Shropshire’s patchy digital TV service criticised
Thursday 26th May 2011, 3:41PM BST.
Television viewers are receiving patchy signals and different channels in neighbouring parts of Shropshire following the digital switchover, it was claimed today.
Digital UK bosses today said Shropshire viewers would have to wait until September to reap the full benefits of the switchover.
Some viewers have reported a weak signal, which causes a loss of picture in harsh weather, while others said they were getting different channels in different parts of the county.
Staff at Princes TV & Video shop in High Street, Wem, said they had heard reports of people experiencing problems with limited signal strength and some viewers receiving different channels in different areas.
One Telford viewer, who asked not to be named, said: “The signal is pretty patchy here but at least we seem to be getting most of the new channels as I’ve heard not everyone gets them.”
Joe Smithies, a spokesman for Digital UK, said: “In September when the switchover in other areas is complete people can expect better coverage.”
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“Digital bosses said today that we would have to wait until September to reap full benefits… etc”
Now .. that doesn’t quite make sense!
The wrekin changed over to digital last month, – so anyone using the Wrekin (ie an Aerial pointing at the Wrekin) will receive the Wrekin.
However … In September, Sutton coldfield changes to digital, and so.. people like me still using s/coldfield will then “see” their digtial signal from there (which we are already doing !!)
So … I dont see how this changes anything..unless tranmitted power levels are raised once the other (s/coldfield) analogue signal is switched off.
In bridgnorth, I am constantly amazed by the number of VERY high gain aerials being erected to receive digital signals.
This was NEVER neccessary in the days of analogue, and I’m NOT convinced that the need for high gain aerials is only explained by current low(er) digital transmit power.
In my case I’ve had to erect a very high gain Televes aerial, with inbuilt mast head amplifier to get even half decent reception… and we STILL get pixellation on bad days !!!!!!
Well… I bet John logie Baird is turning in his grave along with his spinning nipkow disk
Digital ….?????
Well, lets just say Analogue performed extremely well from 1936 to date !
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The stronger cahnnels – e.g. BBC are fine – you could receive them with a wire coathanger for an aerial in much of Telford.
The weaker channels – e.g. Dave, Yesterday, Pick TV are still on very low power, but will be boosted 10-fold by the September upgrade. So it’s a case of having patience I’m afraid.
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I have to keep retuning as channels drop in and out
Newport
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I’m in Newport and have no problems whatsoever any more. About 18 months ago I inquired about upgrading my aerial. A very honest chap in a local shop (they do exist) told me my aerial should be fine but recommended renewing the coax and replacing with satellite grade low loss cable, plus not having any joins between aerial and main TV.
I brought a reel of cable from a DIY shop, fitted it myself and the signal strength went from 50-55% to 85-90% strength …… might be worth a thought.
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I’m in Newport too and my signal is terrible for certain channels (Film4 in particular). Thanks for the advice, I’ll buy some cable on the way home.
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The digital switchover was never about giving viewers better TV, it was all about selling off the old analogue frequencies to mobile phone companies. There is more misery to come when they force us off FM radio in favour of DAB, where the targeted commercial interests of advertisers are more important than ensuring universal coverage.
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Exactly!
The old analogue signal “degraded gracefully”. That’s just not the case with digital. On the periphery of the reception area, it only takes a few rain clouds and we lose the picture and sound entirely.
The viewer has been sold a pig-in-a-poke by the Government which had hoped to tap the mobile operators for billions to plug the huge hole in the public purse.
It will be years before standards are agreed for the use of the old analogue TV sub-bands, that’s before they can be auctioned off and the cash finally reaches the Treasury coffers.
Besides, broadcast TV has been obsolete for years. The Great British digital switchover is simply a band-aid exercise.
We should be expecting fibre to the home (FTTH) providing us with a triple-play of video-on-demand, gigabit broadband and IP-based telephony services.
Instead, we get a scarcely-watchable low-grade line-up of endless repeats from both the BBC and the commercial channels. How many of the “+1″ channels do we have now? It’s not very impressive. Broadcasting identical material but with a one hour delay is hardly an innovative use of the finite multiplex bandwidth.
All in all, digital terrestrial TV in the UK is a great disappointment.
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I am not an expert, but my experience may be helpful to some of the people who are having a pixelation problems with digital TV.
Over the years, my wife had always complained about how the TV downstairs was often pixellating on all channels. The decoders upstairs were 1 modern stand alone and 1 modern integrated DVD recorder, both affixed to TVs.
Because I assumed that it was a problem of not enough signal, I always assured her that when the power was boosted and the analogue signal turned off, things would be better.
In fact, I was entirely wrong: on the day of the turn off, I was highly disappointed to observe that the problem of pixellation became much worse, to the extent that the TV was freezing and became next to useless.
I took advice from a friend much cleverer than myself who said that he felt that the problem stemmed not from lack of signal or bad aerial but rather from the fact that the Freeview decoder attached inline to the TV, being several years old, did not have a processor that could keep up properly with the signal information that it received. It just about coped with the old, low power signal, but as the signal was made stronger and threw more information at the decoder, the processor was just simply not able to run fast enough to decode enough signal at a time and therefore froze, much like an old computer with an old CPU which will often labour with processing modern software – it’s simply not fast enough to do things smoothly.
Taking my friend’s suggestion on board, I picked up a more modern Freeview box for £2 at a pub auction and attached it to the same aerial socket and TV. That did indeed fix the problem – smooth running, no pixellation. The decoder had a faster processor, I imagine, and we have had no problems since.
I’m not sure that it would fix the problem of channels fading or being unavailable in bad weather, but if you have a problem with freezing or pixellation, it may simply be the case that a more modern decoder box would fix the situation.
However, please do not just take my word for it before forking out – get advice from someone who is qualified to judge your situation and make a suggestion. My situation may have been a fluke, but I’m prepared to believe that it was based on sound analysis of the problem.
I’d be interested to know if people with modern decoders or integrated TV’s are the ones experiencing problems (especially pixellation problems) or whether it is indeed restricted to those who may have been adventurous and picked up a decoder in the early days of digital, not realising now that new ones work faster.
I hope that this comment may bring in others to give their opinions.
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The speed of the processor in the set top box (STB) shouldn’t matter. Save for amendments to support HD MPEG4, the specifications for DVB-T haven’t changed since they were finalised in 1995.
The DVB-T multiplex broadcasts a transport stream at a certain bitrate (~20Mb/s). The tuner in the STB demodulates that transport stream from the RF carrier signal, and the demux unit recovers the appropriate program stream.
If the STB stopped working since the analogue TV signal was switched off then that’s probably because the digital signal is now too strong and signal attenuation is needed. If there a masthead amplifier installed, then its gain may need reducing, or an attenuation module may be fitted inline.
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From what I was told, some of the multiplex channels transmitting from the Wrekin are still on lower power than they should be becasue they would interfere with the analogue channels still being transmitted from Sutton Coldfield and its remaining relay transmitters and that would have an even worse effect for a number of viewers still relying on the old signals.
Apparently until Sutton Coldfield gets a complete switchover in September (28th I think) the problem can’t be solved. Was also told we would need to re-tune again after that date.
Problem is always going to be that highly compressed narrow-band digital signals are always going to need stronger receptio strength in order for the receiver to decode them properly and with all the hills and vales we have in Shropshire, I fear quite a few people will still have problems after September.
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We live in Wombourne and have had trouble with several of the new channels since the switchover, and Sky Sports via BT vision is now none existent as it comes via aerial, same as Top up TV I think. Guy BT sent out said the multiplex owner of the particular dish have turned the power/signal down and won’t be turning it back to full power till september so we’ve cancelled Sky sports.
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I live in newport and we pay £36 per month for top up tv espn,sky sports 1 & 2 we cannot watch these as the picture keeps freezing, i have spoken to top up tv and they say its my ariel that might need “tweeking”or a new one adding more and more cost to me.they wont let me cancel my contract because iam tied in until sept.my picture has just got worse since the switchover.
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I recommend dropping the aerial and moving to Freesat if you are having problems, Digital Terrestrial broadcasting has been plagued by problems from the outset, and – despite promising improvements it is highly susceptable to its own set of issues (more annoying than snowy pictures and a little hiss).
If you have an existing satellite dish, Freesat boxes plug straight in and are easy to install (satellite dishes are not difficult and can be self-installed – be careful with heights and equipment though- safety first).
Plus, with Freesat and a broadband connection and you’ll also get iPlayer (and soon ITV Player) on your TV (exactly how it should be TV on your TV!).
I have said it before, and i’ll say it again, our previous Governments should have had the foresight of auctioning off the DTT spectrum to wirelss proadband providers and asked us all to move to receiving TV by satellite.
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Well plugged, sir!
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