Poor sound quality on Virgin+ HD Box

Gemini43 · 13-01-2011, 10:07

Ever since I had the Virgin+ HB box installed, I have noticed that the sound is much quieter when watching through the Virgin box, than when I watch analogue TV through through the aerial. Admittedly, I am still using an old cathode ray TV with no built-in Freeview (there's nothing wrong with it, so why change it until I need to - right?) Anyway, although the picture is OK, through the box, the sound - particularly with American films, is so muffled, it's sometimes impossible to hear any of the dialogue over the background 'music' so I usually finish up abandoning it. However, switch over and watch analogue TV on the same channel and the sound is almost doubled! Is this just the TV being old, or is it a fault with the box?
Virgin's services are not cheap, even with the discount for multiple services, and coupled with the fact that my evening broadband speeds drop from almost 10 mg (whatever it's called) down to less than 2 in the evening, I am beginning to wonder whether Virgin is worth all the dosh I am forking out for it each month, particularly their horrendous charges for phone calls from land lines! You even have to pay more for free evening calls - part of the package with other providers. I'm seriously thinking about changing providers when my contract is up.

Digital Fanatic · 13-01-2011, 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gemini43

Ever since I had the Virgin+ HB box installed, I have noticed that the sound is much quieter when watching through the Virgin box, than when I watch analogue TV through through the aerial. Admittedly, I am still using an old cathode ray TV with no built-in Freeview (there's nothing wrong with it, so why change it until I need to - right?) Anyway, although the picture is OK, through the box, the sound - particularly with American films, is so muffled, it's sometimes impossible to hear any of the dialogue over the background 'music' so I usually finish up abandoning it. However, switch over and watch analogue TV on the same channel and the sound is almost doubled! Is this just the TV being old, or is it a fault with the box?
Virgin's services are not cheap, even with the discount for multiple services, and coupled with the fact that my evening broadband speeds drop from almost 10 mg (whatever it's called) down to less than 2 in the evening, I am beginning to wonder whether Virgin is worth all the dosh I am forking out for it each month, particularly their horrendous charges for phone calls from land lines! You even have to pay more for free evening calls - part of the package with other providers. I'm seriously thinking about changing providers when my contract is up.

What sound level have you got the V+HD box set to? It has it's own volume adjustments and since you are using an old CRT I'm guessing it's connected via scart?

Gemini43 · 13-01-2011, 17:50

Yes it is connected via scart. I must admit I didn't know you could adjust the sound level of the box. I didn't find the instruction manual particularly helpful here and the chap who installed the box didn't stay around to explain much. As it was, I had to ring Virgin back after it was installed as it wasn't recording two programmes at once as it should. Considering we are OAPs I do think folk installing equipment like this should stick around and explain things better. Anyway, I have now looked for a way to adjust the sound on the box, and only found instructions in the 'Setting up HD' section! I found that the sound level was set to 9, so I've turned it up to 10 which is the maximum. It does seem to have improved slightly, but I still have to keep adjusting the bass and treble controls of the TV depending on whether we're watching analogue or digital - and of course, which channel! Is it me, or is the background 'Music' of all drama and films these days getting louder and more monotonous? I always thought background music should enhance and set the mood for the dialogue, not engulf it altogether!

Still, enough ranting - many thanks for your suggestion.

Digital Fanatic · 13-01-2011, 19:01

no problem.. anytime

jb66 · 13-01-2011, 21:26

Why are you watching analogue anyway? Why dont you just set up the tv for virgin and keep using the box.

Gemini43 · 14-01-2011, 09:05

Because I do a lot of recording on the disk and I'm still using an ordinary video recorder to record analogue programmes from the aerial when programmes clash. Also because I find an 80 gig disk not large enough frankly. It sounds a lot, but isn't really. Besides, as I said, analogue gives better sound quality on our TV. I often find when I've recorded say, a drama or a film from a digital channel onto the hard drive, the resulting sound (of the dialogue) is far too low. We're getting old and my hubby is a bit deaf now, so he finds it very hard to hear what is going on sometimes!
Just before our area goes digital atogether, I'm planning to get a new TV with Freeview built in and a PVR with a far larger hard drive and perhaps a DVD recorder/player built in. We've already up-graded the aerial, so, depending on how good the reception is on Freeview when I've finished, I'll probably dispense with Virgin's TV service altogether and just have Freeview. There is really only one channel outside of Freeview that we watch with any regularity anyway; the rest we think is rubbish. Frankly, I think as time goes on, more and more 'Paid For' channels will go over to Freeview anyway. If you look at some of the surveys on folks' TV viewing habits, more of them have Freeview than paid-for services now, so for the advertisers' sakes alone, I think more TV companies will realise Freeview is the way forward. After all, why should customers pay twice for their TV viewing? The BBC License fee and again for digital channels?