On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:41:29 -0000, "Paul D Smith"
wrote:

...snip...

No idea as to the model, but on an aerial pole around 8ft above the
roof apex. It's what I'd call a traditional aerial i.e. horizontal
vanes and a rectangular back plate. It's not a small one though, but
it doesn't have the more modern approach of X shaped vanes.

So a cheap-and-nasty then ;-). I'm sure others will indicate how to
determine whether you have the correct type of aerial (A, B..., E, W etc)
and also suggest a higher gain, better designed aerial for you.

FWIW I used to have one of those nasties here in London. Channel 5 analogue
(which was "off band" because the aerial was old) was poor and digital was
watchable but prone to drop-outs. I replaced the lot with decent CT100
cable and a decent aerial - channel 5 improved and digital is now rock solid
at all times. To give you an idea of what age does to TV cable, the outside
of old cable literally fell off in my hands as I moved it and revealed
almost no braiding on the outer layer.

So, perhaps a new aerial and cable is what you need! Do your research
first, especially if "getting a man in" because often they sell "a digital
aerial" which is actually an oversized wideband (jack of all trades, master
of none) which may be totally wrong for where you live.

I have a digital aerial :-)

J.R.Hartley wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:26:18 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

J.R.Hartley wrote:

As I'm in the West Midlands, we're still waiting on the digital
switchover, so we have no Freeview HD for eight months either,
?

Bill

Why the question mark? We don't have Freeview HD until late September
from my transmitter, as it's the last area to be cut over, so it's not
an option I can use.
The question mark was because you explained your lack of Freeview HD as
being due to being in the West Midlands.

Bill

J.R.Hartley wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:18:15 +0000, J.R.Hartley
wrote:

I based my original assumption on the predictor on Freeview.co.uk. I
know it's not guaranteed to be 100% accurate by any means, but it'd be
a lot to spend on an HD box just to find out the hard way.

Hmmm. It appears that when I enter a postcode from two miles up the
road, it says that Freeview HD is already available, so I suspect that
just as it was when Freeview 1st came out I am being tarred with the
same brush as the rest of my postcode, which is far lower and further
away from the transmitter. CV7 good. CV5 bad.

So... I guess this widens the field. Is there a Freeview HD PVR out
there that would allow me to copy HD files back to my PC somehow to
edit/keep?

Alternatively, who can suggest a cheap Freeview HD set top box?
I spend some time in your area a few years ago (the Rugby Cement tower
ghosting issue) and unless you're in a dip or have localised screening
I'd have thought that you'd be OK. Analogue C5 from Lich was no problem,
so DTT should be the same.

Is your aerial ****e?

Bill

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:01:46 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

J.R.Hartley wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:18:15 +0000, J.R.Hartley
wrote:

I based my original assumption on the predictor on Freeview.co.uk. I
know it's not guaranteed to be 100% accurate by any means, but it'd be
a lot to spend on an HD box just to find out the hard way.

Hmmm. It appears that when I enter a postcode from two miles up the
road, it says that Freeview HD is already available, so I suspect that
just as it was when Freeview 1st came out I am being tarred with the
same brush as the rest of my postcode, which is far lower and further
away from the transmitter. CV7 good. CV5 bad.

So... I guess this widens the field. Is there a Freeview HD PVR out
there that would allow me to copy HD files back to my PC somehow to
edit/keep?

Alternatively, who can suggest a cheap Freeview HD set top box?
I spend some time in your area a few years ago (the Rugby Cement tower
ghosting issue) and unless you're in a dip or have localised screening
I'd have thought that you'd be OK. Analogue C5 from Lich was no problem,
so DTT should be the same.

Is your aerial ****e?

Bill

The aerial is fine. However, I live i) on the far side of the ridge
from the transmitter and ii) on a levelled site cut into a gentle
slope, so about 40 yards away the ground level rises 10 feet and the
line is marked by a number of large trees.

All in all, I live behind trees, in a dip, on the edge of an even
bigger dip. This is why I tend to believe the worst when I see signal
predictions ;-)

J.R.Hartley wrote:

All in all, I live behind trees, in a dip, on the edge of an even
bigger dip. This is why I tend to believe the worst when I see signal
predictions ;-)

Oh dear. I think you're buggered then.

Bill

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:16:52 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

J.R.Hartley wrote:

All in all, I live behind trees, in a dip, on the edge of an even
bigger dip. This is why I tend to believe the worst when I see signal
predictions ;-)

Oh dear. I think you're buggered then.

Bill

Well, quite possibly, until they up the power of the SC transmitter by
a factor of 25 at switchover.

The other main factor is that despite plenty of digging, I just can't
find anything that supports HD which is half as good as my Toppy. A
major, major factor for me is that I want to copy recordings to my PC,
but nothing seems to do that yet in a remotely easy way for HD and I'm
not convinced that I want to build a media centre PC at the moment :-(

J.R.Hartley wrote:

The other main factor is that despite plenty of digging, I just can't
find anything that supports HD which is half as good as my Toppy. A
major, major factor for me is that I want to copy recordings to my PC,
but nothing seems to do that yet in a remotely easy way for HD and I'm
not convinced that I want to build a media centre PC at the moment :-(

FTA satellite boxes such as the Ross HD kit will record HD material to
USB memory, but whether the files will play on a PC is another matter.
With BBC HD, for example, I get sound but no picture. This may a
question of finding a suitable media player.

German HD broadcasts are generally not a problem, however, and I now
have a nice collection of 3D demos, which are all HD...

--
John L

On Jan 21, 12:36*am, J.R.Hartley wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:16:52 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

J.R.Hartley wrote:

All in all, I live behind trees, in a dip, on the edge of an even
bigger dip. This is why I tend to believe the worst when I see signal
predictions ;-)

Oh dear. I think you're buggered then.

Bill

Well, quite possibly, until they up the power of the SC transmitter by
a factor of 25 at switchover.

The other main factor is that despite plenty of digging, I just can't
find anything that supports HD which is half as good as my Toppy. A
major, major factor for me is that I want to copy recordings to my PC,
but nothing seems to do that yet in a remotely easy way for HD and I'm
not convinced that I want to build a media centre PC at the moment :-(

The Freesat specs require manufacturers to encrypt the FTA HD content
for storage on HDD (or USB, or...).

So your only option is to find a non-Freesat FTA box, and set
recording manually (or import EPG data from elsewhere somehow). Or put
a Freesat box into non-Freesat mode where it won't encrypt HD - but
you won't have the EPG either. You can't be in both modes at once, and
it'll only honour the timer recordings of whatever mode you're in -
meaning switching to non-Freesat mode will miss any timer recordings
you have set from the Freesat EPG.

The best compromise at the moment is to buy a decent Freesat PVR, and
separately install a DVB-S2 card in your PC to directly record the
programmes you want to keep. That assume you're happy to watch+delete
most programmes using the STB, and only want to have the occasional HD
programme on the PC.

Otherwise, yes, media centre PC. But these aren't without their own
problems!

Cheers,
David.