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On 01/08/10 22:31, Rhia Knowles wrote:
I never had this problem with my old BT Vision box. The problem I did have was running out of hard drive space :-)Doesnt BT Vision use the internet mostly for getting its programs, hence the on demand business? This was how another BT Vision customer explained it to me, I've never actually seen or used one. ai
Nope, it's a Freeview box first (160GB PVR) and a on demand TV box second. Basically the main TV is Freeview so you get your standard set of channels (at least whatever you can pick up via Freeview), and soon (if not already) Sky Sports 1 & 2 which are also broadcast via Digital Terestrial TV (albeit encrypted). Then you have on demand stuff which you can either pay per viewing (something like 70p for a single episode to a couple of quid for an SD movie) or subscribe to which in standard definition is streamed over the broadband connection (requires at least 2Mbit broadband) or HD stuff you can download to the hard drive and then play back (there isn't, at least wasn't an option to stream HD video).
I'm guessing that with faster broadband speeds coming and Freeview HD BT will probably offer a new Freeview HD capable BT Vision box and maybe even stream HD content. The standard BT Vision box could only support standard Freeview and whatever BT offered via streaming but it could upscale Freeview to 720p/1080i (and I believe 1080p) and play HD video which was downloaded to the hard drive.
When I was a BT Vision customer I opted not to subscribe to anything so I just used it as a PVR box (and occasionally streamed the odd trailer).
For a while I had a TV booster box attached to the TV aerial connection (granted this was a new aerial which was a digital high gain aerial [1] fitted on the roof). We were getting a pretty good signal as it was, I then tried it without the booster and it still worked fine. This was pointing to the Beacon Hill transmitter in Marldon.It was good up until the last retune (When they stopped sending Virgin1+1), now its just frustrating at times.
Hmmm strange. Saying that with my PCI DVB-T card before the switchover I couldn't pick up ITV, and after the switchover I could pick up ITV but not the BBC channels. With a USB DVB-T stick I can pick up everything apart from BBC Three and BBC Four (not sure if it was because it wasn't broadcasting or if it was just a bad signal). I'll probably try re-scanning again sometime soon.
When getting the aerial and satellite dish installed I did a bit of reading up, it suggested that it was a good idea to replace the cable and aerial every 10 years or so and to use decent quality cable. I'm not sure how much difference this made, but we can run a Freeview box, Freeview card and a TV with built in Freeview tuner from the one cable with just a cable splitter and it works fine. Even worked fine with the BT Vision box too. I'd say if you are getting the poor performance as you suggest then maybe you could do with speaking to an aerial installer, they might be able to suggest ways to fix it.I'll suggest it to Dad when finances arent so tight. Thanks.
No problem. I'm in the same boat myself, got to get the satellite dish moved and then try to get it in the right position to pick up Astra 28.2, I bet that'll be fun without a satellite meter.
My next PVR will be a MythTV box. I figured with a satellite card or two and a couple of Freeview sticks it should cover all the TV viewing needs for everyone in the house.Sat Cards for freesat, right? Or is there some way to also pick up the paid for channels? (I'm not asking how to pirate Sky, In case anyones worried, more if your paying, can you use mythTV to get em)
Yep, Freesat (or at least Free to Air) only. I understand that some satellite cards support 'CAM' modules although I haven't really looked into that. I'm not personally fussed about Sky itself, if anything the only channel that would interest me is Sky 1 and I can get that on cable if I upgrade our TV package (but I figure for 1 channel it's not worth it, I'll just buy TV box sets).
Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq