View Full Version : The Digital Switchover (Winter Hill, Granada)
Remember people, winter hill BBC2 goes off tomorrow, everyone needs to retune freeview tv's and boxes.
well the regional news was broken on virgin this morning. i got midlands instead of north west on bbc1
Charlie_Bubble
04-11-2009, 09:27
Remember people, winter hill BBC2 goes off tomorrow, everyone needs to retune freeview tv's and boxes.
'Everyone'?
iFrankie
04-11-2009, 16:37
haha im getting BBC ONE WALES and BBC TWO WALES and all the welsh radio stations, i also have bbc one and two northwest.
Oi, go and discuss that in the thread you started, you have questions there to answer :p:
'Everyone'?
Well, everyone that is covered by the Winter Hill transmitter, I thought that was clear.
Charlie_Bubble
04-11-2009, 18:19
Well, everyone that is covered by the Winter Hill transmitter, I thought that was clear.
Not really, read your first post, where does it say this is only in the north west? I had to google Winter Hill to find out where it was.
He didn't say it only covers the North West, but it was clear that he only meant people who receive from Winter Hill. Presumably you know what your local TV transmitter is called? Actually, I guess you don't ...
It's handy to know this sort of thing so you know when any announcements about transmitter works or problems might apply to you. ;)
pabscars
05-11-2009, 09:02
Last night 5 minutes after the wife went to bed, I got a thud, thud, thud on the ceiling shortly followed by "Paul, the TV's not working",
To which I shouted "its the digital switch over love, you need to retune it"
"Ok" she replied
5 minutes later I got a thud thud thud again, "How do I retune it".:):):)
The point I,m making is common sense ain't common
After the switch over, I rescanned my TV, and was missing every single BBC channel, so I had to rescan again. :(
Here, we've always picked up BBC Wales channels, even though living on the outskirts of Liverpool. Also, our Sky BBC News 24 channel offers us the regional news for London, where as BBC1 gives us North West Tonight.
BBC News Channel has always been like that - as it's a national broadcast
OK, Phase 2 is on Wednesday all Freeview users served by the Winter Hill transmitter group in the North West Granada region will need to re-tune in order to continue receiving all their channels. Customers in Freeview Lite areas will be able to receive the rest of the channels available to them as well. If you haven't gone digital by Wednesday you will lose all your channels. For more information visit http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch/granada/winter_hill and anyone receiving Welsh channels after switchover, there is a help PDF to view at http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/42887/09715_DigitalUK_FlyerA4_LR9.pdf which you will require a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader to open.
The switchover will begin at midnight and BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Five will be removed from analogue terrestrial. If you have not got digital box or TV yet and you are in the Granada region you best get to an electrical retailer and grab a set top box quickly! Sky, Freesat and Virgin Media viewers are not affected, Freeview, BT and Top Up TV customers will need to re-scan their boxes or TVs tomorrow in order to continue receiving all their channels. For more visit http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch/granada/winter_hill. Could this thread please be moved to the other TV Services forum if possible? Thanks :)
Moved to the Freesat and Freeview forum.
My mum's going to be bereft tomorrow. She can't live without her VCR, but starting tomorrow she's going to have to. AFAIK she hasn't got herself a second STB to allow it to keep working, and it's vanishingly unlikely that she's ever going to buy a PVR.
Does anyone know if there's such a thing as an integrated Freeview telly that inclues a PVR? I think an all-in-one unit is the only way she's likely to cope with the technology.
My mum's going to be bereft tomorrow. She can't live without her VCR, but starting tomorrow she's going to have to. AFAIK she hasn't got herself a second STB to allow it to keep working, and it's vanishingly unlikely that she's ever going to buy a PVR.
Does anyone know if there's such a thing as an integrated Freeview telly that inclues a PVR? I think an all-in-one unit is the only way she's likely to cope with the technology.
Yes, there is. Humax do a couple.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/4478/humax-pvr-tv-television-hd
UK hummy forums (http://www.hummy.org.uk/forums/)
JVC and LG also do TVs with integrated PVR.
Just Google for "Integrated PVR"
I do recall seeing an advertisement on TV with built in Freeview+, I'll see if I can find it
The three TVs shown here each have a 160GB HDD:
http://www.freeview.co.uk/freeview/Products/Digital-TVs/TVs-with-Freeview
Not cheap mind!
And with Freeview HD about to put in an appearance tonight, I wouldn't spend too much at the moment anyhoo.
Expect Freeview HD TVs to appear about Easter 2010:
http://www.freeview.co.uk/freeview/Services/Freeview-HD
All blank except 5 now!
---------- Post added at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was at 00:08 ----------
Analogue TV in the North West is now non existant
squirrel1970
02-12-2009, 02:23
I just retuned our freeview box... well, ok, it's on its third retune in the last hour. The channels are sort-of appearing, but I'll give it another retune in the morning... seems some of the channels aren't where they're supposed to be and I'm too tired to fight with it right now :-p
The thing is (and it should be pointed out) some digiboxes will need to go through the retuning process more than once... why? because if you've got a box like ours (built in hdd recorder, single tuner and three years old) it's going to need the extra to ensure that the retune has stuck... my mother has a similar box to ours, but hers crashes every time she retunes so, we've told her to let it run the first time, then when it crashes, switch it off at the wall socket for five minutes and then to switch it back on and retune again.... a further retune afterwards tends to iron out the creases...
In fact, I'm expecting my mother to phone in the morning to query why all her normal tv has gone off... I expect it because I know what shes' like!
Come to think about it, I havent watched any analogue tv at home ever... it's always been digital... by one means or another... thanks largely to assuming there was no aeriel cable and there was, but it was too short to do much... I know I extended it with the coaxial from an old cheap indoor aeriel bought at tesco for £2 and we've had the sweetest picture *ever* since... our freeview box certainly appreciated it after an indoor aeriel with a booster thing on it failed spectacularly...!!
Ahh.. the joys of digital and the trouble I've gone through to get it.... :D
I've never had a terrestrial aerial on my own house. My first house had NTL, and I used the unsubscribed cable for analogue 1-5 for the first couple of years, before eventually subscribing to digital cable. When we moved house, we moved off-net and to an appalling terrestrial reception area on a small, low-power relay with no Freeview at all, so we subscribed to Sky. Eventually we ditched the subscription and now just use the dish for FSFS. When Sky switch off our current smart card I'm going to buy a proper Freesat+HD box.
My mum, meanwhile, miles down south in northwest England, is by now probably holding a wake for her video recorder. I must give her a call later and see if my sister's been round to re-tune the Freeview STB attached to her 20-year-old telly. :erm: :D
telepest
02-12-2009, 10:17
Living with the WINTER HILL transmitter in site of my house recieving Digital freeview has never been a problem even using indoor aerials,however this morning after retuning the sets in the bedrooms using said aerials i am getting severe break up and NO SIGNAL on them.and they said the signal would be STRONGER! moving the aerials has no effect!
Am now left wondering if the signal is Too STRONG for the indoor ones?????
(had no probs with the lounge set BTW)
What type of aerial are you using? Winter Hill is a massive and very powerful transmitter, if you're living right under it it could overwhelm even a very modest aerial.
squirrel1970
02-12-2009, 11:42
Ehhh... did yet-another-retune this morning... too right I've got more services than before... I've got bbc Wales, ITV wales and S4C..... to name but a few.. got other duplicated channels too which means (and it's true) that I'm living right on the cusp of two transmitters... I'm thinking that some people will be just as 'WHA?!' as I was.... however, I'll do another retune later on just to be sure (all the channels function except for the Welsh-inflicted ones - bad words to use, but the only ones that make sense in this situation)
I used to be able (years ago) to watch HTV in reasonable quality and our local church only used to be able to get all the welsh channels.... so, with only being about three or four miles away now to back then, I'm not surprised I can pick up what I can...
I'm also guessing that others are picking up the Welsh transmissions over Winter Hill transmitions too and I don't know if there's a cure for that... or a workaround - I reckon there's an answer out there but we don't know it yet...
Ehhh... did yet-another-retune this morning... too right I've got more services than before... I've got bbc Wales, ITV wales and S4C..... to name but a few.. got other duplicated channels too which means (and it's true) that I'm living right on the cusp of two transmitters... I'm thinking that some people will be just as 'WHA?!' as I was.... however, I'll do another retune later on just to be sure (all the channels function except for the Welsh-inflicted ones - bad words to use, but the only ones that make sense in this situation)
I used to be able (years ago) to watch HTV in reasonable quality and our local church only used to be able to get all the welsh channels.... so, with only being about three or four miles away now to back then, I'm not surprised I can pick up what I can...
I'm also guessing that others are picking up the Welsh transmissions over Winter Hill transmitions too and I don't know if there's a cure for that... or a workaround - I reckon there's an answer out there but we don't know it yet...
Best thing to do is to delete all channels before doing a retune. You can avoid duplicates and unwanted channels (on my box anyway) by doing a manual retune and just tuning in to the muxes that give you the best signal quality.
There's more information here (http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/) Type in your post code and tick 'I'm in the installation trade', and it will give you the available transmitters and relevant channels for your location.
Edit: also, on my box, it helps to delete the channels, then do an automatic retune with the aerial disconnected and save the results, to absolutely make sure all the old channels are gone before doing a final retune with the aerial connected.
Just been up the road to sort out a near neighbour who, since last night, was only getting a few channels. He'd done an automatic scan for but, although it said there were 70-odd channels, he could only see a few of them. He rang the help line and they patiently took him thru a manual scan. Lots popped up but again he couldn't actually view them. They suggested it might be a problem with his aerial - even though he was getting 95% signal.
What I did was a 'restore defaults' which put the box back to square one. It then asked a few questions about the setup and then did another automatic scan. Bingo! All is fine and dandy now.
The box was a Setanta / Metronic one if anyone has the same.
iFrankie
02-12-2009, 19:52
At last! i have no more welsh channels
squirrel1970
03-12-2009, 01:20
How odd... I did a full factory defaults reset and... I'm getting oddly named channels - and the welsh channels are appearing one minute and not the next on each retune...
I'm seeing things such as 'Service 1a80', 'Service 1ac0' and other strange similarly titled channels listed... I may have to go through it again in the morning and I know that tomorrow night, whilst having my hands shredded by my mothers much maligned moggy, I'll have to reset her digibox too as it's identical to ours and I just hope that the blood that will pour from my hands onto the remote won't affect it too much... ;)
squirrel1970
08-12-2009, 22:47
And so it goes... the aeriel on top of the tower block where my mother lives has either died or is currently being upgraded.... don't know which, but my mother is swearing this wouldn't happen if it was the old analogue way - er.. yes it would!!
Her friend is on cable, so she's taken root there until its all fixed...
And she's got it into her head to retune every fourth of the month too - which is good... :D
It might upset the cat a bit as she tends to sit on top of the digibox....
joglynne
08-12-2009, 22:59
I don't supose it could just be the digibox failing due to it being overheated as a result of the cat sitting on it? :)
I've also got the Welsh BBC1,2 ITV 1 & Welsh C4 at the top of my freeview guide list now.:rolleyes:
BBC1 & 2 North West are down at numbers 801 & 802. They were working fine until another update last night. Now the two BBC North West channels are totally screwed, massive pixcellation.
The annoying thing is I can see the Winter Hill transmitter from my window, looks very pretty at night with all the red lights on it.:)
Thankfully the two V+ boxes are working fine, must be a real PITA for Freeview only peeps round here.
Jim.
multiskilled
18-12-2009, 21:42
With the switch off of analogue they have increased the power of the digital signal by quite a bit. Sometime you need to add an attenuator to reduce the signal level to one that the tuner in your stb or tv can handle.
I've also got the Welsh BBC1,2 ITV 1 & Welsh C4 at the top of my freeview guide list now.:rolleyes:
BBC1 & 2 North West are down at numbers 801 & 802. They were working fine until another update last night. Now the two BBC North West channels are totally screwed, massive pixcellation.
The annoying thing is I can see the Winter Hill transmitter from my window, looks very pretty at night with all the red lights on it.:)
Thankfully the two V+ boxes are working fine, must be a real PITA for Freeview only peeps round here.
Jim.
This situation is always going to happen in areas with overlapping signals from different regions. I'm beginning to think that in areas like this people will need to change to more directive aerial types. The old aerials are working correctly, but many of these have relatively high sensitivity to the side as well. Also with the old analogue, either and installer would tune in the set, or the auto tune would select the strongest signal. With freeview this is not the case. The auto tune locks onto the first adequate signal it finds tuning up the band from ch 21 -68. If thats not the right region hard luck. This is the case here, with the welsh channels on lower channel numbers than the english.
So really there are 3 options:
1) Get a more directive aerial with a polar diagram that blocks the unwanted welsh channels. More expensive, but a permanent fix.
2) Use the Favourates options on the set to put the channels where you want them. Unfortunately these are usually lost after a re-tune.
3) Do a re-tune with the aerial disconnected. Then manually tune the receiver. Like option 2 a long winded option.
Attenuators have been mentioned, but these of course do not descriminate between the wanted and the unwanted signal. As a lot of the aerials with this problem are low gain types the likely increase is impulse interference & weather degredation dont really make them a viable option. Also the transmitter powers used for freeview post DSO are far weaker than the analogue signals they replace.
Whilst re-tuning, unplug the aerial until it gets to around CH40 and then plug it back in, then it should have skipped the welsh frequences :)
Whilst re-tuning, unplug the aerial until it gets to around CH40 and then plug it back in, then it should have skipped the welsh frequences :)
Make that channel 50 and it might work (Moel-y Parc is in the high 40's), unless you're anywhere near the Storeton relay, where Winter Hill channels are on almost adjacent channels to the welsh ones.
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.