Could anybody tell me how digital TV works here? As far as I can tell you make a one-off payment and get a box with the basic channels provided: what I would like to know is what channels are on it? (I really want BBC and the French channel TV5 which are both on the basic packages of satellite and cable deals)

hi scooter.

good topic as i have been meaning to start a thread on the the new tv digital terrestre.

the box you buy will get you into the "new age" but if your building does not have an antenna on the roof set up for it (and it will proabably be a while before they do), you will need an antenna as well for your "sintonizador" or "descodificador" (aka "box"). the antenna is small and you can put it out your window to improve the signal.

apparently, right now 20 channels broadcast this way and as of nov. 30th, there will be 30 total. after that i suppose even more will follow.

as far as i know, the tdt will not get you bbc nor the french channel tv5.

if you want those, you need to get a satellite tv package (as you stated above).

i found the following helpful...

- http://tvterrestre.com

- http://www.televisiondigital.electronicafacil.net

- http://www.portalciencia.net/tdt

if ya want to learn more, just google it, there are TONS of results.

by the way, there is a list of channels at http://www.portalciencia.net/tdt/tdtcanal.html

saludos,
jer...

Hiya,

I've got the set-top digi-box here in London, of course it only gets the 30+ UK channels, plus about another 50 digital broadcast radio stations, it's Phillips, cost me just £69.95, and it's a good one, has top-up tv facility if I want to add another10+ channels, and a LAN adaptor/socket in the back. I have got an indoor Parabolic dish of about 10 inches, made by Sony, and it gives me about 75% to 80% signal strenght, but the signal quality is phenominal, like studio quality on all channels.

A lot of the stuff shown on there is okay, some very interesting progs, plenty of 24 hours news coverage from around the world (Sky News) et cetera, and I feel that my money was well spent, I enjoy very much the far superior tv quality in digital, and the radio station sound is unbeatable.

As for the outdoor Antenna, I'm not sure if your's will need one, perhaps, but mine runs brilliantly on the indoor jobby, no problems.

Hope you get one soon, the facilties on mine are great.

Cheers.

thanks Santi.

i was unsure about the need for an outdoor antenna, glad your indoor is all you need, maybe it is the same here in spain?

when i get some free time, i am going to look into buying a tuner, antenna, etc...

have seen tuners advertised for as little as 60 euros here.

Santi, can you give us the model of your phillips so i can look into it here.

saludos,
jer...

Thanks very much for your replies: shame about the BBC and Froggy tv not being on the basic deal, but I´ll look into the packages, maybe there´ll be a cheapie minimum channel offer somewhere.

hey scooter, i did say...

quote:

"as far as i know, the tdt will not get you bbc nor the french channel tv5."

emphasis on the "as far as i know".

i still have a lot to learn about the tdt so don't give up hope based on my guesses.

saludos,
jer...

by the way, ena'a boss who works in the tv field told me that calle barquillo (the famous audio/video street here in madrid just off calle alcala at the beginning of gran via) is a great place to get a deal on a tuner.

the street and its surroundings have a website at http://www.barquillo.com .

saludos,
jer...

Okay the Model number is Philips DTR-500/05, and it is one of their better models, I've good reports about it from other people here, and so went looking for that particular model, and I like it, I think it is uncomplicated, easy to use, has a good user menu for setting things up and/or changing things more to your liking and/or requirements, e.g (setting certain things to match your TV, for example, it has got various picture format selections on my TV, and I had to set the digi-box to match that, although it was fine set on Auto/default mode, but I found it to be a little better when setup to match manually, that way I got more picture (bigger/wider) crammed into my wide screen TV, but apart from that, there's not alot you need to do with them really, I just plugged it in, connected one of the two Scart sockets to my tv, switched it on, it asked me if I want run setup, I selected OK, oof it went and automatically searched for and found 80 channels in all, and that was it done.


I checked in the control panel for the "Test Reception" feature, to see just how much signal I was getting from my indoor mini dish, which sits on a shelf nearby, and it was getting almost 80% signal, but the signal is so clean & uninterupted by all the usual analogue rubbish that you normally get, and therefore is really very, very clean & stable indeed, my picture now is a million times better than it ever has been on the old Analogue system, all my TV channels are now so spot-on, no ghosting, no sudden fading in & out, just a pure digital signal, and my TV just loves it, it's only a 28 inch pure flat wide screen (CRT) not Plasma, but man, that picture really rocks.


I'd recommend the Philips to anyone, there are other brands of digi-box, but both my dad & one of my brothers over here have had to take them back, about twice each, until they got the Philips, I think it's worth the extra few euros/pounds.

By the way, I thought that I might just mention, that my brother here also got a combi-box-tv-recorder, the name I cannot recall, but it does both, digital TV, and is a 400 Gigabyte Hard Drive TV Recorder, giving around 40 hours of TV recording capacity, and he says it's pretty good value for money, although not a philips, but still very interesting, especially if you're into recording stuff whilst away for a day or two, or a few!



Oh yeah, I thought that I would just mention that not all programmes and/or movies are produced/transmitted in "Wide Screen" format, so some things will not fill the entire screen, unless, (as with my TV, the tv itself has got, and can adjust the picture format, in order to fill the screen better/more etc, I found that adjusting to different screen formats suits some progs better than when just left on Auto. I was shocked to find that my brother had been watching only two thirds of the picture that he could have been, because he had it set by default on 14.3, and when I convinced him to let me set it to 16.9 he couldn't believe how much better the picture was,
no more letter box,
he's now got a full Wide screen. Sheeesh..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...also, over here in the U.K. the service offered on these digital set-top TV boxes is refered to as "Freeview", as it is indeed a one-off payment for the box only, no hidden extras, and you can get the extra 10 (if not more) channels added by subscribing to the TOP_UP TV service, which I think now runs for about £7.00 pounds per month here now.

They are also offereing the Sky digital set top box now for £99.00 pounds, but I don't know exactly what you get other than Sky TV, or whether or not there are any other charges for any of what comes with it, but I think it's a one off price as well, but I'd much rather have some Spanish tv from mainland Spain, than pay for anymore Sky, I've got Sky news & plenty of movies & 24hr news on my U.K. Freeview channels already, especially north American and some Canadian, which is great, but more Sky I don't need.

hey Santi, GREAT info!

ok, a bit off-topic but here goes...

quote:

By the way, I thought that I might just mention, that my brother here also got a combi-box-tv-recorder, the name I cannot recall, but it does both, digital TV, and is a 400 Gigabyte Hard Drive TV Recorder, giving around 40 hours of TV recording capacity,

40 hours only? how is that possible? i just got samsung dvd burner with an 80 gig built in hard drive (been after one for a while). installed it last night and it shows 35 hours of recording on sp (best quality) and up to 100 hrs. with lowest quality setting.

your bro's 400 gig unit should record up to 5 times what mine does

saludos,
jer...

Oh, well, I'm not too sure now, I'll have to check that out with him again later, as I might have heard wrong, but I thought that he told me it was a 40 hour recoder with 400 gigas, but maybe, just maybe, what he meant was it could be a 40 gigas hard drive, well, I'll call him and find out the exact specs and let you know.

Cheers...Santi

hey all.

the 20+ channels for tdt technically go live tomorrow.

anyone gonna put it in?

saludos,
jer...

I am going to, saw at Alcampo a TDT tuner for €50. Just waiting for my building to confirm they have retrofitted the antenna for it, and trying to confirm how many stations will broadcast in English...

There was a list of stations in 'Que!' (don't laugh, I know that I really should get my news elsewhere). CNN+ is one of the stations--the only one that I presume would be in English. I can't figure out if our antenna will do the trick--the article said the antenna had to be installed after 1998 to have the proper technology.

Also seeing lots of new tvs for sale that claim to have sintonizadores for digital tv already in them.....