Pleeeeeeeease can someone talk me about setting up my new tv?

[virgiltracey]

We have just bought a new tv which is full hd. Sky box is located in a different room and the whole house is wired up so that all you have to do is plug the aerial cable into the back of each tv and the sky signal comes through. With this tv that's not happening though. I have a load of freeview stations (with dodgy reception unless they are bbc channels) but can't seem to find sky. Any thoughts. Is it because the cable running throughout the house carrying the satellite signal has a normal (i.e. old fashioned aerial) connection?

I'm stumped. But this tv will have been a very expensive upgrade if it means the whole house has to be rewired for sky to work!!

anyone?

The (relatively) cheap cable for UHF TV signals is unlikely to handle the higher frequency signals (around 3x the frequency, I think) satellite signal without severe losses.

If you had previously used kit with UHF sockets to plug in, then you would also need some sort of adapter to go from the cable from the wall into the correct socket on the Sky box.

Many people have Sky+ or Sky HD+ and if that is the case you need 2 cables from the satellite to allow for recording one channel while watching another (is yours a Sky HD+ box ?)

How many rooms have you cable running into?

Who did the cabling, and who specified the cable to use?

Sorry, but from what you have written so far, if you don't even get the majority of Freeview stations, either the signal from the roof is poor, or any amplifier (if one was installed, to feed strong enough signals to other rooms) is faulty, or the cable was cheap (even if they charged a lot for the job).

It does not sound as if the right cable has been used for this task, but unless you said you wanted the cable to carry the signals from the dish to the satellite input on the Sky box, it would be easy to get it wrong.

To send a UHF TV signal into several rooms would usually need an amplifier between the aerial and each room (eg in loft) while to feed satellite signals to different rooms a different approach would be likely.

A UHF TV amplifier would definitely NOT handle the satellite signal very well, and if you have an amplifier then connecting it to the satellite box might damage the amplifier (because for satellite use, the cable from the back of the satellite carries power up to the unit at the end of the arm on the satellite dish). There are different power settings to choose satellite channels,
and the unit modifies the signal so it is of low enough frequency to be fed down the satellite cable to the box near your TV without all the signal being lost in the cable.

It depends how its wired up, I think mine is the same as yours so you may need to use one of the analogue channels to find sky.
I have an hd freeview tv in the kitchen and on the handset there is a switch to switch between freeveiw and analogue ive got sky tuned into c-36.
Make sure sky is switched on and watch as you retune the channel you should be able to find it somewhere.

I don't think you'll get a "full HD" picture through a UHF channel though, and I assume vt wants the Sky box in the same room as the TV, while it sounds like you (Dt4th) are choosing either Freeview, HD channel on Freeview, or output from whatever channel happens to be on in the other room, in non-HD quality, ie standard definition.

Thanks both. we finally found sky on an analogue channel but the picture has slight interference on it. At least we have it though!

We now have an issue we never even considered when we bought the v. our sky box is situated in a room above the garage (it was set up like this when we moved in) and the house is wired with co-ax cable which carries the signal around the house to each of the tvs. This is all fine and works well whilst we don't want HD but both of the tvs downstairs are hd. We have upgraded the box to hd and have subscribed to hd (and the tvs are 50 inch and so we need hd really) but have now realised that without hdmi cabling throughout the house this is useless to us since the coax cable won't carry the hd signal. The only option seems to be to get hd boxes installed downstairs which we really didn't want since the tvs are wall mounted and we didn't want cabling everywhere and we will also lose sky upstairs!

Why does technology have to move on!!!!!

ok im a bit bamboozled by all the options now. We are about to move into a bog standard house with one aerial connection in one room currently and one phone line. What do I need to do to achieve this: one wireless router, one NAS for streaming and one sky HD box somewhere so can: view and record Sky HD on multiple HD tvs in different rooms (or Virgin or equivalent) (all will be new so all or most will have some kind of Smart TV/Internet TV type access and built in freeview HD and stream movies etc from the NAS to all TVs?

Some TVs have the option of wireless as well as an ethernet socket.

How many rooms will have HD TVs ?

Have you already bought the items ready for them to be installed ?

You may find it best to ask someone who does installations round to discuss your options and quote for it. You could get a couple of quotes without obligation and if they discuss 'solutions' then it might give you some hints as to how you could DIY. Normally I'd say to let them do it, and in a new house if there are holes to be made for cables etc, you really need either to do it yourself (together with plastering job afterwards) or to get some personal recommendations from work colleagues or new neighbours regarding whoever fitted theirs when you see a good job...

I would have launched into some suggestions for feeding the video around but if you have not yet decided on whether to use Sky or Virgin and have the choice, then a fitter may give you ideas which would not occur to me, having neither (no Sky+ or Sky HD kit - I stopped using Sky 10 years ago, and never have been in an area with cable).

No, nothing bought yet, am thinking ahead. TVs in living room, playroom and kitchen. Would prefer everything wireless as possible. Also hate Sky (only have freeview at moment, got rid off it last time moved) - but after 3 years of freeview only have been forced to concede that we "need" either sky or virgin or whoever can provide HD and recording functions and more than the crappy freeview channels.

Good idea about getting an installations co out for a quote - was hoping I could do it myself but cable types are a bit beyond me. I was hoping these days you could do it all from some central hub type thing and then distribute it wirelessly or ethernet (electricity points?)

We are about 75 years behind the times currently (still have a CRT, no HD) so want to go upgrade and future proof as much as possible at next move.

Well, I had been about to suggest using 200 Mbps AV distribution using data over mains but the problem I considered was that of suggesting something which might be incompatible with some Sky or Virgin box.

AFAIK, while there are a number of solutions for multi-room, multi-zone handling of music, so teens could be in the kitchen and garden with music for a BBQ, grandad could be in the lounge listening to classical and you could be in the en suite bathroom on the top floor with your choice of music, there's no simple solution (AFAIK) which allows for the same for video.

Once you consider Sky or Virgin are primarily offering channels where subscription payments are needed, you have the complexity of not being able to simply copy those films / music channels / TV shows and play them anywhere... they are usually locked to the box by encryption, and thus playing on multiple devices can be a problem unless going for multi-room or similar.

I would have suggested FreeSat but if you are unhappy with choice on Freeview then you'll probably not want to consider FreeSat either, and supplement it with Love Film for streaming films to the TVs. BICBW. You are leap-frogging me which is why I would recommend discussing the options with a professional fitter or three to see which options can work and which fall flat, as I don't see any easy ways to feed several rooms from one Sky box (say) let alone allow recording choices to be made from more than one place as suggested earlier.

Might be possible with 'magic eye' type control, but feeding HD is unlikely to be handled well by wireless to several rooms at once, and HDMI cables can be used but depends on layout of house and distances (30m might be upper limit for cheap(er) options - 50 to 200 pounds for the cable depending on make, or you can use 2x Cat 6 cables and some units at each end... units will cost 25 pounds, not sure of cost of Cat6 cable per metre).

Thanks, that's useful, I guess for video I am imagining some central NAS with all our movies on (from where? downloaded or copied from disc where possible I guess) that you can just distribute out to whatever screen. And if the TV's have some sort of internet TV (like the Samsung ones) I think you can download straight from lovefilm etc to the TV. Then could just use Sky/Virgin for HD TV content? It is making everything accessible from 3 different TVs I can't quite visualise.

In the past we have had multiroom - but have also had some sort of dodgy splitter type thing so could watch whatever was being watched on the main Sky box (pre-+ HD days) on another TV at the same time but non-independently - not great I suppose. Mind you - this is what OP seems to have over coax but we're saying that doesnt support HD right?

Hmmmmmm