Digital switchover in 2013

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mrgts4

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#381975 19-Sep-2010 19:10

I have just read the article posted here and it has answered my Q's. I and the inlaws saw and read the TVNZ article which only stated those with tv's purchased before 2007 will need to buy a new one.
Thanks

sbiddle

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#381977 19-Sep-2010 19:10

mrgts4: So, in the article it says if you have a tv that was bought before 2007 it wont work. Will we be able to still use our crt tv with FREEVIEW/sky or will it not support some new format that is being used after 2013? Im a little confused or is there a little scaremongering going on. My inlaws are worried and are now talking about having to get new tvs because their crt tvs wont work after 2013, they have mysky and a 2nd decoder. What do I tell them. Cheers

They areadly have digital TV so ASO will mean nothing to them - unless they tune into analogue broadcasts rather than watching everything through Sky.

Likewsise any TV will still continute to work with a Freeview STB.

bfginger

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#382081 20-Sep-2010 00:11

richms: There already are good cheap HDMI to VGA converters - $50 on ebay now and it seemed to do the trick for a friend who was getting pixxed off at having things blank out when changing one tv between inputs with a HDMI splitter.

It is good if it works for him I haven't heard good things about the quality of these units.

mrgts4: I have just read the article posted here and it has answered my Q's. I and the inlaws saw and read the TVNZ article which only stated those with tv's purchased before 2007 will need to buy a new one.
Thanks

http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/digital-tv-cut-off-date-announced-3782684

They are wrong. I don't even know where they got that date from. TVNZ should know better.

The only televisions that are slightly problematic are really old ones that lack so much as AV-in. They would need RF modulation.

richms

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#382092 20-Sep-2010 03:00

Suprisingly large number of no av input tvs still in use - even into the 90s some of the junk brands just had an antenna socket on them.

Even more fun will be the really old ones with no UHF tuner in them. I have one in the garage that I bought so I could test that de-yellowing technique on it before I went ahead on my more priceless antiques. Worked fine once I found that you couldnt tune the channels on the correct numbers. Talk about retro...

Richard rich.ms

Mac2008

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#382154 20-Sep-2010 10:48

As stated here before a constant thing we are seeing is news articles without any actual useful info for people and forums are having to take up the slack. A summary of what has been said for those who are trolling forums to see whether your current TV will still work after 2013.

Freeview|HD - refers to the HD Freeview service (not all channels are currently HD) that you receive via UHF aerial, only available in some main centers and if you have good UHF signal.

Freeview Satellite - refers to the satellite service from Freeview that is available all over the country. This is broadcast in SD and will stay that way for years to come. Many new TVs will upscale this to fit their HD screens and some receivers will output the signal upscaled to 1080i via HDMI, which while not being HD looks better on your large HDTV.

New LCD or Plasma - likely to have a Freeview|HD tuner built in to work off your UHF aerial. If you are outside the Freeview|HD broadcast area the tuner in your TV won't work. You will also need to purchase a Freeview Satellite receiver ($179) and have a satellite dish installed, unless you have an old Sky one on the roof, which can be used without altering.

Older or cheaper LCD or Plasma - will not have any Freeview tuner installed so you have two options. If in the Freeview|HD area, check your UHF aerial is good and buy a Freeview|HD receiver (about $199-$249). If outside the Freeview|HD broadcast area you will also need to purchase a Freeview Satellite receiver ($179) and have a satellite dish installed, unless you have an old Sky one on the roof, which can be used without altering.

No matter what certain people tell you, for 99% of TV viewers (and I speak from the experience of installing them and seeing the response) you will be impressed with the clarity of the Freeview satellite picture on an LCD or Plasma compared with your old analogue signal. And you get a few more channels, including SBS from Australia.

In answer to the question "Why are they allowed to sell TVs without Freeview tuners?" - it is cheaper without one and if you intend to buy a PVR like the MagicTV or a satellite version PVR, you should have the option to pay less for a TV that you just intend to use as a monitor. However staff at the store should inform you properly about it's inability to receive TV signals without a separate receiver after 2013 - if they understood it themselves. JVC for example sell really high quality TV's that are in fact just monitors, they have no tuner in them at all. They are intended to be used with DVD/BluRay players and Freeview receivers.

Not so old CRT TVs - this also includes the HD CRT TVs that had HDMI inputs or HD via component. Again it will not have any Freeview tuner installed so you have two options. If in the Freeview|HD area, check your UHF aerial is good and buy a Freeview|HD receiver. This will allow you to watch programs in HD on your TV if it has HDCP for the HDMI connection. As mentioned in this forum many TVs of this age don't, so you will need to either purchase a converter or a non-approved receiver that has HD output via the component outputs - if you wish to get HD onscreen. Otherwise just connect it to the AV input and you can still watch everything, just not in HD. It will still be better than what you had on analogue. If outside the Freeview|HD broadcast area you will also need to purchase a Freeview Satellite receiver and have a satellite dish installed, unless you have an old Sky one on the roof, which can be used without altering.

Older CRT - this is CRT TVs with AV inputs. Will not have any Freeview tuner installed so you have two options. If in the Freeview|HD area, check your UHF aerial is good and buy a Freeview|HD receiver. Connect it via an AV input. If outside the Freeview|HD broadcast area you will also need to purchase a Freeview Satellite receiver and have a satellite dish installed, unless you have an old Sky one on the roof, which can be used without altering.

Very old or cheap CRT TVs - still no problem. Again your TV will not have any Freeview tuner installed so you have two options. If in the Freeview|HD area, check your UHF aerial is good and buy a Freeview|HD receiver that has an RF OUTPUT. This will allow you to connect it up to the Aerial In on your TV and tune your TV in so you can view the Freeview receiver on one of the channels. If outside the Freeview|HD broadcast area you will also need to purchase a Freeview Satellite receiver that has RF OUTPUT and have a satellite dish installed, unless you have an old Sky one on the roof, which can be used without altering.

Very very old CRT - these are the ones richms talked about with only a VHF tuner. It can still be done if you really feel the need to keep it. You need to either find a VHF modulator to convert the AV output of the Freeview receiver of your choice to VHF that the TV can tune into. Or (because those modulators are hard to find now) you can use an old VCR to do it, when I say old I mean one old enough to have VHF output on the RF. You can tell because on the back beside the RF connectors is a switch labeled Chan 2 or Chan 3. But really with all the older CRTs available, just spend $100 or less and upgrade your Grandma's very very old CRT to an Old CRT.

Hope this helps someone.

bfginger

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#382189 20-Sep-2010 11:56

Some more for your FAQ, Mac...

Alot of CRT TVs from the 1990s have an S-video connector as an alternative to composite, but no component. The quality from S-video isn't quite as good as from component but compared to composite it has slightly nicer colour and lacks the dot crawl.

Some old high end and studio CRTs do support component but have the industrial BNC connectors instead of the more common RCA ones. Some little RCA to BNC converter pins is enough to connect component video to these TVs. If it has 5 BNC video connectors (not counting sound) then that would be RGBHV (VGA) which needs converters.

A small warning about HDMI to component converters: some don't support 50hz properly which makes them unsuitable for Freeview. Doing your research first for such a product is essential.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Freeview|HD receivers in NZ support RF modulation. Some satellite receivers support RF modulation, some don't.

RF modulators integrated into VCRs and satellite receivers typically only support mono sound. If you have a stereo television the sound quality would benefit from a standalone RF modulation unit that supports stereo. A standalone RF modulator should support s-video-in and not just composite-in, for the sake of picture quality, but they may be hard to find in NZ.

Mac2008

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#382199 20-Sep-2010 12:24

bfginger: Some more for your FAQ, Mac...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Freeview|HD receivers in NZ support RF modulation. Some satellite receivers support RF modulation, some don't.

Good point. I can't say yay or nay on that one myself, but the MyFreeview|HD PVRs that I have seen do have RF out, which is good. Perhaps someone with more experience with Freeview|HD receivers could clarify whether there is one that has RF out?

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garvani

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#382220 20-Sep-2010 12:54

It saddens me that Marlborough is not in the plans for freeviewHD expansion, maybe we will get it sometime before 2020 then. Its weird because according to that beehive digital uptake chart, we are sitting at 5th (73%) yet Wanganui are last on 63% yet they are on the list and we are not.

Zeon

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#382230 20-Sep-2010 13:11

When you get the new ultra fast broadband (fibre optic network) it could be delivered over that.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

openmedia

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#382237 20-Sep-2010 13:15

richms:
xarqi:
My apologies.
Such subtleties are lost on me, swamped as they are by ghosting from multiple reflections from hills and buildings, passing aircraft, general noise, and no UHF signal at all.

Well if you choose to live in the middle of nowhere, you get that sort of problem. The dvb-s service has serious picture quality issues that are even evident on a 10 year old 21" CRT connected via composite. Just because it is better than what you have there doesnt mean that it is a viable replacement for people that are in areas that get good analog reception and are not being considered for a freeviewHD rollout.

Whilst I agree the DVB-S service does have issues, it can still look damn good on a modern screen if you can use a DVI/HDMI connection rather than an analogue one like composite or component.

I was quite surprise how good DVB-S looked on a 40" LCD after switching from a 29" CRT.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

Jaxson

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#382246 20-Sep-2010 13:41

garvani: It saddens me that Marlborough is not in the plans for freeviewHD expansion, maybe we will get it sometime before 2020 then. Its weird because according to that beehive digital uptake chart, we are sitting at 5th (73%) yet Wanganui are last on 63% yet they are on the list and we are not.

Is this a location thing?
In general the satellite service beams down on most places fairly easily, where as the ground based DVB-T transmission is going to work well in some mainly flat areas but not so well in hilly areas.
Meaning just because the takeup of satellite reception is good, doesn't automatically the area is geologically right for terrestrial delivery.

openmedia: I was quite surprise how good DVB-S looked on a 40" LCD after switching from a 29" CRT.

I've found this too, some TV's seem to work better than others at accepting the SD input. That said, if you've got a larger, full HD TV with freeview built in, it's pretty hard to go back. There was a huge difference between SBS HD sat broadcasts of the world cup soccer and the TV1 HD feed even.

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