
, and my answer, but not your question most of the posts are not
there in my newsreader, (Xnews - set to stop multiple xposts, but
allows 3)

Must be a quirk of your newsreader!

Perhaps I should also have pointed out that, in order to see a whole
thread, your newsreader needs to be set to "Display all messages"
rather than to "Hide read or ignored messages" - or whatever the
precise options are in your particular newsreader. Otherwise, if you
read a cross-posted message in one NG, it won't show up in the other
NG because it will be hidden on account of already having been read.

I think you're righ, although I can't find those options ATM. But I did a
special reload of the tech-tv group, and they all came back!

Perhaps I should crosspost to software newsreadrs, (but I don't think I'm
up to that!)

But that's the beauty of it! You'll see *new* messages in whichever NG
you enter first after they've been posted - and it doesn't matter in
which NG you reply - your reply will appear in both.

I suppose it's all right if you're ready for it; but I wasn't.

I also felt a bit of a pratt advising you to post in another group, and
then found out you had, already so soon. I'm not really used to checking
headers that carefully

mike

Spot on, using the RGB output, significantly reduces the amount of
processing, and therefore impairment that the signal will suffer.

Yes, it means it doesn't need to be PAL encoded, so you don't get the
encoding artifacts that are caused by putting the colour information down
the same bit of bandwidth.

Christian.