cyril

There are two NZ forums that could be of help to you. http://nzdtv.com/forum/index.php and http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp As for your exact issue, as I dont live in Auckland I cannot comment on the issues in your area, but from what I have seen you have started working through a reasonable approach of experimentation. However I should point out that reception issues in your area seems to be a common issue, so an installer with experience and a meter would probably be the go. Cheers Cyril

Hi, Nixon, DTH stands for Direct To Home, ie via satellite, its a term originally used for satellite transmissions in the US, ie they did not go via a terrestial transmitter but directly to your home. And yes I refer to the same issues, its all happend because TVNZ decided to to regional adverts for TV1, therefore there are now 4streams of TV1 on the mux that has made bit rates drop, as during normal programming all 4 streams have the identical material the advantages of Variable rate encoding and statistical mulitplexing go out the window. If you want to complain then do so to TVNZ not FreeView as its TVNZs problem and their major shareholders want of a commercial return on investment, so bending your local pollies ear might help to, but dont hold your breath! Robocop, for SD signals (and HD for that matter) there is nothing inferiour about SCART, yes its a bit of a dogs breakfast, but I dont have any reason to suggest that it somehow limits image production. You can get line level audio out of the 3.5mm headphone socket on the rear of the Pace DS230, it actually also has an optical spdif output up the same hole, sadly its not activated in the SkyNZ firmware. Cheers Cyril

The DSR600 along with the Zenith are the original boxs that cannot do component. All can do S-Video and RGB, and all but the above component. As you will be well aware the lower bit rate of Sky transmissions (which is infact better than FreeView DTH now) will limit performance potential regardless of connection. However you can either upgrade your box or go for S-Video, in all honesty S-Video works very well based on the limitations mentioned above and gets around the major hurdles of composite, namely dot crawl (aka chromo/luma crosstalk), luma channel bandwith limiting and side effects of chroma filters, these hurdles are the biggest jumps in improvement when going from composite to S-Vid or Component, the lesser improvements in going from S-Vid to component are very minor in most circumstances. Cyril

Hi Dave, Optus D1 has a NZ spot beam that pretty much limits any usable reception in Aus, I understand that a 3-4m dish could potentially get something but have not seen anyone that has actually done it. Cheers Cyril

Hi Pam, Rain Fade is a fact of life with Ku band Satellite reception (as used by Sky and FreeView) however its not normal (since the upgrade to the new satellite a couple of years ago) that you should experience outages of more than 10-15minutes in total per year and this would only occur during very heavy rain, probably so heavy that you could not hear the TV due to the noise on the roof. I have had Sky and FTA satellite receivers for 10yrs or more and can probably count on a single hand the number of times I have had rain fade that effected reception more than 1-2minutes. If you are experiencing fading in just modest rain then get Sky back to check your dish alignment, as if this is not optimum then a fade that disrupts reception will occur more often. I cannot find a much info on your TV, but there should be an AV button as mentioned above on the remote that will give you access to Sky via the AV input rather than the tuner. Cheers Cyril

Hi Pam, the AV inputs are those that dont use a tuner, ie you dont tune to a RF channel. There are normally selected by pressing the AV button, sometimes this is indicated on the remote (and purhaps front panel of TV) via a square box with an arrow pointing into the box. Pressing this will change away from the tuner to AV1, pressing it again should move to the next AV input, and eventually a further press will return you to the tuner where you can press channel numbers to view offair channels via the tuner. What make/model of TV do you have? Cyril

Hi, glad you got it sorted, you should use the AV cable method rather than via the tuner (ie on channel5 or whatever), the quality is significantly better. Personally I would not bother watching off air analog just watch everything via sky, especially if you have a widescreen TV as all the network channels (TV1,2,3,C4,Prime) are in fulltime widescreen as are most other channels in particular all the movie, and sports channels, whereas the analog offair transmissions are 4:3centre cuts of the 16:9 source. Also if you do have a widescreen TV ensure the Sky box is set correctly to 16:9, this is in the TV settings menu under advanced settings, many installers just leave it incorrectly in 4:3centre cut. If you have an older 4:3 TV but wish to enjoy all the channels in widescreen select 4:3LetterBox. There is more local (NZ) support on GeekZone which is a NZ technology forum, there is a Sky subforum plus lots on technology from a ......Geek perspective. Cheers Cyril

Hi, McBits, PM me and I will talk to you via phone, will be quick to interact than via this Cheers Cyril

Hi, the NZ Sky system is very much the same as Foxtel, even uses the same boxs as the IQ and IQ2 and the standard boxs are pretty much the same as the standard Fox ones. Maybe a little more info would help, as we all know a blue screen can mean lots of things including has he selected the right AV input. PM me if you want me to provide more assistance. Cyril

All SSU channels are firmware update streams so they have no vpids or apids (ie no sound and pics). There is TV3's +1 channel due to launch soon, the reserved channels have always been about on the Sat system, but not noticed any on the DTT system till you mentioned it. Cheers Cyril

I think by flooded RG6 he means gel flooded, which pretty much stops water ingress, I would be very surprised if thats the issue, however connectors are another issue. What BER readings are you getting, the Sonys have a pre and post BER reading if I am not mistaken. I assume you have checked the connection on the antenna and ensured that its not full of water and in good condition. Cyril

Hi Benny, there are others on GZ that have the same issue, I have made my comments there, unfortunately I think you need to return your display to the importers as the problem is fully a issue with Pioneer and their implementation of HDCP in early model displays, here is the link to save me typing it all again. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=106&TopicId=30962 Cheers Cyril

Hi, none of the DVB-T DTT boxs I have dealt with (most if not all mainline ones) have built in modulators, so they simply pass the RF input signal on but dont mix a signal of the mpeg decoder into that like DVB-S boxs do. Cyril

Yes you can split a sky dish many ways, if you start splitting beyond 4-6 then you should concider a line amp to make up for splitter losses, otherwise no amp is needed. You dont need to worry about turning the DC LNB feed off just leave them all on. As said most if not all FTA/FreeView sat boxs have a built in splitter that you can attach your Sky box to, or alternatively you can use a seperate 2GHz (or better) rated splitter, you can get these with one port DC pass or all port DC pass. With the former the STB (Sky or FTA) that is connected to the DC pass port will power the LNB, the other will not supply any current as its DC path is blocked. With an all port DC pass, then steering diodes will pass DC power from the box that has the marginally higher DC supply volts, so no bad things happen, ie you will not short out or blow any tuner up due to forcing DC down its neck. Cyril

You really need to upgrade the RG59, typically it has inadeqate sheilding and significantly higher losses then RG6. Splitting 4ways is the same if you use 3x 2ways or 1x 4way as the 4way is infact constructed of 3 2ways internally, although due to close sighting of all the parts the overall loss may be better by a dB or two. Strongly urge you upgrade to RG6, Duobond (twin shield is fine) although many guys rant and rave about the need to use Quad Shield, in my experience (and due to our exclusive use of BIV/V UHF for DTT) twin shield is fine, use, ideally use gel flooded coax to help resist water ingress. All that said if its too hard at first to change the cable then do as you have proposed, and see how it works. Cyril

Hi, for any film source (assuming it recognizes it) the TV will reconstruct the two half feilds into a single 25fps frame and normally show that same image twice, so in essence it will end up as 1080p50, but at the full vertical resolution of the source. Some deinterlacers attempt to reproduce interframe images rather than just simple repeat, this can stop judder (that would have even been seen in the film source at the movies) but can give an artificial speedup look to some scenes. If the video source (from the broadcaster) is not a film one (ie true interlace source from a video camera, ie live sports, news, studio material) then the deinterlacer can do several things, it could just do a simple bob, this sees it select one half field and repeat it for the 2nd field, this halfs the vertical resolution, nasty but not uncommon, or it can use some motion adaptive algorithm to estimate the half field movement between fields to produce to complete progressive frames at 1080p50. If it gets things wrong and does not estimate motion then you get jaggies. If you were to feed a 1080p24 image from a BR player into your TV then it would repeat that complete frame normally either 3x (72fps) or 4x(96fps) some even 5x, once again some deinterlacers have selectable options to compensate for frames between, once again this can look artificial and I prefer to leave it off and just putup with film judder that was in the source film anyway. I should point out that at the movies a film running at 24fps is normally shown so that each frame is stopped in the gate and a spinning shutter flashes the image 3 or 4x to stop flickering, so a similar effect. Cyril

You TV will report 1080i, as thats what it is being fed, domestic gear has no knowledge of sF its really only a professional standard which in reality is just 1080i of progressive frames and a determination to maintain half frames in sequence, something that if not considered can be lost in normal interlace systems. Few TVs report what deinterlace mode they are running, although many can be forced to weave (film) mode by menu settings, this can make interlace sources (video ccd source) get a dose of the jaggies and look soft. Cyril

Hi, if you asked them they will say they have a 1080i tape of it, however for all practical detail 1080sF is just 1080i that is running a progressive source, and set to maintain frame cadence, most/all movie distributions to broadcasters are 1080i, however are 1080sF25 in reality unless they have been buggered with, so for all intense and purpose a Sky HD movie should have your display recognize the two half fields of a common frame and engage weave deinterlace, and thus end up with the exact same outcome as if it had been 1080p24 but run at 25fps. Cyril

All digital displays(except a few early plasmas that are not sold anymore) are progressive so have to convert 1080i to 1080p period!. The issue of 1080p TVs is that it can accept a 1080p24 signal as an input and display it as such (with image repeats), this is only an advantage if you have a 24p source (ala filme sourced material on BR player) so you can display the image in its native temporal form from source to display, the rest is all marketing hype, over hype to be honest. A film/progressive source played through a commercial broadcast chain at 1080i will be to all intense and purpose the same resolution as the 1080p24 source image would have been played at 25fps and pushed through the broadcast chain as 1080sF25 (segmented frame), which is just 1080i but is flagged to ensure the progressive nature of the source is preserved. Once your display gets this signal from the STB it will/should recognize the film/progressive nature of the source and engage weave deinterlacing that will restore the original film resolution with no or little interlace vertical image loss and only suffering speedup to 25fps. Material captured on 1080i video is a different beast, however your 1080p display has no advantage over 1080i one in this repect either, just the marketing hype. Cyril

Hi, I understand there will be a media update in late feburary, the issue is not a few more digits to send but a lot of firmware testing to get it running as wanted. Dont forget that the MySky/MySkyHDi runs on a NDS provided platform that has been rolled out in various markets (SkyUK, Foxtel, Sky Italia etal) a couple of years before SkyNZ, so many of the bugs had been ironed out before we ever saw the product here, but for TCL they have to essentially roll their own new product, obviously they will be using some 3rd party system as a starting point, but my guess is there are plenty of bugs to iron out. I note that Austar (Foxtels competitor in Aus) took 2-3yrs to get their PVR running, and its still not as stream line as the NDS sourced unit, so its obviously a product with potential for issues. Cyril

Hi Tony, an amplifier of a LBand QPSK signal is very very unlikely to cause the picture issue you mention. Important thing to look at is the quality and BER readings, if the amplifier is overdriving the system into intermod then the system will suffer, if BER is good then relax, if there is a real problem that the amp has just masked then sure as eggs it will be back. Cheers Cyril

Hi, to split a Satellite LBand IF signal for sky/freeview across 5 tuners should not cause an issue, however it all depends on the length of cabling. The comment about larger dish is rubbish, whilst it will provide higher C/N ratios it is not required in such small installations. A typical LNB (including the Sky ones) outputs roughly 75dBuV off a 65cm dish. The AS/NZ1367 standard states that the minimum level at any DVB-S receiver should be 50dBuV, and I have found most DVB-S recievers (both Sky and FTA/FreeView) work fine down to 40dBuV, so thats 25dB or more of system loss that can be tolerated. Typical losses are 3.5dB/10m of RG6 and 5.5dB for a 2way splitter, 11dB for a 4way, so assuming you have a 3way splitter (which is really a 4way) to split each feed, and a 2way on each MySky then each MySky tuner should be seeing around 60dBuV plus cable loss, lets assume 30m of total cable for each run (way more than typical), so thats 10dB, so 50dBuV at each tuner. I suspect there may be some other issue as I have regularly split 6ways with no problems. I attended a home yesterday that had a 2way split to two standard sky decoders, I was asked to add 3 more FTA STBs, before I started I checked the levels on the sky boxs (both their built in meters and my meter), I found the C/N to be terrible and signal levels on the farthest STB to be just under 40dBuV and the other 80dBuV, but both were working fine, the owner said they recently had sky in to sort out drop out problems. I then found there was a 15dB line amplifier not far from the dish just before the 2way splitter. After investigating I found two poor water filled connections on the other side of the house, I repaired these, removed the amplifier, both feeds at each reciever was now around 68dBuV and 100% quality, my meter showed excellent C/N. I then inserted a 4way splitter in one feed to split out to the bedrooms, all recievers were then getting 50-55dBuV full quality and no amplifier needed. An amplifier will add gain but destroy C/N if not carefully setup, this was a clear situation of a bad set of joints been fixed by adding more gain, wrong!. It also could be that you have interference (DECT phones will cause issues) and raising the levels may have helped. Was the drop outs occuring on all recievers. Cyril PS, I dont work for Sky nor ever will.

But corrrect me if I am wrong but sporadic E propagation for very large distances rarely extends beyond 250-300MHz, so the chances of our BandIV/V transmitters piping that far in such conditions would be very rare compared to the regular VHF occurances. Cyril

Senator, you are correct, most AVRs will default to prologic on PCM feeds (which is what you get from the decoded AAC), and unless TV3 set the surround flag on DD2.0 feeds in the meta data your AVR will only give you the L&R channels and not pass those channels via the prologic decoder, hence no centre or rear. Cyril

daver;80135 wrote: TV3 always give you a choice of Dolby digital 5.1 or AAC even if the source isn't 5.1. All the other channels seem to be solely AAC 2 channel. TV3 run a AC3(aka DD) stream all the time, but how many channels it has is dependant on what they have to offer, normally its just 2channels with the surround sound flag set so that you prologic decoder kicks in, so you only get 5.1 when they have access to it, good way to go. Cyril