David asked

22nd June 2011

We currently have Sky Freesat, but because of trees the reception is not great. We would like to change to Virgin (our street is already cabled) in two rooms, but keep the Sky Freesat in the spare bedroom. Is this possible?

Satellite and cable are quite different systems but you should have no problems with them coexisting in the same household. You'll just need to make sure there is the correct cable/satellite cabling to the respective decoder boxes in each room. Virgin should take care of installing their own hardware for you and if necessary all you should need to do is to extend/move the cable from the satellite dish to the decoder box's new location.

Billy asked

22nd June 2011

I would like to know why I cannot get film4 after I retuned my Tv to digital?

You should be able to find Film4 on Freeview channel 15 from 11am to 4am the following day. If that's not the case I would suggest you do a channel rescan and see if that makes Film4 turn up.

Jeanette asked

15th June 2011

If you have a TV with built-in Freeview can you connect a Freesat box to the TV as well

Also if you have a very old Sky Box and you watch digital channels through it.

So long as you have a free input on you TV there's nothing to stop you connecting a Freesat decoder box. The built-in Freeview would still work so long as you keep an aerial connection and watching Freesat is just a matter of selecting the right external input source as required.

So long as your old Sky box is digital and it sounds like it is you can indeed use that with Freesat, you just need to connect it to a correctly positioned satellite dish, which if you have had Sky before should already be the case.

Joe asked

13th June 2011

I was wondering if you would know how to connect a samsung home theatre system (HT-TZ325) to a virgin v+hd box so i can get the sound on my philips (42PFL5522D) tv through it.I am over sixty and not a tech-head so please try and keep it simple. I love my TV.

You should simply need to connect an audio output on your V+ HD box to an audio input on you home theatre system and disable (in the menus rather than mute) the speakers on you HDTV.

You options for doing this are either an analogue photo/RCA cable or digital optical connection. In that a phono connection would only get you stereo I would invest in a cheap optical cable as this should get you the mulit-channel audio your system supports. You're after a 'Toslink' optical cable and there's no need to spend more than it takes to get one that works, you won't see much if any quality improvement beyond that.

Pete asked

10th June 2011

I have a Panasonic DMR-XS350EB Freesat PVR which has been functioning ok for about 17 months. Without warning on Wed last it omitted to record BBC HD. Subsequent investigation revealed that neither BBC HD nor BBC 1 HD signals were being received by the PVR. Both channels showed a 'no signal' message. All other channels including ITV hd and Channel 4 HD were transmitting and recording properly. On one of the banners showing signal strength etc, all channels except the the BBC HD ones were shown as locked, the BBC ones were shown as unlocked. I've tried rescanning, and isolating it from the mains supply to try to kickstart it, all to no avail. I also substituted the tv satellite input which is fine on all channels including the BBC HD ones, but doesnt work on the PVR. My instinct now is that there's a problem with the PVR and it will need to go for repair. Am I correct or is there something further I can try first. It does seem very strange that the BBC channels only should be singled out. I would be very grateful for some guidance.

The BBC HD channels have recently been reconfigured and there appears to be an issue with some Panasonic devices not being able to receive all the channels again until they have fully reset to their factory defaults.

There's some more information on the Freesat site here:

http://www.freesat.co.uk/how-to/faqs/hd-tv

Janice asked

9th June 2011

If someone has a LED HD freeview television e.g. Samsung and the HD channels disappear can you please advise how you get the HD channels back? The reset facility has not brought back BBC HD or any other of the HD channels. When the tv was first set up the HD channels were there to view. Even after the regional digital upgrade on the 8 June, channels are still missing. I'm trying to receive the channels through a tv aerial.

I don't know if resetting your HDTV to factory will default will have cause it to re-scan for new/updated channels so I would recommend you do that as the BBC channels have been reconfigured recently. I suspect this will be the cause of your problem and rescanning will fix this but should it not I would get in touch with your TV manufacturer for advice.

Richard asked

9th June 2011

I have recently purchased a Sony HDTV with built in HD Freeview. I live in the north West ( ust south of Manchester) so should be able to receive HD pictures.

However, the picture quality of the HD channels are no better (or worse) than the other digital channels. What might be the reasons for this so I can investigate and enjoy better HD quality?

You should make sure:

You are receiving the Granda TV region from the Winter Hill transmitter as other transmitters around you may not have completed digital-switchover.

You have rescanned for new/updated channels. The channel arrangement changes are not infrequent and not all receivers do this automatically.

You can receive BBC1 HD on channel 50, ITV HD and 4HD on channels 51 and 52 respectively and BBC HD on 54.

You are watching a TV programme that's being transmitted in high-definition as not all programmes will be avaiable in HD.

Catherine asked

8th June 2011

I have a 3 year old Samsung LE26RB which is HD ready and has built in Freeview. How do I get HD transmissions? Do I need any extras?

I live in Scottish Borders which have had digital for some time nowany advice appreciated.

A standard-definition Freeview decoder as will be built in to your HDTV isn't compatible with the new Freeview HD transmissions so to watch the high-definition Freeview channels you need to get a separate Freeview HD box and plug that in to your HDTV. The new box will also let you watch the existing Freeview channels as well so you'll probably end up not using tuner built in to the TV much if at all.